Empusae – Pilgrimage To Ganriki CD

Les Nouvelles Propagandes (France)リリースCD
My pilgrimage to Ganriki-san Shrine (ガンリキさん神社)

10.000 torii gates, 12.000 irregular steps without banisters, burning sun, thousands of people within the narrow stairs going in both directions. A narrow tunnel vision of 15 degrees without contrast. A journey of several hours at Mt. Inari in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto.

What started as an insignificant walk to reach the shrine of Ganriki-san, a Shinto deity giving blessing for eye diseases, gradually evolved into an intense journey through a swarm of mental and physical confrontation.
With each step, through each torii, my willpower raised and the efforts lightened.
There was no option to turn back, only the will to continue. I never felt so strong while being confronted by my eye demon in years, with my guiding light taking by hand.
After more than 2 hours, we finally reached the shrine. The tension exploded, the emotions bursted, the tears followed the dripping water of the purifying fountain. I cracked.
We prayed.
My guiding light lit a candle for me. She bestowed my a spell. The epiphany took over. She wrote down a spell on a wooden relic, which was to be read by a priest before burning it, later that day.
We started to walk back, I returned one last time to imprint.
The journey back down was even lighter than the mounting, despite the more challenging effort to walk down stairs.

This pilgrimage triggered something within me. I know it’s the journey itself that did this to me, not the deity. But it felt as a spiritual event nevertheless. And I will carry the spell with me at all times, as a reminder, a relic of my epiphany.