25/11/2025
⛩️Meoto Iwa⛩️
Some places don’t simply appear in front of us, they shift something inside, awakening a quiet space we carry within, a place where memory, and mythology move together.
At Futami Okitama, near Ise, two stones rise from the sea, bound by a sacred rope. They are called Meoto Iwa, the Wedded Rocks.
But their story stretches back beyond symbol or tradition. It begins with creation.
In Japanese mythology, these stones represent Izanagi and Izanami, the primordial couple who shaped the islands of Japan and gave life to the kami (gods), the subtle presence that moves through all things: unseen, yet unmistakably alive.
The larger stone is Izanagi, the bright, outward expanding force. The smaller is Izanami, the deep, receptive well of creation.
Between them hangs a thick “shimenawa” rope.
Not to restrain but to honor connection or “En”,
to acknowledge the invisible current that holds two beings in harmony…
That day, when we arrived, the sky was heavy with rain, soft and grey.
And then… just as we were about to leave, standing in front of the sacred 2 stones, the clouds opened for a heartbeat.
A few rays of sunlight fell exactly on the two stones.
Nowhere else. Just them.
It felt like Reiju from the sky.
A blessing.
A breath of alignment.
A reminder that light arrives exactly where and when it needs to.
In that moment, something shifted inside me.
A tenderness untying itself.
Maybe because I wasn’t alone.
Maybe because the place is soaked in centuries of rituals.
Maybe because Meoto Iwa doesn’t only represent union outside of us, it mirrors the union we seek within:
masculine and feminine,
earth and sky,
giving and receiving.
Pilgrims once stopped here to purify themselves before walking to Ise Jingū, as if these two stones guarded the threshold of the sacred.
As if one needed to let the inner currents balance.
Fire and water,
Stillness and movement,
Shadow and light,
before approaching the divine.
Meoto Iwa reminds us that connection, to others, to the world, to ourselves, is both ancient and ever-new, both delicate and unbreakable.
And I feel grateful for having been there…
especially because we stood together
when the light opened.