Koichi barrish aikido schools
Koichi barrish aikido schools
Aikido schools in san diego.
How one of the country’s largest Shinto shrines ended up in tiny Granite Falls
THE LARGEST AND most active Shinto shrine in the mainland United States, and arguably the North American continent, is not in Seattle.
Nor is it in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose or any other city with a substantial Japanese American population.
In fact, none of those cities — with the exception of a mobile shrine in L.A., plus a yearslong fundraising campaign to find it a permanent home — appears to have any major, active Shinto structures at all.
Instead, the spellbinding Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America is hidden away, on 25 acres snuggled in the cedar-thick forests of Snohomish County just outside the town of Granite Falls: population 4,700.
Which, at first, seems a little strange.
The Backstory
Following a trail of questions that lead to Granite Falls’ Shinto shrineShinto, often described as “the indigenous religion of Japan,” predates Buddhism on those islands by perhaps