Tsubaki Shrine of America Closing Abruptly, Stunning US Shinto Community

In a stunning, largely unpublicized move, Reverend Koichi Barrish of Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America is shuttering the largest Shinto shrine in North America at the end of June. He will not hand off the duties of priest to a successor, which might have left the shrine intact.

Instead of retiring, he is apparently setting up a new, small shrine in Florida (apparently of his own invention), along with an aikido dojo. Here’s what we know of the sudden closure.

History of Tsubaki Grand Shrine

Per its official communications, Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America claims to be the first Shinto shrine on North American soil. The historical record disputes this. The Japanese-American community had shrines on the West Coast, prior to the community’s mass incarceration and the destruction of their homes, businesses, and places of worship during the Second World War. The earliest dates to 1908.

Another, San Pedro Daijingū, was a focal point of the Japanese community on Terminal Island, in Los Angeles. Hiroshima-born, Hawaii-trained priest Miyoshi Shinkichi founded it in the early 1930s. One of the War Relocation Authority photos of Terminal Island during its evacuation depicts him personally tearing it down in 1942. The anguish is plain on his face. A torii now commemorates his shrine and the broader Terminal Island community that was uprooted by Executive Order 9066.

Regardless, Yamamoto Yukitaka, then chief priest of Tsubaki Grand Shrine in Mie Prefecture, established Tsubaki America Shrine in 1986, in Stockton, California. This was later merged with Kannagara Jinja, which Barrish established in 1992.

In 2001, the combined establishment became Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America, at Granite Falls, Washington. Barrish has also taught aikido on the shrine grounds in all the years since, and conducted misogi (water purification rituals) in the adjoining river. It is also a prime location for Hatsumode, the traditional first shrine visit of the New Year.

But all of that will end in June, when Barrish disestablishes the shrine in Granite Falls. This is news that as of this writing is only beginning to reach the community across North America that relies on Tsubaki.

A Focal Point of the Community

Shinto is an umbrella term for a broad set of shrine faiths with common practices. Tsubaki only enshrines one particular set of kami. As the largest Shinto shrine in North America, it has been a focal point of the Japanese-American community and the broader community of converts to Shinto, as their nearest shrine.

As of this writing, it is one of three shrines on the west coast. Shusse Inari Jinja, based in Los Angeles, is new enough that it doesn’t have a building yet. Shinmei jinja, in Sidney, British Columbia, is part of Shin Mei Spiritual Centre and enshrines the Tsubaki deities.

But Tsubaki is the largest, and oldest. For many in North America, it is the preeminent source for amulets (omamori) as well as goods for home altars (ofuda), which must be ritually renewed around the New Year.

There is, at present, no word about provisions for the parishioners who rely on Tsubaki for these services. The shrine’s website says nothing about the closure. Its ritual calendar– whose information only appears in Japanese– abruptly ends in June.

Surprise and Worry

I spoke with Professor Kaitlyn Ugoretz of Nanzan University, a Shinto studies scholar at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, about the imminent closure:

Aside from providing a public shrine space where Shinto practitioners could participate in ceremonies and community, TGSA has been a major source of ritual items, such as talismans called ofuda, traditionally necessary for home practice. For many people who are unable to physically visit a shrine in person, domestic ritual is all the more vital. Since most shrines in Japan do not send ofuda abroad for various reasons, I worry how Tsubaki’s unfortunate closure will impact the broader global Shinto community.

Katriel Paige, an adherent of the Inari faith and a public intellectual who frequently lectures on Shinto in the US, chimed in.

To be honest, Shinto priests are rare here – not unheard of, but last year, I only knew of three priests in the continental US who were active. Now there are two.

The US priests also ended up handling many questions from other countries as well, such as questions from Brazil to questions from Sweden, and more. It really does feel like anyone who was interested in Shinto traditions, let alone any practitioner, is abandoned due to the perceived suddenness of how we all found out and the fact there is no successor – with no advance notice, no announcements except for at best one social media post that barely touched on it, and one local article that had the closure news at the end of the article.

Because of this, even talk about how the community is coming together or anything about mutual ties – talk about “horizontal” and “vertical” ties of prosperity, mutual dependence, and so on, like how we should all come together as a community and rely on each other – seems rather flat. We all are trying to adjust to the situation and how to go forward from here.

However, Reverend Barrish has made comments regarding the future, in a few lines at the bottom of a recent Seattle Times article, as well as passing remarks on his Facebook group over the past few months. Regarding his retirement, he says his health is rendering misogi in the river’s cold waters increasingly difficult– certainly understandable, as any practitioner of physically demanding rituals grows older.

Priests, like any occupation, grow old and retire. This is unremarkable, and understandable. But to retire so abruptly, and to close the shrine at the same time, is unusual.

And it seems that rather than retire entirely, he will continue to be a priest, and an aikido teacher. He’ll just do it in Florida.

Earth Jinja?

Barrish has made a few comments on his Facebook group for Tsubaki– since renamed to SHINTO/Kannagara no Michi. But this only seems to have reached some of the people who most regularly visit Tsubaki. Specifically, it reaches those who mainly visit for Aikido, rather than the broader community it serves in the absence of other similarly large, well-staffed shrines on this side of the Pacific.

