You might think this post falls in the category of local and religious news more than anything specific to Druidry. But it’s relevant for several reasons. Shinto is an earth-spirituality of Asian origin that focuses much of its energies on shrines, and it has subtle and profound things to teach at least some of our Western manifestations of the same impulses. Shinto also has scant visibility in North America outside of Hawaii — such a closing has an outsized effect on practitioners of Shinto. It also reduces further the chance for Westerners to encounter another spirituality based in experience and practice rather than creed and belief. The news is further worth attention because the founder of the shrine is one of the few non-Japanese Shinto priests. His retirement brings 30 some years of access to this particular and lovingly maintained shrine to a close.
A recent Seattle Times article (April 2023 — “How one of the country’s largest Shinto shrines ended up in tiny Granite Falls”) includes stunning photos of the shrine, and gives good background about both the circumstances of its founding and closing.
Tsubaki Grand Shrine, Granite Falls, Washington, USA, from my 2014 visit
I’ve written here and here about Shinto, and here about visiting Tsubaki shrine myself a decade ago. Places where Druids live and practice merit consideration for Druid shrines. As I observed in a previous post,
Site stats show that my previous posts on Shinto are among the most popular here at A Druid Way. The reason for that can’t be too far to find. We crave like a food-hunger a spiritual reality that does not depend on belief (or at least not on belief alone), but is present to us whenever we’re present to it — and even when we’re not. We may hunger for a Way or Ways, just like we yearn for dark chocolate or hot sauce or beef or fresh limes in guacamole (insert yourfavorite food hunger here), a harmony that we can begin to fall back into at any moment, wherever we are, just by shifting our attention, and restore a sense of balance and integrity. And not just a sense of them, but its reality — a poise for living that shows in our words and deeds. We’ve all known this harmony, witnessed it in others, however briefly, which is why we can feel so disheartened when we lack it, when we’ve lost it, fallen out of it. We know it’s possible because it’s there, in living memory, however far we seem to stand from it right now, in this often grubby, muddy present moment.
Tsubaki Grand Shrine, 2014 visit
“Shrine Druidry” happens subtly and ritually every time a Druid works with inner and outer groves, holds a ritual, honors the spirit of the landscape, and so on. While large public shrines like Tsubaki or Spirit in Nature are lovely and accessible public inspirations, bringing many into an encounter with alternative ways of being and doing and moving in the world, at least as important is my daily practice, because it IS daily, rather than an occasional visit to another place. Too easily we discount the ripple effect each of us carries with us in our interactions with others, those wearing fur and flesh, bark and feathers, and those who do not.
East Coast Gathering (ECG) ’14 just celebrated its fifth Alban Elfed/ autumn equinox in the wooded hills of NE Pennsylvania. Along with this year’s theme of “Connecting to the Goddess,” 114 people reconnected to each other and the land, the lovely land. New participants and old remarked on the kindness of place, the welcoming spirit of Netimus, a flourishing girls’ camp founded in 1930 that now plays host off-season to other groups, too.
[For another perspective on this year’s Gathering, visit and read John Beckett’s excellent blog “Under the Ancient Oaks.”]
After a wet summer in the Northeast, the camp showed richly green — mosses, lichens, leaves and light all caressing the gaze wherever you looked. And keeping to our tradition of inviting guests from the U.K., we welcomed Kristoffer Hughes of the Anglesey Druid Order and returning guests Penny and Arthur Billington, this time accompanied by their daughter Ursula, a mean fiddler with Ushti Baba (Youtube link).
For me what distinguished this year’s Gathering, my fourth, was the pure joy in so many people’s faces. And it just grew over the weekend. Over and around travel fatigue, colds, tricky schedules and stresses and waiting commitments — everything — they didn’t matter: the tribe was together again. To you all (from an interfaith week I participated in): “Thank you for the blessings that you bring. Thank you for the blessings that you are.”
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Dana’s Goddess Shrine in a tent on our ritual field was also a wonderful addition and a focus for many of us.
Goddess Shrine — photo courtesy of Nadia Chauvet
Natural offerings accumulated over the weekend — mosses, lichen-streaked stones, acorns, leaves, a small sun-bleached animal skull — were returned to Netimus, and the other items packed up for next time. A workshop I led, on making a Goddess Book, drew me back to the shrine several times for reflection and inspiration. (Here’s the link I mentioned at Camp to a video on making the “Nine-Fold Star of the Goddess” — seeing the steps in 3D should help make my hand-drawn images on the handout easier to read once you practice a few times. A series of divinations and meditations were to follow which I never got to in the workshop — though over-planning is usually better than under-planning. Material for a subsequent post!)
I continue to meditate on a surprising goddess experience during Penny’s workshop, which I may be able to write about in an upcoming post. One of the potencies of such gatherings of like-minded people is the spiritual crucible that can form and catalyze discoveries in ways not always easily accessible in solitary practice.
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Our fire-keepers outdid themselves this year, building enormous pyres (one with an awen worked in wood) to provide the centerpiece of each evening’s gathering after supper, workshops and initiations had concluded.
Awen bonfire ready — photo courtesy Nadia Chauvet
evening bonfire — photo courtesy John Beckett
As always it’s people who carry the spirit of Druidry. Here as they tour New York City, just prior to the camp, are Kristoffer, Renu, Ursula, Penny and Arthur.
Renu with our UK guests in NY — photo courtesy Renu Aldritch
A Druid Way 