Kumano Hongu, Japan. Photo / Nao Iizuka
Barbara Noe explores a pilgrimage trail southeast of Kyoto where the city's ancient emperors once prayed to deities in the trees and the rocks
Taking in a whiff of fresh cedar and sweet-smelling earth, hearing absolutely nothing but the sing-song of birds, I can hardly recall my day-to-day life. Job? What job? I imagine this must have been what it was like for Kyoto's ancient emperors who, a thousand years ago, travelled the same path deep in the heart of the remote Kii Mountains, southeast of their capital city, Kyoto.
Their pilgrimage route, a trail network called the Kumano Kodo — across wild, waterfall-laced mountains and sprinkled with temples and shrines — highlights three grand shrines: Hongu Taisha, Hayatama Taisha and Nachi Taisha.
Dressed in the white of the dead, they made pilgrimages here to purify themselves, pray to deities dwelling in the trees and rocks, and ask for special favours. Named a World Heritage Site in 2004, these shrine-bedecked trails continue to be restored and rediscovered — Japanese and visitors alike use them for ritual purposes as well as for some supreme hiking.
My two companions, Mokoto Todo and Yasuyuki Urano, and I are exploring one of the best-used parts of the trail network, a five-mile, half-day trek on the main Nakahechi route. It begins at Hosshinmon-oji, the entrance to the precinct of Hongu Grand Shrine (that is, the dividing line between the mortal and divine worlds), where poetry parties, gagaku dancing, and other religious ceremonies to entertain deities were once carried out.
We stroll through cedar and cypress forest, passing mountaintop, stone villages, terraces of tea bushes, mikan orange trees and oji shrines where pilgrims rested and prayed. We enter a hilltop village where a woodcarver works, surveying his work at a roadside stand where he sells walking canes, statues, and wall hangings including three-legged crows, said to be the messengers of Kumano.
While the ancient pilgrims had to purify themselves by staying away from smelly foods such as garlic and meat, we picnic, surrounded by tea bushes, blooming plum trees and chortling birds, on sushi, pickled cabbage and greens, chicken teriyaki and dried fish.
Onward, we come to Fushiogami-oji, a viewpoint overlooking a valley far below, where pilgrims dropped to their knees at their first sighting of the spiritual heart of Japan. The Kumano-gawa River, wide, green, and flat, creates a strata of colour in the pale rocks like layers in a marble cake, and we can make out a distinctive, graceful, dark-hued structure that, as I narrow my eyes for a closer look, shapes into a torii (gate). We walk downhill toward the gate, the largest in Japan at 108 feet, blending with the surrounding giant cedar and cypress trees.
"The Kumano faith is rooted in the worship of awe-inspiring natural environment, believed to be endowed as spirits," Moto tells me as we walk around the shrine's grounds, taking in stone lion statues, burbling fountains and clouds of incense. When Buddhism came from China in the sixth century, it melded with the indigenous religion to create a unique form of Buddhism.
"Practitioners set up their headquarters deep in the mountains, and that was the beginning of the Kumono Kodo ancient route," she says.
From Kumano Hongu, pilgrims continued to the next shrine by boat down the Kumano-gawa River, but we follow the route by car. Kumano Hayatama Taisha, by the mouth of the Kumano-gawa River as it flows into the Pacific, is bright orange and red, signalling Buddhism's influence. A large nagi tree, estimated to be 800 years old, is incorporated into the shrine complex and is considered sacred; pilgrims attached its leaves, which they believed to have talismanic properties, to their hats to protect them on their way home.
Next morning, we hike on lichen-covered stones up a steep, shaded path to the finest of the Grand Shrines, with a mountaintop perch overlooking the Pacific. The Kumano Nachi Taisha's raison d'etre is Nachi Falls, the highest waterfall in Japan (436ft), worshipped as a deity.
Nachi's main Shinto shrine, vermillion against Mt Nachi's emerald foliage, stands next to the Buddhist Seiganto-ji temple, demonstrating the fusion of Shinto and Buddhist influences. This is the busiest shrine we've come to, with people bustling about, lighting incense, ringing bells, nodding their heads in prayer.
We have the honour of visiting the shrine's most sacred section. After being purified by a monk, who waves a white mop-like thing over my head, I approach the gate behind which the deity awaits, pay my coin, and say a prayer.
And perhaps this is what I remember most when I'm back at my desk and the hectic routines of daily life. That day I asked the deity, when things get too frantic, to bring me back to this peaceful moment, embraced by the spirits of the rocks and the trees, the splashing waterfalls and sparkling sea views, where all things seem possible.
And today, back in my office, I close my eyes and I'm there.
Getting there: Air New Zealand flies daily from Auckland to Narita and has seasonal services to Haneda.
Kumano Kodo is located south of Kyoto, in a rural area accessible by train and bus. It's easier to get around by car.
Details: Wendy Wu's 12-day 'Jewels of Japan' tour starts at $8890 pp, twin-share and includes flights, accommodation and transport.
Further information: See tb-kumano.jp/en
Some domestic regional flights have been affected.