Why all this water?

I was so sure Japan would be boiling (and weakly air-conditioned, post Fukushima) that the idea that my first full day in Japan would be nonstop rain never occurred to me.

But there I was, dodging downpours in Kyoto with a cheap umbrella and no rain jacket at Kamigamo Jinja, the second most important Shinto shrine in Japan. The rain pummeled my malfunctioning umbrella and seeped into my backpack, dampening my post-it notes.  It made puddles deeper than the soles of my Keens all over the shrine compound.

It seemed out to get me.

But the rain also softened the graceful lines of the vermilion tori'i gates; it filled up the little wells of purifying water worn into ancient-looking rocks; it dripped from moss-covered cypress bark roofs; it trickled pleasingly through stone runnels; it hung in pearl-like drops from the points of pine needles.

And on this rainy day, huddled under umbrellas and ponchos,  pretty much the first thing we did (under the direction of Reverend Inui, our blue and white clad Shinto guide) was to get ourselves wet by ritually purifying ourselves with water.

Dip the bamboo ladle, pour water over your left hand, then over your right hand, then sip from your left hand and spit out, then over your left hand again, and then let the remainder drip down the handle of the ladle before you put it back.

Now you're pure.  And wet.  (But if you remembered to bring your little hand-schmatta, it's all good.)   And now you're ready to go summon the kami and bow and clap and pray and wish for a good exam result or a good match or a child or  success in business or good health or a pass on the next tsunami.

All this water.  All this rain.  It hadn't occurred to me that Japan was such a rainy country.

Maybe I should have gotten a clue.  Like the fact that there are umbrella stands at the entrances to just about every house and building (with multiple holes, not just the oversize champagne buckets we have in the U.S.) along with dispensers of  disposable plastic umbrella bags.  And that you can actually buy a telescoping umbrella case. And that many of the solid, workaday bicycles that people glide around on have built-in umbrella clips so that they can ride in the rain.  (Although many are impressively adept at riding through traffic while holding an umbrella upright.  This may partially explain why clear plastic umbrellas are so popular.) And maybe that's why the Japanese traditionally wear geta, those raised wooden clogs.  Duh.

This pair certainly seemed to keep Reverend Inui's socks dry.

Water is indeed everywhere here, in the rain and the shrines and the oceans and the tsunamis.  Even metaphorically, in the raked-sand Zen gardens.

Then it occurred to me that all this water may have something to do with why we typically think of Japan as a kind of green country.  In both senses of the word.

Green like moss and mist-covered evergreens and seaweed and green tea.  (You don't think "desert" when you think of Japan, do you?)

But also green like environmentally aware.  Which is only natural for a land that's always been so much at the mercy of nature.

So it makes sense that water is so fundamental to Shintoism, a religion that's all about the power of nature.  Reverend Inui explained that those beautiful moss-covered roofs must continually be replaced.  And that's o.k.  The roofs decay and return to the earth; it's all part of the cycle of nature, and of the kami that reside there.  And all this rain just helps the cycle along. All the Shinto shrines are constantly being rebuilt to the exact detail. There's a regular replacement cycle of 21 years, so that those who did it the last time can train the next generation.

I used to wonder why they don't do more in stone, why a country so much at the mercy of water, wind, and earthquake builds so much with wood.

But I guess it makes sense:  the past endures through the people, despite the drip-drip-drip of all this water.