佐輔稲荷神社のお守り A Little Fox from Sasuke Inari Shrine

This omamori is special to me, even though it doesn't come from a major shrine. After visiting Hase Temple and the Daibutsu, I still had plenty of time to dedicate to the rest of Kamakura, and I decided to do the Daibutsu Hiking Course. The hiking course goes along the mountains and hits many secluded temples and shrines. I started from behind the Kamakura Daibutsu and began walking through the woods along the path.

The path was muddy and unkept. I walked for a long time and enountered nothing. I left the path along another path thinking it would be leading to my first temple, and all I found was spider webs the size of dinner plates. After some frustration, I came back to the muddy path and continued trudging onwards. Since I was by myself in the middle of the woods and there wasn't a person in sight, I was talking to myself. I do that.

Then suddenly I heard something through the bushes. I panicked, and froze, and then prayed out loud that it wasn't a bear. Please let it not be a bear. As I turned the corner with my breath held, I saw a little old Japanese man with a walking stick. Pointing to a muddy slope, he told me it was slippery and to be careful.

I was invigorated after meeting another human being on the trail and I continued on with a lot more energy. The first shrine I came to was Sasuke Inari Shrine. I had to leave the main hiking trail, and as I approached the shrine I saw miniature white fox statues of all kinds in trees and holes in the rock. The shrine itself was little, but I was terribly excited to finally get some where.

Sasuke Inari Shrine was founded during the fourteenth century, I think, by Minamoto Yoritomo after he received advice in a dream for defeating his enemies. In gratitude, he built this shrine for the vision.

After visiting this first shrine, I continued along the hiking course, coming across more and more shrines and temples as I went.

This charm is very simple, certainly the least flashy of the three Inari shrine omamori I own. It's plastic and doesn't even have the name of the shrine, but I'll always remember it's story.