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The Phoenix Rooster (Ho-o)

February 16, 2014 / John D. / 2 Comments

Detail of the phoenix on the rooftop of Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto's Temple of the Golden Pavilion

One thing I’ve noticed on my visits to shrines and temples is the number of times one comes across the phoenix (ho-o). It’s a popular item on mikoshi (portable shrine), and it stands famously on the top of Kyoto’s Golden Pavilion and the gorgeous Byodo-in south of the city. It’s a legendary bird in the West because of rising from the ashes, and it’s associated with the Greeks and Christianity as a symbol of rebirth. But what of its significance in the East? Here, first of all, is Wikipedia’s take on the matter.

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Wikipedia

Images of an ancient bird have appeared in China for over 8000 years, as earliest as the Hongshan neolithic period, on jade and pottery motifs, then decorating bronze as well as jade figurines. Some believe they may have been a good-luck totem among eastern tribes of ancient China.

Portable shrines have mirrors, torii and invariably a bird or birds on the roof. But why?

During the Han Dynasty (2,200 years ago) two phoenixes, one a male (feng, 鳳) and the other a female (huang, 凰) were often shown together facing one other. Later, during the Yuan Dynasty the two terms were merged to become fenghuang, generally translated as “phoenix”.

Also during this period, the fenghuang (phoenix) was used as a symbol representing the direction south. This was portrayed through a male and female facing each other. Their feathers were of the five fundamental colors: black, white, red, green, and yellow. These colors are said to represent the Confucian five virtues.

The phoenix represented power sent from the heavens to the Empress. If a phoenix was used to decorate a house it symbolized that loyalty and honesty were in the people that lived there. Or alternatively, phoenix only stays when the ruler is without darkness and corruption.

The fenghuang of the Chinese, said to live on the Kunlun mountains, is also called the “August Rooster” (Chinese: 鶤雞; pinyin: kūnjī) with solar symbolism as an animal signalling the dawn sun and since it sometimes takes the place of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac, it is a symbol with positive connotations, symbolic of high virtue, grace and prosperity.

The Chinese fenghuang was also often portrayed as a male-female yin-yang pair of birds, with the female being an emblem for the Empress. The Chinese regard the phoenix as a rare phenomenon, seen only in times of peace, and symbolizing conjugal bliss.

The Japanese rooster is associated with Amaterasu, and a Phoenix or Rooster often sits on top of the mikoshi during a festival. This identification of the phoenix with another solar symbol and sunbird August-Rooster, suggests another intriguing connection — one with the Hepthalites (alternatively, the Hata clan [immigrants from the continent who settled in many areas, particularly Kyoto].

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The Japanese Mythology and Folklore website, from which the extract below has been adapted, takes a slightly different line by tracing the roots in the Indian subcontinent and an evolution from raptor to rooster. The primacy of Amaterasu and the notion of the phoenix-rooster as a familiar of the sun would thus explain the prevalence of the bird on Shinto mikoshi. But it still leaves me wondering: was the bird first introduced to Japan through continental Buddhism? Did it merge with shamanic notions of birds as messengers of the gods and of humans in trance taking flight? When is a phoenix mythological, and when is it a plain rooster?

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A number of preliminary observations about the early phase in the evolution of the phoenix: The Indo-Iranians seem to have started out with a tale of two birds — two raptor birds – falcon or eagle-hawk types. The etymological cognate Sanskrit śyenaḥ (“raptor, eagle, bird of prey”) also appears as a divine figure. Saēna is also a personal name, which is the root of the name.

Phoenix on a pole at a festival held at Yasui Konpira-gu in Kyoto

The bird icons have to do with fortune, health and wealth or prosperity, including nourishing rain for a bounty of crops. Saena is a rain-bringer (with a role much like a sky- or thunder-deity). The bird is seen as withering the tree in the Bundishne… i.e. scorching the tree and therefore associated with the sun. Therefore, it may have been the origin of the Phoenix as Sunbird.

