We are walking from Shiba Park towards the Imperial Palace. Our route follows one of Tokyo’s major metropolitan roads, with Shimbashi to the east and Toranomon to the west. Traffic flows beneath a skyline of office towers. This stretch is known as Atagoshita-dōri, ‘the road beneath Atago’. Halfway to Kasumigaseki, a shallow recess opens at the roadside. We almost miss it, but on second glance notice a vermilion torii inside.
Curious, we wander towards the gate. Behind it, a flight of stone steps rises steeply from the street, flanked by ginkgo trees yet to turn golden. A sign at their foot reads ‘出世の石段’ (shusse no ishidan): the ‘Stone Steps of Success’. The invitation is difficult to resist. We place the lead foot forward, accept the weight of our bodies through hip and knee, and push into the first step.
Tokyo, like many capital cities, draws strivers from around the country who have come here to make it. Workers from the surrounding office districts climb alongside us, while others make their way back down, one hand on the stone balustrades. Each climber’s idea of success is bound to be different: a goal pursued, a future imagined, perhaps simply a life made more secure. Here, in the centre of the city, is a place set aside to acknowledge that striving in the company of others doing the same.
The ascent has something of a monumental feel to it, and for good reason. We are climbing Mount Atago, or Atago-yama, the highest natural mountain in Tokyo’s 23 wards. At 25.7 metres, it is diminutive by alpine standards, its slopes now largely obscured by the surrounding city. But it is just right for scaling during a lunch break, lanyard around the neck and coffee can in hand.
Imagining oneself at the summit is easy enough: the climb completed, successful. But between that imagined goal and the start lies the uncertainty of how to get there. Mount Atago has the answer: 86 of them. Realising a dream takes steps. The difficulty is holding at once the north star and the small, effortful, unshowy actions required to follow it. Thankfully, we don’t need to know every step; one tends to reveal the next.
Our centre of gravity shifts over the planted lead foot as the rear foot swings through to find its mark. Another torii comes into view above, this one of plain stone. Beyond it stands the main hall of Atago Shrine, or Atago-jinja. The shrine has stood on the mountaintop since 1603, when Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, ordered it built to protect the new capital, Edo, from fire.
According to shrine lore, Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa shogun, requested plum blossoms from the summit. Several mounted retainers tried and failed to climb the steep stone steps before the samurai Magaki Heikurō succeeded, ascending on horseback and returning with the blossoms. The feat brought him recognition as a master horseman. From the story came the steps’ association with advancement and success. In time, people came to the shrine to pray for both.
The Steps of Success are uneven and exposed—almost cobbled—and stable footing is not always easy to maintain. But at least the climb is more straightforward than it would have been on horseback. We reach the top, heart rates elevated, breathing a little deeper. The shrine grounds lie ahead, but first we pause to look back. The tree-lined stairway descends towards the gate, with Atagoshita-dōri, its passing traffic and office buildings beyond. For a moment, we recognise the achievement.
I’ve always found that reaching a goal passes more quietly than one might imagine. Celebration has never been what drives me. What excites me is the space that opens once a period of hard work is over. It can be unnerving, and we might rush to fill it too quickly, but in its emptiness there is possibility.
The next step will soon be due, so I prefer to remain in this clearing as long as permissible. From here, the goal just achieved begins to look, in retrospect, more like a milestone passed. The north star itself might as well be unattainable. Its old light dissipates as another, more complex light gathers in its place, coalescing until its next form becomes apparent.
With all we’ve learned on the climb, we stand before Atago-jinja in the early autumn air. I open my small leather coin pouch and find two five-yen coins. Into the wooden offering box they fall with a soft knock. We bow twice, clap twice, then place our hands together and visualise the path ahead.
◯ AJ
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