Listen with your mind’s eye 〜SOUND TRIP〜【Act Three】Kifune-jinja Shrine

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25May2020

Listen with your mind’s eye 〜SOUND TRIP〜【Act Three】Kifune-jinja Shrine

Content Partner

The 'My second hometown' project, through the free magazine Enjoy Kyoto and its affiliated website, is aimed at showing foreign visitors the deeper charms of this amazing city.

Content Partner

The 'My second hometown' project, through the free magazine Enjoy Kyoto and its affiliated website, is aimed at showing foreign visitors the deeper charms of this amazing city.

A soundtrack to a three-act pilgrimage of your soul

The thousand-year capital, Kyoto—an ancient city ruled by a host of gods where countless Buddhas have bequeathed teachings, its rich narratives woven from infinite threads of elegant aristocratic picture scrolls, the rise and fall of the samurai, and humble prayers of the townsfolk.

These narratives have played out on the stages of Kyoto’s temples and shrines, and now SOUND TRIP unfurls at some of the most famed—Sanzen-in Temple, Mibu-dera Temple, and Kifune-jinja Shrine. When you visit any of these three locations, seat yourself in a specially provided booth, slip on headphones and shut out the world around you. Turn your ear to the sound washing through you. You feel giddy and little by little your senses blur. Reality slowly merges with images and memories stored within you, and you begin to hear the music with your mind’s eye. Could this be some sort of enlightenment? Could that sound you hear through the headphones, ringing so very quietly deep down inside, be your own voice? SOUND TRIP is about creating music with a story. You’re on a pilgrimage to your soul, and this is the soundtrack.

How to use SOUND TRIP

Seat yourself in the special-purpose SOUND TRIP booth at a participating temple or shrine.
Drop a donation in the designated box (300 yen)
Slip on the headphones and press play
Trip on the sound and the scenery before you

【Act Three】Kifune-jinja Shrine

A dragon that ascended to heaven and a boat that sailed upland —Rain and soil: sacred water sources connected by two gods

A myth of a boat sailing upstream in search of water

Kifune-jinja Shrine is tucked deep in the northern mountains of Kyoto. Why is a shrine in the mountains named for a boat (Kifune literally means “noble boat”)? According to legend, Tamayorihime, the mother of the first emperor of Japan, Emperor Jinmu, sailed in a yellow boat from Naniwatsu (present day Osaka Bay) upstream along the Yodo-gawa and Kamo-gawa Rivers in search of a source of rain for the country. She ordered a small shrine enshrining a god of water to be built here where the river begins. The temple was named Kifune after this journey.

One of Kifune-jinja Shrine’s enshrined deities is god of water Takaokaminokami. Takaokaminokami is strongly connected with the Ryujin faith, a form of belief associated with rain and agricultural rituals. It is unsurprising then that numerous water-related stories and legends surround this sacred place.

The noise of the city doesn’t reach this isolated mountain hamlet, so the sound of the clear water of the Kibune-gawa River can be heard all around. There is a happy sense of release here as your ears are set free. Seeing and speaking take a step back in this place of listening. Here is where a river begins, and so does this act of your SOUND TRIP.

Kifune-jinja Shrine Information

Exactly when Kifune-jinja Shrine was founded is unclear, but there is a record of it being rebuilt already in 666. A popular attraction is mizuura mikuji—plain white fortune telling sheets on which a fortune appears when the sheet is placed in the shrine’s sacred spring. Kifune-jinja Shrine is also associated with a god of marriage due to a tale of ancient poet Izumi Shikibu visiting the shrine in an attempt to regain the love of her husband.

Address: 180 Kuramakibune-cho, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto

Opening hours: Grounds are open from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm. Office is open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Admission fee: Free

Enquiries: 075-741-2016

kifune-jinja Shrine.jp(Japanese)

Kyoto City Official Travel Guide: Kifune-jinja Shrine

Chugaeri by KOM_I & Oorutaichi

-Music that can only be heard at Kifune-jinja Shrine

Kifune-jinja Shrine enshrines legendary dragon pair Takaokaminokami in the Hongu (main hall) and Yamiokaminokami in the Okunomiya (the site of the original shrine). Takaokaminokami sends rain from above and Yamiokaminokami oversees the underground spring. Together this pair of deities is considered to be one and the same water god. Chugaeri is an auditory journey around sound captured by dangling a microphone in the “dragon’s den” where Yamiokaminokami is said to dwell.

Seat yourself in the booth at the top of the entrance path. As you gaze before you at the flowing waters of the Kibune-gawa River and the trees of Mt. Kibune-yama with their water-laden roots and branches, turn your ears to sound that flows like the divine water springing from the depths of the sacred ground.

What you hear might just be the roar of the dragon duo.

One more thing about Kifune-jinja Shrine—Kifune can also be written with characters that literally mean “root of where spirit is born”. In other words, the water from which all energy is born, and the ground that is its source. Here, you are sure to sense the spiritual power of this word.

Artist：KOM_I (Wednesday Campanella) & Oorutaichi

KOM_I, vocalist of three-member group Wednesday Campanella, and Oorutaichi began their collaboration in 2019, releasing an EP Yakushima Treasure. The two artists are touring the EP under the group name Yakushima Treasure, increasingly incorporating spontaneity and experimentation in their compositions and performances. The Kifune-jinja Shrine act of SOUND TRIP is a new project for the pair.