Japan Fulbright’s Memorial Fund sponsored my first trip to Japan in November of 2005, a life changing 20 day tour for American educators.1 Following our orientation meetings, one of our first visits was a Shinto temple where we learned about the essence of Japan, where we found fan-fold Goshuinchos, like the one below, used by people visiting shrines or temples. Goshuincho literally means "honorable stamp/seal book.” Click HERE for more.
Years later in Nara, Patricia and I visited Miwa ...
The mountain of 1,000 shrines [see the temple inscription above: Figure 1] ...
For a modest fee, a temple attendant stamps your book and writing in beautiful calligraphy brushes the temple's name and the date as proof of pilgrimage to that location.
I did not realize on this my first trip that such a little book would take me to unimagined places to meet people who would alter the course of my life.
This would become my pilgrimage to the land of my ancestors.
Figure 1: Miwa Shrine Goshuincho
Figure 2: Fan folding Goshuincho book showing four Temple Stamps including Todaiji Temple in Nara
Years later in Nara, Patricia and I visited Miwa ...
The mountain of 1,000 shrines [see the temple inscription above: Figure 1] ...
Figure 3: Stairs to Miwa Shrine and the Lunar Japan
It was late... only moments before closing on a singularly beautiful night under a spectacularly full moon [Figure 3]. Three monks remained in the book store where we browsed books while one painted calligraphy and stamped our Temple Books in red ink and took his calligraphy brush to the page while we waited. Patricia by my side, I remember that moment.. for one day... one day, with my Goshuincho in hand, I would propose to her in Kyoto, at the Heian Shrine, another temple stamp, and one year later marry her in a Shinto Shrine in Tokyo, another Temple Stamp. I love that woman...Our temple books have become a historical map of our wedding journey, a map of our love...
