The Aoi Festival is one of Kyoto’s Big Three Festivals, though if like me you appreciate authenticity over pageantry you might say it’s one of Kyoto’s Big Two (together with Gion Matsuri in July). Like the Gion Festival, there are … Read the rest
Category: Festivals (Page 5 of 26)
One of the prime functions of Shinto in Japan is the sacralisation of the country’s history. It’s a vital part of the national sense of identity, and why Shinto is sometimes called a religion of Japaneseness. The role shrines play … Read the rest
It seems that we have only just finished Oshogatsu with its new year shrine visits, and Kyoto is still cold enough to feel as if it’s mid-winter, yet here we are already on the brink of Setsubun and looking forward … Read the rest
Sunday, 24th September 2017, 10am – 8pm
Trafalgar Square, London
Japan Matsuri 2017
Features
Daikagura Performers: Mimasu Monnosuke, Okinaya Wasuke
Japanese Samurai Selection
Tsumura Reijiro, Suzuki Yoshitaka and Ichikawa Hibiki with DJ TAKAKI
London’s very own and much loved
Today is Obon, ‘the Japanese day of the dead’, and an occasion about which Green Shinto has posted in several previous years. (Click here for reflections on Japanese and the dead, here for Kyoto’s Daimonji festival, and here for a … Read the rest
Shimogamo’s mitaraisai (water festival) is one of Green Shinto’s favourites, about which we’ve reported in previous years (see here for nice pics of 2014, or here for a full account of last year’s event, or here for an early account … Read the rest
This year’s Gion Festival happened to coincide with a three-day weekend, thanks to the public holiday today (July 17, the day of the main procession). It meant extra large crowds and extra large numbers of police, who for the first … Read the rest