The evolution of the phoenix as a fertility and healing symbol (eagle) has to do with the top of the Hom Tree. In Korea and Japan, the phoenix’s association with Hom tree shows evident strong influences from the Chinese Han dynasty as well as Iranian or Persian ones, due to Silk Road exchanges and trading activities. Ho-o Bird in Japan originated from Hom?

The idea of a bird as a messenger of the Sky God or sky deities, becomes a cornerstone of the myths of divine kingship or heavenly descent in East Asia, and sacred birds feature prominently in many court-chronicled myths as well as folklore surrounding the royals of Korea and Japan. Genetically and culturally, the Koreans (and lineage-related Japanese) are closely related to ancient North and Northeast Asian populations.

Given that Jewish or Hebrew communities were known to have existed in various parts of China like Kaifeng, Luoyang and elsewhere in South China, we also cannot discount the intriguing possibility that the Japanese phoenix called Ho-o may be derived from a source connected to Jewish (or Jewish-Iranian) priestly lineages because the Rabbis called the phoenix the hol phoenix, the closest etymology for the Japanese phoenix so far.

Statue of a phoenix on sale at the Kitano flea market (Tenjin-san)

Magic mirrors

February 16, 2014 / John D. / 1 Comment

Mirrors play a central part in Shinto, for they are thought to contain the body of the kami. This blog has carried several articles ‘reflecting’ on the special properties of the mirror, and why it would have had a mesmerising effect on bronze-age people. (See here for example.) Recently too we had a feature on the recreation of a magic mirror that might have once belonged to the early empress, Himiko. But what exactly is ‘a magic mirror’?

In its latest online edition, the wonderful Kyoto Journal carries an absorbing article and interview with the last remaining maker of ‘magic mirrors’. Below are extracts; for the more lengthy original article, please see here.

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THE MAGIC MIRROR MAKER

Interview by Jodie Moon with Paul Carty; Translation by Masako Kaidan
Many thanks to Lisa Yamashita Allen for shaping and polishing…

Bronze mirrors
The ancient craft of bronze mirror-making dates back to 2900–2000 BCE in China, Egypt and the Indus Valley. Bronze, a highly-reflective alloy of copper, tin and lead, can be either gold or silver in color. Bronze mirrors became popular and were produced in large quantities during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–24 AD) in China. Usually circular, they later evolved into a variety of forms, from oblong to octagonal.

Antique bronze mirror from Kokugakuin museum. The back is often decorated with patterns or plant depictions. They were regarded as sacred because they were thought to hold magical properties.

As use of bronze mirrors became widespread in China, the ancient craft of mirror-making spread to neighboring Korea and Japan. The Emperor Cao Rui and the Wei Court of China reputedly gifted numerous bronze mirrors (then known as shinju-kyo in Japan) to Queen Himiko of Wa (Japan). During excavations of the Kurotsuka kofun (tomb) in Nara, archeologists discovered 33 similar bronze mirrors dating to the 3rd-7th centuries.

In ancient Japan, mirrors were especially revered as rare and mysterious objects. In 1339, Chikafusa Kitabatake wrote (in the Jinno Shotoki) that they were seen as a “source of honesty” because they reflect “everything good and bad, right and wrong… without fail.” In fact, one of Japan’s three most important imperial treasures is a sacred mirror called Yata-no-Kagami.

In a story that is central to Japanese mythology, this bronze mirror was key to coaxing Amaterasu Omikami (the Sun Goddess) out from the cave she had retreated to after a skirmish with her younger brother (Susanoo, the Storm God). (While one deity gave an amusing dance performance, another held up the mirror to deceive her into believing there was another goddess who could outshine her). It is believed that Amaterasu resides in the Yata-no-Kagami, housed today in Ise Shrine, off-limits to the public in Mie Prefecture.

