MIE –
About 240 people gathered before dawn on June 21 at Futami Okitama Shrine in Ise, Mie Prefecture, to pray for good health during a summer solstice ritual held in front of the Meoto Iwa rocks.
The summer solstice, the day with the longest period of daylight in the year, is marked at the shrine with the annual Summer Solstice Festival, in which participants worship the sunrise between the paired rocks and pray for protection from illness over the coming year.
Participants began gathering at 3:30 a.m. and, after receiving purification rites at the shrine’s main hall, entered the sea and waited in seawater up to their knees for the sun to rise.
Clouds covered the sky around sunrise shortly before 5 a.m., preventing participants from seeing the sun, but the ritual went ahead as they offered prayers from the shoreline.
Source: CBC
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