{"id":4723,"date":"2016-04-02T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T23:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voyapon.com\/?p=4723"},"modified":"2016-08-28T20:17:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-28T11:17:31","slug":"love-kuzuharaoka-shrine-kamakura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voyapon.com\/love-kuzuharaoka-shrine-kamakura\/","title":{"rendered":"Love in the air at Kuzuharaoka shrine, Kamakura"},"content":{"rendered":"
Kuzuharaoka shrine is encircled by Genjiyama Park, a haunt alongside the Daibutsu hiking course<\/a>. Many years ago, it was cut into this forest like the sweetly snipped bouquets presently placed atop tables just outside. Snipped, like the stalks of flowers – or the necks of traitors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The Kamakura shrine was built upon the execution grounds for the coup conspirator Toshimoto Hino. Hino was twice accused of colluding with Emperor Go-Daigo to enlist warrior monks against the Kamakura shogun. In 1333, following his second conviction for treason, Hino was beheaded at this site crowning a hill. The blood commemorated at Kuzukaraoka is sanguine, but it is now visited for blood that flows saccharine.<\/p>\n At the\u00a0hiking course’s side, the torii gateway before Kuzuharaoka stands a stony sentry. A shrine keeper within the adjacent souvenir shop stared out into me with an abject stare. Both belied the bosom-warming thoughts of love swimming about the place.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n I entered stepping up a gentle grade of steps, while at my right a pool burbled. The pools sides were stone, like the druid arrangement of sitting stumps to my left. A lone visitor who preceded me hurried onward towards the shrine’s heart.<\/p>\n Cozied together with the path were structures breathing into each other. To one side were two age-worn jags that, old or not, leaned lovingly into one another. Red tassels ribboned them together, while an altar stood as an eternal marriage officiator behind them.<\/p>\n