In Japan, some bronze mirrors are known as magic mirrors, or makkyo (魔鏡). One side is brightly polished, while an embossed design decorates the reverse side. Remarkably, when light is directed onto the face of the mirror, and reflected to a flat surface, an image magically appears (usually the one featured on its back). While the metal is completely solid, the reflected image gives the impression that it must be in some way translucent. For many centuries, the ‘magic’ of these mirrors baffled both laymen and scientists.

A holy trinity of mirrors in one of Fushimi Inari's countless subshrines

The currently accepted explanation for this phenomenon is that during its construction the mirror’s surface is scraped, scratched, and polished, then coated with an amalgam of mercury, thereby causing stresses and “preferential buckling” into convexities of a scale too small to be observed by the naked eye, but matching the pattern on the back of the mirror.

Kyoto Journal sat down with the man rumored to be the last remaining makkyo maker in the world — Yamamoto Akihisa — and his friend, Yoshida Hisashi. Mr. Yamamoto is descended from a family of mirror makers based in Kyoto. Mr. Yoshida works with Shinto shrines and makes traditional Shinto clothing. They collaborated to organize a fascinating exhibition displaying Mr. Yamamoto’s mirrors in June 2013.

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YAMAMOTO: When devotional mirrors are displayed in Shinto shrines, they are either hidden from the public eye or placed where they can only be seen from the front. At the exhibition I wanted to give people the opportunity to see both sides of the mirror.

Your company’s mirrors go to both Buddhist temples as well as Shinto shrines, however, I heard that you were a Shinto mirror maker. How would you identify or define yourself and your work?

YOSHIDA: While Shinto is the native religion of Japan, we Japanese have been receptive to other religions, particularly Buddhism. The underlying belief of Shinto is that there are some eight million gods. There’s no real distinction between those eight million gods and Buddha. In other words, religion in Japan is polytheistic, rather than monotheistic. In the same way, there’s no clear distinction between the mirrors for Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples, nor those with the image of Jesus Christ.

They are all religious in nature?

YOSHIDA: Yes, but actually makkyo are rarely sent to Shinto shrines, they are usually sent to private homes.
Makkyo project images, of a saint for example. In Shinto belief, the gods dwell in our natural surroundings, like in trees or stones, which means that there is little imagery of the gods themselves in shrines. Therefore, it’s not appropriate to have makkyo mirrors in Shinto shrines.

YAMAMOTO: For Buddhism, there are many different types of temples. Some temples are a mix of Shinto and Buddhism and have a yashiro [a small shrine in their precincts]. These temples place a mirror inside the honden [the main hall of the temple] or in front of the Buddhist statue.

Mirrors have many uses — they were put in graves, ten mirrors placed around people’s heads, especially in kofun — used as gifts, as religious ceremonial tools and sacred goshintai [“god-dwelling objects”], but why do you think they’re so special? Why do they have this long tradition and so many uses?

Watching you, watching me.... Altar mirrors are often angled to reflect the spirit of the kami within the person of the onlooker

YOSHIDA: It’s believed that mirrors in Shinto shrines, for example, are placed in cases where people can see their own reflection when they come into the shrines to pray, so that more than about seeing the gods you can see yourself reflected in the mirrors and it becomes about seeing a clear image of yourself.

At the exhibition, you could actually see your face on the back of the mirror. Is there a distinction between mirrors with that reflective quality on the back and mirrors that don’t have that?

YAMAMOTO: The traditional style for a mirror does not have a clear reflection on the back. People from Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples prefer this style because they want to preserve and continue the traditional craft. However, it’s more time consuming and more expensive to make.

When you make a work that’s going to be a goshintai, is it a different process? Is there something you do differently in the case of a sacred object — washing hands or wakanai [praying] — compared to a mirror that might go into a house?

There’s not much of a difference when making mirrors for personal homes or as goshintai. However, when I go to Shinto shrines, I wear shiroshozoku [a white cloth] because it’s being delivered to sacred ground.

