“For Shinto, at root, is a religion not of sermons but of awe: which is a sentiment that may or may not produce words, but in either case goes beyond them.”— Joseph Campbell, Oriental Mythology

  I have likened Japanese gardens and the reverent awe they can evoke within a receptive soul to our Western churches and temples. Instead of aisles as in our cathedrals leading through the choir to a cordoned off alter in Japanese gardens you have meandering paths of dirt, gravel, stone or brick, leading past flowers and shrubs beneath leafy or needly and sometimes sculpted trees, you cross over trickling streamlets and glassy pools with lazy looking fish on arcing bridges or tortuous walkways, and rather than a single concentrated alter you have numerous hidden, discreet wayside shrines. 

  The gardens provide an opportunity to reflect on the sanctity of Nature and the mystery of Life’s sinuous journey. 

  There is no catechism, no sacred book nor sermon. A few pithy sayings might offer a point of embarkation, but wandering the garden is an individual exercise and where you choose to sit and silently contemplate or commune with your surroundings and what shrine you choose to pay particular reverence at is entirely up to you. 

  Many years ago I drove Japanese tour groups out of Calgary, which lies at the western margin of the prairies, into the Rockies. About eighty kilometres west of the city we would climb up and over a swell in the no longer flat grasslands and as we descended the other side the craggy Rocky Mountains would spread out before the traveller in all their glorious majesty. It was a sight to behold and it never failed to elicit gasps of awe from my Japanese passengers who had flown so far to experience it. 

  Words fail…

  Aweummmmm….