杉神社 - Sacred Cedar Shrine
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About Our Shrine

Western and Central Wisconsin was once covered by a vast forest, in which White Cedars were prominent.

However, logging and farming brought the indigenous White Cedar trees to almost extinction. The deer that live in this area prefer the tender leaves of the White Cedar trees during winter, so the few new seedlings that do grow each year rarely make it through their first winter.

Then, during the 1950's, the U.S. Army Corps leveled and tiled for drainage much of this region. Hills were flattened, valleys were filled, and wetlands were drained. Nearly all of the farmed or inhabited landscape that we see around us in this area is the result of those intentional efforts to increase agricultural production.

Most of the forests that survive in our area were planted in the middle of the last century, focusing on harvestable timber that does well in this area.

Cedars, once common throughout this region, are now often only found in fence rows, or on untillable land.

Sacred Cedar Shrine

However, due to the presence of a spring, this hill on our property was spared from the "reclamation" in the 50's. And due to the extreme rockiness of the land around the spring, was never tilled.

The few cedars that naturally grew on the land survived for many years, but as the land around the hill was drained for farming the spring dried up leaving only a 0 magnitude seep that remains damp, but has no real flow. With no "productive" use for the hill, it became a dumping ground for trash and for abandoned farm equipment.

Then, at the end of the last century, all but two of the cedar trees on the hill were felled for firewood for the wood-fire heated house on the property.

Since purchasing the land, Ciaran and Kia Benson. along with friends and members of the Sacred Cedar Shrine. have worked to restore the hill to as natural a presence as possible, removing more than 400 cubic yards of garbage and replanting the hill with local varieties of wild flowers, shrubs, and trees.

Today, the top of the hill has two naturally seeded twenty foot tall white cedar trees, hidden in a grove of eighty- to ninety-foot cherry and white pine trees. The trees are surrounded by naturally occurring blood roots, jack-in-the-pulpets, and trilliums.

The two cedars are the "Sacred Cedars" of the shrine, and a small cedar-roofed Shinto Hokara (祠 - literally "Kami Repository") stands beneath the larger of the two trees as a home for the blessed spirits of trees, and in memory of the spring that saved the hill from the blades of bulldozer and plow.

The hill and the surrounding white pine forest provides habitat for large variety of birds including palliated woodpeckers, great horned owls, and geese, as well as white-tail deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, fox, raccoons, and both gray and red squirrels. A pack of coyote periodically visit the hill from their dens in the banks of the local river, and both cougar and bears have been spotted.

Preserving this hill and its cedars, planting new cedar seedlings, and sharing saplings from the trees on our land, are some of the things we do to share the sacredness of this place, and to help restore the world around us.

Shinto teaches that certain deeds create an impurity that one should want cleansed for peace of mind and good fortune. Cleansing this land, working to remove the remaining trash and abandoned equipment on the hill, and restoring the hill to as natural an environment as possible, is a vital part of our practice.

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木の精神
Sacred Spirit of Trees

祝福の木の精神
Blessed Spirit of Trees

私たちに浄化の祝福を与える
Grant us the blessing of purification

私たちの健康の祝福を与える
Grant us the blessing of health

私たちの幸せの祝福を与える
Grant us the blessing of happiness

復元私たちの霊は明るい
Restore our spirits bright

Blessing of the Spirit of Trees