Ravens

A story at Shikoku.
It happened at a certain shrine in Shikoku, where I was often thinking I wanted to go. It was when I was on route to the destination with my Coach, who I am always greatly obliged to and drove us down from the airport.

The entrance to the shrine is beyond this point, but for some reason or another there are always two ravens there, waiting to greet people.

"Look closely over there," said Coach.
"Ravens...?" They're naturally wild birds, so it may be possible to see them once or twice by coincidence, but I couldn't think that the same ravens would visit the same place each time. To be honest, I was dubious about it, but when we approached the aforementioned place, Coach said "Look, are they there?"
I leaned forward from the back seat and looked to where Coach was pointing, and surely there was one raven on each side of the road, concentrating their gaze this way.
"Ah! It's true..." Immediately following my surprise, those opposite birds simultaneously took off into the sky.

It seemed just like they flew off to notify the shrine of our arrival. That's it, it was just a mysterious personal experience, but after that, I think I couldn't believe it any more...

<Coach's Experience>

Hey--your coach, that you just mentioned... is it me? Ahh, what an experience... that you simply wrote it as such a story... Ahh, it's very Isshi-like, but... but it's truth that those two birds are there each and every time. (I have a problem with writing things like this too though...) The first time I went to this shrine a Shinto Priest asked me, "Have you been greeted by two ravens?" and I was laughing at him all along but it can't be helped. Incidentally, a freebie story...

Each time I go inside the shrine at the end of the year, I hand over just one, lone paper pouch as it is. Inside would be some sacred sake and a calendar, but there's already a mound of sake and calendars around it. Because all of the people who visit the shrine make this set each time. That's not to say that it happens every year, nor that I'm told about it all of a sudden, but in spite of that I can't understand that it's a necessary amount to lay out. At the end of one year I asked "What's all this for?" Because I'll be welcoming that information, right? Well, as you'd expect I was greeted with a smiling face. By the way, I took seeds from the sunflowers growing around the grounds of this shrine, and when I stand motionlessly, those "wild birds" will come down and eat them directly from my hand. These wild birds that won't approach you if you take even one step outside the Torii gate... The humans inside the shrine grounds understand nothing for themselves... it seems.