When you make a mirror for commission, do your clients specify what they want or do they ask for your ideas?

Replica of a Hidden Christian magic mirror. Outwardly it looks like a Shinto mirror, but when a light is shone from a certain angle, an image of the Virgin Mary is reflected on the wall. (In the Franciscan museum, Kyoto)

Both. There are cases where the client says what they want me to make, and there are times where I’m asked to offer my own ideas. When the client wants a special image I ask a painter to make a design and then show it to the client.

Generally, I show my clients many different samples and designs from what I already have and then make a suggestion. This is more common because I already have the molds, so it’s more cost-effective. A new design costs about ten times more, and takes about two to three months to finish because everything has to be made from scratch.

While it’s not very common for me to make the whole thing from the start, I prefer that because then both my technology and my art can evolve. In order to continue and develop my craft, I want to have the opportunity and time to devote to [the whole process of making] one piece. So, it’s kind of a dilemma.

It sounds like there is a different sense or feeling about the craft in your family. Why is it important to you to continue this craft?

I’m not simply making mirrors as a source of income. I believe it is a really important craft and I want to pass my knowledge about the craft on to other people. At the Impact HUB Kyoto exhibition we showed images of Buddha and Jesus Christ. As a Japanese I don’t see the distinction between “that’s Buddhist” or “that’s Christian’ because our culture accepts all religions. I didn’t know how non-Japanese people would see the exhibition, but I think that’s an important thing — to encompass and accept all religions — and that’s probably what the world needs now. And that concept of encompassing and accepting all religions is a story I want to tell through this craft.

Ise island, Shinojima

February 16, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Shinmei Shrine retains the magnificence of the Ise Grand Shrine. Once every year, the male spirit of Hachioji Shrine is said to visit Shinmei Shrine (a female shrine). On that day, all the lights on the island are turned off awaiting the ritual’s end. (all photos courtesy Yomiuri Shimbun)

Pilgrimage to Shinojima island

February 16, 2014 Yoshitaka Tsujimoto / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
The Yomiuri Shimbun

In the Edo period (1603-1867), travel and transportation were restricted under the Tokugawa shogunate, and the only major trip most people could take was to visit the Ise Grand Shrines in Mie Prefecture once in their lifetimes. Surprisingly, the famous shrines apparently weren’t the final destination for the worshippers.

After visiting the Ise Grand Shrines, pilgrims crossed Ise Bay by boat to reach a shrine on Shinojima island off the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture. Their worship is completed with their visit to the island shrine. At least, that’s the story passed down on the island, even if the Ise shrines deny the legend. The discrepancy intrigued me.

A stone crisscrossed with gouges left over from an old quarry that used to operate on Shinojima island. Stone used to be shipped from the island to the mainland. Today, the depth of the sea around the quarry attracts anglers.

Amid the gusting winter winds, I disembarked from a high-speed boat onto Shinojima. I noticed a sign reading “The island of onbe-dai and fugu.” Onbe-dai is a salted preparation of sea bream, which is made as an offering for the Ise shrines.

Legend has it that Yamatohime no Mikoto, a daughter of Emperor Suinin, once paid a visit to Shinojima island. The princess, who is said to have established the Ise Grand Shrines, loved sea bream caught near the island so much that she decreed Shinojima to be the sole source of sea bream to be presented at the grand shrines. For more than 1,000 years since, exactly 508 of the chosen sea bream are devoted to the shrines each year, spread across three separate occasions.

Certainly, there must be lean years. But the designated number of sea bream of very specific sizes must be collected for the offering each year. It must be a difficult duty.

“We want to give good fish to the gods. I can’t call it a hard job,” said Yoshichika Kinoshita, 54, of the Shinojima fishery cooperative association, who has been responsible for the work for more than 30 years.

I felt embarrassed for taking it lightly.

