Japan’s ‘godless’ lake warns of creeping climate change

A Japanese priest leads a vigil at Lake Suwa, highlighting climate change's impact on the rare "God's Crossing" phenomenon.

The Japanese priest and his parishioners gathered before dawn, hoping that climate change had not robbed them of the chance to experience an increasingly rare communion with the sacred.

The few dozen men, most in their sixties, were headed to Nagano's Lake Suwa in search of a phenomenon called "God's Crossing" that has gone from reliable to elusive in recent decades.

Known as "miwatari" in Japanese, it occurs when a crack opens up in the frozen lake surface, allowing shards of thinner ice to break through and form a ridge where local deities are believed to cross.

For centuries, the priest of the nearby Yatsurugi Shrine has led an annual watch for the crossing, contributing to a unique record of a changing climate.

This year's watch began on January 5, with Kiyoshi Miyasaka -- a priest in Japan's Shinto religion -- leading the flock. One man carried a worn flag, another a giant axe. All wore jackets bearing the shrine's crest.

They set out with hope, despite a seven-year stretch in which the God's Crossing has not appeared once.