Support a small Japanese shrine from anywhere

Your wish has a place in Japan.

And your support, a future for that place.

All over Japan stand small shrines that no guidebook mentions, kept for generations by the people who live around them. We are exploring two ways for people outside Japan to take part. One is to send a wish or a thanks, to be offered by the shrine in whatever way it considers proper. The other is to help sustain what the shrine wants to keep: its forest, its buildings, its festivals. Either would happen only if a shrine wants it, and only after we have listened to what it needs.

For now, we would like to hear from you: about what these shrines need, and about how you might want to take part from overseas.

What we are considering

What actually happens will be decided with each shrine. What follows is one example of what it could look like, if a shrine wants it. None of it has happened yet.

We ask the shrine first

What it wants to keep, such as its buildings, its trees or its festivals, and what is hardest to keep. Whether to do anything at all, and what comes first, is the shrine's decision.

You choose how to take part

Supporting a preservation purpose the shrine has set out or, where the shrine wishes, sending a wish or a thanks to be offered there. Any offering is made by the shrine, at the shrine, by its own method and on its own schedule. We perform no religious act.

You hear what happened

What the money paid for, and how far the work has got. For an offering, the date it was made, and photographs or a letter within whatever the shrine permits. What is reported, and how often, is agreed with the shrine so that it adds nothing to its workload.

What we would expect to report, where it can be done

What the money was spent on, with photographs from before and after
A seasonal note on how the work is going
For an offering: the date it was made, and a photograph taken in the precinct
For an offering: a letter of thanks, and your name entered in a washi register

Whether there are photographs, a letter or a register, and what they contain, depends on what the shrine agrees to.

Why small shrines need this

Not statistics we found online. This is what the priests we have spoken to told us, in their own shrine offices. Every shrine is different, so we will keep asking, one shrine at a time.

The parishioners are ageing

The households that support the shrine are growing older, and finding people to carry the work on is getting harder.

Few people settle

One priest told us the root of it is not the falling population as such, but how few people put down roots and stay.

Fewer people come to the festivals

The rituals continue, with fewer hands each year to carry them.

The trees are a problem

The sacred grove needs thinning and pruning, and there is neither the money nor the hands for it.

Upkeep depends on donations

At the shrines we spoke to, upkeep is paid for out of donations. There is no public funding to fall back on.

The priest is subsidising the shrine

At one shrine we visited, upkeep is paid in part from the income of the priest's second job.

One priest, many shrines

One of the priests we met looks after more than thirty shrines alone. How common that is, we will learn shrine by shrine.

What this is not

We do not promise your wish will be granted.

No one can, and anyone who says otherwise is selling you something else. What is offered is a respectful act, properly performed, and a record that it happened.

We perform no religious act ourselves.

The shrine does. Our part is the English, the coordination, the photographs and the reporting: the work a priest looking after many shrines has no hours left for.

We do not arrange travel.

No transport, no accommodation, no guides, no itineraries. If in-person experiences ever exist, they will be run by proper travel or local-experience partners, not by us.

This is not a goshuin.

A goshuin is written by hand at the shrine as proof that you came. We are not making one and not replacing one. If you can come, come.

How we would earn your trust

You would be sending money overseas, to a shrine you have never heard of, for something you cannot see happen. That is a lot to ask. Three things would have to be true.

You know who runs it

A named project, based in Japan, with a contact address, a stated scope, and a written answer for what happens if an offering cannot be made.

You know the shrine agreed

Named with its permission, with its location, its history, its own words, and a link to whatever public record exists of it. No shrine appears on this site until it has said yes.

You know it happened

The date, the photograph, the register, and — where money goes to the shrine's upkeep — what it was spent on, before and after.