of Spirit”; the understanding, that is, that the divine is everywhere around and within us, and that there is a way of connecting with all of these spirits – both interior and exterior – through reverence of nature.
The first – and still the most powerful – Shinto ceremonies were performed outside, in forests or before rocks, which formed a naturally sacred space and a natural altar. These ceremonies did not incorporate icons, as, for example, Catholic rituals use bread and wine to stand for the flesh and blood of Christ, or images of the Virigin to represent Mary, because the spirits are formless essences, not the form itself: inhabitants only of the tree (or rock or waterfall) and not the tree itself.
In this sense, Shinto is shamanic and regards all things as alive, aware, sentient, and of spirit – just like us. As a consequence, kami are seen as closer to human beings in their nature and temperaments, thoughts and feelings, than ‘gods’, and all of them occupy the same world we do, not distant from us or inhabiting some far-off Heaven. To quote a phrase used by Terence McKenna in a different context: “Nature is alive and talking to us. This is not a metaphor”; within Shinto it is a reality.
The most obvious theme in Shinto, therefore, is respect for nature, and its rituals are designed to mediate relationships between the Earth, its spirits, and its human inhabitants. Any twisted branch or unusually-shaped stone might be a kami, as might a waterfall, a cloud, a wildflower, or the moon, or, indeed – more abstract but still nature-related – concepts like growth and fertility, and we must therefore tread lightly on the Earth and make the proper observances so as not to disturb or