The Shin Mei Spiritual Centre is a Shinto and Buddhist centre in Canada, on an island close to Vancouver Island, in the Pacific Northwest. It is now the North American branch shrine of Tsubaki Ōkami Yashiro, having taken over from the site in Washington State when Revd Barrish retired. It is run by Revd Ann Evans, who was trained at Tsubaki Ōkami Yashiro, and has published an English translation of Shinto norito. (That’s an affiliate link.)
I haven’t visited this centre yet, but Revd Evans recently contacted me about selling my book at the shrine (as you can see if you follow the link, we managed to arrange that), and as she was visiting Tokyo soon after, we managed to meet up for a very interesting conversation.
One of the things we talked about was the site of the centre, which sounds lovely. Apparently, the forest on the island has never been substantially logged, so it has trees that are centuries old. I imagine it is a very good place for forest bathing.
Obviously, as they are selling my book, I am not completely disinterested, but this is a good place for people in North America to connect to the Shinto tradition. I think some readers of my blog will be interested in that.
As someone who recently moved to the Pacific Northwest, I had been interested in visiting the shrine in Washington, and was sad to learn of it’s closure. Shin Mei is a fair bit further, but should make a nice trip some day.
It does sound very nice. I am hoping to get there myself at some point, but it’s a really long trip from Japan…
Would love to visit someday, but that’s actually pretty remote – even by Pacific Northwest standards.
It is primarily a retreat and meditation centre…