Often enough I review photos that I took earlier and discover a particular subject which deserved more attention — and more recorded pixels — than I devoted to it at the time.  

Here we go then. I was more interested in visiting Atago Jinja, the shrine to the fire god at the top of the tallest natural eminence in Tokyo’s 23 wards, than the stairs that (and this is repeated on every map and sign) the samurai Magaki Heikuro famously ascended at full speed on horseback to deliver plum blossoms to the shogun.

But the shrine didn’t, for whatever reason, hold my interest, although it should have, and having arrived by the elevator I only used the stairs to wearily descend as the busy day waned. The rough flight of steps deserved a closer examination though. And I now realize that the two bronze komainu lion-dog guardians at the base — forever declaring open-mouthed a “beginning” and closed-mouth un “end” — had clownish human-like noses, mustaches, horns rather like a rhino’s but at the crown of their heads, and disconcerting expressions indicative (at least to my mind) of derision.

They were also wearing collars made of primitive rice-straw shimenawa rope and decorated with folded-paper shide, which are traditionally used to demarcate and protect the sacred. I find myself wondering why. What would happen if the collars were removed? Would the guardians come to life and mock me to death?

There’s a wild and probably sad portent in the symbology here: hurried and unknowing I descended the staircase of success and strolled past the jeering guardians without more than a passing glance.