Around Shinto shrines and trees, shimenawa — rough, twisted hemp ropes — are adorned with shide, paper streamers folded in sharp zig-zag shapes like white bolts of lightning. Shimenawa mark a sacred space, be it naturally formed rocks or manmade gates, and denote the presence of the spiritual world inhabiting our own. In the wind, the shide flutter and rustle in whispered communion with nature, a reminder that everything is connected, profoundly and invisibly, to the shifting rhythms of the universe.