In a public statement to his Facebook group, Barrish says of the new endeavor, “…now in my 70’s shall we together make something new that will affirmatively and comprehensively support human beings coming into awareness of the infinite divine spirals of the Kannagara.”

While it hasn’t been much publicized, Barrish’s new shrine already has a homepage, at earthshinto.org. The shrine, which he has named Earth Shinto Shrine (Kannagara Chikyū Jinja), has no apparent affiliation with Tsubaki Grand Shrine in Japan. No parent shrine by the name of Chikyū Jinja exists in Japan.

Per this website, Barrish asserts the Earth is this shrine’s kami. While there are many earthly kami (kunitsukami), enshrining the planet is certainly a new direction.

Barrish will establish the shrine in Kissimee, Florida, at the City Center Building, amidst urban environs and among corporate offices. It will operate together with his new aikido dojo.

A graphic Barrish posted to his Facebook group in apparent anticipation of this move,depicts the Earth split into three in the form of a mitsudomoe, a logo used on the new shrine’s homepage. Tsubaki faith uses the triple comma-like mitsudomoe, but the emblem is perhaps best known as the crest of Hachiman-ōkami. It is flanked by vulpine gokenzoku, the divine messengers of O-Inari-ōkami, holding the customary granary key and sheaf of rice stalks associated with the Inari faith. What Hachiman-ōkami and O-Inari-ōkami have to do with this Earth Shinto Shrine remains to be seen.

A Perplexing Move

In my experience as a moderator of some online Shinto communities in the Anglosphere, I have known many converts who are queer-identified, myself included. I have taken great inspiration from Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto, one of the Tsubaki kami, as a role model for fearless delight in my body despite what seems to be an increasingly dark and hostile world.

With that in mind, for Barrish to so quietly end Tsubaki in the US and move his priestly work from Washington to Florida– a state whose government is accelerating the US’s rising tide of genocidal laws against LGBTQ people– to establish a shrine with no known Japanese parent shrine or affiliation, is a perplexing choice at best.

Priests retire all the time, even to Florida. This is unremarkable. They don’t usually take their place of worship with them in quasi-retirement, to a jurisdiction that seeks to harm a significant portion of their parishioners.

Conclusion

I hope Reverend Barrish has a pleasant semi-retirement. But his abrupt departure from my religious community tempers that wish. It is this lack of broader publicity that has spurred me to write this article, to bring it to the broader attention of my community and the world.

We can mourn later. But without this priest and this shrine, the community will be in need now. Were Tsubaki simply one of many shrines in North America, this would be far more of a local issue. But its position is unique. Rev. Barrish’s decision has outsized consequences.

A shrine exists because it is a focal point of its community and the rhythms of its life across the year. Its priest serves that community.

As part of that community, I personally feel confused and upset that the priest will not retire and hand off responsibility to someone else, but close the shrine altogether. This deprives the local community that has relied on the shrine he served for so many decades. Moving his work to a state that is increasingly and overtly genocidal against people like me adds insult to injury.

It shouldn’t have to be like this. Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America is part of a long history in North America, longer than even it lays claim to, as it walks in the footsteps of people like Reverend Miyoshi of San Pedro Daijingū and the parishioners he served.

Tsubaki America ought to bear that history more prominently and proudly. And it ought to be bigger than one man.

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Sources

• Koichi Barrish. SHINTO/Kannagara no Michi Facebook post, 29 March 2023. Accessed 2 May 2023
• ____. SHINTO/Kannagara no Michi Facebook image post, 26 April 2023.
• ___. SHINTO/Kannagara no Michi Facebook post, 26 April 2023. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• ____. SHINTO/Kannagara no Michi Facebook post, 2 May 2023. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• Endō Jun. “Concepts of Kami- Amatsukami, Kunitsukami.” Kokugakuin Encyclopedia of Shinto. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• Naomi Hirahara. “Fish Harbor.” in Paperback L.A.: A Casual Anthology, Book 2. Edited by Susan LaTempa. (Altadena, CA: Prospect Park Books, 2018)
• “Japanese-American History at Terminal Island.” Los Angeles Conservancy. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• Kannagara Chikyū Jinja homepage. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• Brendan Kiley. “How one of the country’s largest Shinto shrines ended up in tiny Granite Falls.” Pacific NW Magazine, 28 April 2023. Accessed 2 May 2023. https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/how-one-of-the-countrys-largest-shinto-shrines-ended-up-in-tiny-granite-falls/
• Victoria Linchong. “The Japanese Fishing Village That Vanished From Los Angeles.” Messy Nessy Chic: Cabinet of Curiosities. 23 Nov. 2021, accessed 3 May 2023.
• “Shin Mei Spiritual Centre.” Shin Mei Spiritual Centre. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• Shinto Shrine of Shusse Inari in America. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• “Schedule.” Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• “Shrine History.” Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America. Accessed 2 May 2023.
• “Terminal Island Today.” The Lost Village of Terminal Island. Accessed 2 May 2023.