The one fishing town on this small island, which has only about 6 kilometers of shoreline, is like a labyrinth. The roads are so narrow that I can touch either side with my arms outstretched. The alleys twist in irregular turns. And at one corner of this labyrinth stands a magnificent shrine—which seems somewhat out of place with the rest of the island’s scenery. It’s the main structure of Shinmei Shrine, which enshrines some of the same gods enshrined at the Ise Grand Shrines.

Thanks to this auspicious background, one of the old halls from the Ise Grand Shrines is given to Shinmei Shrine, once every 20 years, in the year following the regular renewal of the Ise shrine halls. That’s why pilgrims in the past headed to Shinojima to pray, and why islanders have passed down the lore.

When Shinmei Shrine receives a new hall from the Ise shrines, its existing hall is moved a short distance to Hachioji Shrine, whose hall will be moved to another shrine in turn. The halls, made of 200-year-old Japanese cypress, have been recycled this way over many long years.

Stone guardians outside the island's shrine

Although Shinojima is a small island, it has a history rich with stories. The tiny island makes an appearance in Manyoshu, a collection of ancient waka poems. A note recorded on a wood strip found in the remains of Heijokyo capital in Nara shows that the island paid tribute to emperors with gifts including dried shark.

During the so-called Nambokucho period (1336-1392) when the Imperial house was split in two, Emperor Gomurakami (1328-1368), who was a prince at that time, famously wound up on the island after encountering misfortune at sea. A well called Mikadoi was dug for the prince during his stay. The well still holds water, whose surface shines black from the bottom of the shaft.

Rocks were hewn from several places on the island during the Edo period for the construction of Nagoya Castle. One of these locations, a cliff on the island’s western coast still retains visible gouges.

Warrior Kato Kiyomasa (1562-1611) ordered workers to bring a rock from the cliff, but it was too heavy to transport and so was left where it was. This rock is now known as “Kiyomasa no Makuraishi.”

“Twenty daimyo feudal lords in western Japan competed with one another to hew rocks from the island. Locals feared ‘the island would lose its shape,’” said Kazuyoshi Miki, 75, a tour guide, adding with a laugh that the people of the island eventually got good compensation from the lords, so they didn’t complain.

Delicious ‘diamonds’

Those daimyo may have licked their lips for another of the island’s specialties: torafugu, or tiger puffer fish. It’s not so well known, but Aichi Prefecture boasted the largest catch of wild torafugu in Japan for three years running, starting in 2001. Shinojima is the main fishing port for the catch. At that time, fugu caught near the island were reportedly sent to Shimonoseki, a Yamaguchi Prefecture city famous for its fugu.

“The fish commanded very high prices during the bubble era. Fishermen cherished them as the ‘diamonds of the sea’ back then,” said Toru Fukubayashi, 55, an adviser for the island’s fisheries cooperative association.

Rather than take everyone’s word for it, I decided to order a course of torafugu dishes at a ryokan inn, to test that reputation with my own taste buds.　　If Yamatohime no Mikoto had supped on fugu instead of sea bream, I can’t help but think that the offering would be “onbe-fugu” today, not onbe-dai.

I paired the seafood feast with hot sake and had a wonderful time.

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From JR Tokyo Station, the Tokaido Shinkansen can take you to Nagoya Station in about 1 hour and 40 minutes. From there, a 50-minute ride on the Meitetsu Nagoya Railroad to Kowa Station, then 30 minutes on a Chita-noriai bus will bring you to Morozaki Port. Get on a Meitetsu Kaijo Kankosen fast ferry and get off at Shinojima Port. The ferry ride is about 10 minutes.　　For more information, call Shinojima Kanko Kyokai at (0569) 67-3700.

Shinto Awakenings (2)

February 12, 2014 / John D. / 2 Comments

This is the second part of a personal account by Quin Arbeitman, an American based in Fukuoka, of how he came to be a Shinto believer. (For Part One, please click here.)

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Shinto Awakenings 2: Geronimo!

