Stele in Mizunomori Koen

Mizunomori Koen is a park that is about half way between my apartment and Ian's house. Mizu means water in Japanese, mori is forest, no is a possessive, and koen is park. So, the name means something like the 'Forest's-water Park'. Previously I posted a picture of someone standing in the mizu in this park fishing. At present the mizu is a resting place for numerous geese and ducks. Ian and I are now walking through the park on our Sunday outings. It is much more pleasant than just following the road.

The following picture shows a row of stele near the main entrance to the park. The 11 or 12 stones are lined up and each contains an engraving naming a Shinto god or some other words. I could not read them all, partly because some of them were old and very worn and partly because I did not know the kanji on some of the others.


This is a closer view of the largest stele. There are two kanji carved into it - mizu and kami, which means god. The white things at the base are strips of folded paper that are a standard part of Shinto ceremonies, so we know that someone has recently held some sort of devotional activity here.


This shows the end of the line of steles - the point farthest away in the first picture. The last thing in the line is a small (maybe a foot (30 cm) high) ceramic house. These are seen all over in small personal shrines associated with a specific building, or structure. They symbolically provide a place for the god to live and to be worshiped.