対馬には驚くほど多くの神社が、人里を離れた山の奥深くに鎮もっている。多久頭神社、海神神社——その名や由緒を訪ねるつもりで足を踏み入れたが、私の心を奪ったのは、荘厳な社殿でも古い縁起でもなかった。外は夏至の眩い陽射しに満ちているのに、ひとたび鬱蒼とした社叢へ分け入れば、物音は遠ざかる。そして磐座へと至る小径に音もなく差し込む一条の光には、梅雨入りを間近にした湿りが滲んでいた。
この島では古来、神は社に坐すのではなく、森そのもの、岩そのものに宿るとされてきた。ゆえに深い杜は、人が容易に踏み込めぬ聖域——不入の地として畏れられてきたという。その奥へ、ただ光だけが許されて降りてゆく。高くのぼった真夏の太陽は、梢を抜けて木漏れ日となり、苔むす磐座を、朽ちた倒木を、降り積もる落葉を、束の間照らしては、また翳らせる。
闇と光が織りなすその一瞬に、私は神の気配を見たように思う。畏れと美しさとは、ここでは分かちがたいひとつのもの。シャッターを切るたび、私が写していたのは森ではなく、森へ降りてきた何かなのだと感じていた。

Forbidden Light — A Walk through the Sacred Groves of Tsushima Tsushima holds an astonishing number of shrines, most of them hidden deep in the mountains, far from any village. I came to Takuzu and Kaijin shrines meaning to learn their names and histories—yet what seized me was neither the solemn halls nor the old legends. Outside, the world was flooded with the dazzling light of midsummer; but the moment I stepped into the dense shasō—the sacred grove that enfolds a shrine—every sound fell away. There, along the path leading to an iwakura, a rock in which a god is said to dwell, a single shaft of light came down in silence, and within that light hung the damp breath of tsuyu, the rainy season soon to arrive. On this island, the divine has long been thought to reside not in the shrine hall but in the forest itself, in the very stone. For that reason the deepest groves were feared as inviolable ground—places no one was permitted to enter. Into that forbidden depth, only the light is allowed to descend. With geshi, the summer solstice and one of the twenty-four micro-seasons, drawing near, the high sun slips through the canopy as komorebi, dappled light, and for a brief moment illuminates the moss-covered rock, a decaying trunk, the drift of fallen leaves—then lets them sink back into shadow. In that instant where darkness and light are woven together, I felt I had glimpsed the presence of a god. Here, awe and beauty are not two things but one. Each time I released the shutter, I sensed I was photographing not the forest, but something that had descended into it.