Rebuilding Ise

Heart and Soul

Ise Jingu is a Shinto shrine in Japan that is full of paradoxes. Every 20 years, for the past 1300 years, Ise Jingu has been rebuilt from scratch. It involves constructing identical copies of 125 structures that cover an area the size of the centre of Paris, using ancient techniques passed down through generations of craftsmen.

It is one of the most sacred Shinto shrines in Japan. Every year, over 10 million visitors and pilgrims journey through the depths of the ancient forest that surrounds the shrine, to pay homage to the deities of the Shinto faith.

Poet and professor Jordan Smith journeys to the heart of the Jingu in search of the rituals, customs, and spirituality that has kept it as alive today as it was over 1000 years ago. But as Jordan finds out, the essence of Ise Jingu cannot be discovered quite so easily. To get close to what Ise Jingu means to the Shinto faith and Japanese society, Jordan must travel into the depths of the forests of Ise to listen to the inaudible and feel the intangible. On his way he meets priests and professors, who help him discover new ways of interpreting Shinto divinity and what Ise Jingu means to those who journey there.