The whole prayer thing was brand new to me. I was not raised in a religious household, and though I’d been to church and synagogue a little bit via each of my respective parents’ families, I really was a rank beginner at it.

One of the first websites I read was very helpful to me in that it not only gave the standard rote instructions; more importantly, it relayed a priest’s advice that it really doesn’t matter too much whether you get the rituals right as long as you go into it with a pure intent. And in fact I did mess up the order on just about everything for a while. Clap first? Bow first? Aw, crud. But by approaching it knowing that heart mattered more than form, soon enough the form got better.

At Kushida Jinja during Setsubun, one passes through Otafuku's mouth in order to receive blessings for the next year. (All photos courtesy Arbeitman)

And I felt fast rewards because of this. Honestly, I found the very act of prayer to be quite pleasant for its own sake. So I kept on doing it. Soon I was stopping by the shrine every day. I discovered an even tinier but equally charming shrine on the route home from my job, and started praying there as well. The only person I told about it was my then-girlfriend, who thought I must be going through a midlife crisis, which I guess is one way of looking at it.

Within a week or two, it was last year’s Setsubun. I went with my girlfriend to the festivities at nearby Kushida Shrine, and happened to arrive just as the big public ceremony for the day was starting. Local celebrities were tossing mochi [rice cakes] and other treats into a dangerously packed crowd, and we found ourselves stuck in the middle of it. People on all sides jumped and strained in vain for the good luck gifts; meanwhile, I just stood there, and somehow, these treats kept on falling on me — catching in the folds of my jacket, no less. A good portent, I thought.

In the midst of this, I was assigned by my English school to travel a few Saturdays to Hiroshima to help train a new teacher there. I visited Gokoku Shrine in the middle of the city, a shrine that was dedicated to the dead of one war in the 1860s, and later rebuilt after it was destroyed by the atomic blast of an entirely different war. I prayed in respect for the war dead, and left in an oddly serene state of altered consciousness. I felt like I was buzzing as I walked, but it was an easy buzz.

As I walked out of the front torii of the park, an imposingly large black van (really in this case, a black bus) festooned with Rising Suns and loudspeakers drove past me, slowing as the driver noticed me. Normally this would cause a moment of fear and unease in my gaijin heart, but in this case, I merely thought, My brother! as he passed. Clearly I was stoned, basically, though not from the usual means. In that moment I just naturally felt a communion with the deep love he also had for his country. This prayer thing packs a punch sometimes, doesn’t it, I thought.

From Quin's first visit to Itsukushima Jinja, February 2013.

On my last day in Hiroshima, I had lunch with the new teacher I was helping to train. We got along swimmingly, and somehow or other the subject of Shinto came up and she mentioned that, by chance, she and her husband were among the less than two hundred people who live full time on the island of Miyajima. That’s the home of Itsukushima Shrine, quite possibly the most famous shrine in Japan, although my knowledge of Shinto was still so minimal at this point that I didn’t even know that the famous picture of the torii gates in the middle of the water that you always see in postcards was in Hiroshima at all. The whole island is considered holy. There’s constrictions placed on how one can go about life there; famously, nobody is supposed to be born there, or die there, in order to keep the purity. I think this partly goes to explain why so few people actually live there. And when I went for the first time, it was as an invited guest of a (western, non-Shinto) resident of the island, one whose house was only a few hundred meters from the shrine. It was as though Shinto was inviting me over for a coffee. What a nice coincidence, I thought.

Then a week later — less than a month into my Shinto dalliance — everything changed.

I had a full-on religious revelation. Visions, out of body experiences, visitations, mysterious symbols, celestial events. All of the bells and whistles one could ask for.

It was not the kind of thing that I really thought could happen to me in real life. Afterwards it was impossible to consider myself agnostic (let alone atheist) any longer. For some reason, I hadn’t gone into this seriously expecting to be able to receive any of the personal gnosis I’d been looking for. Be careful when you wish for life-changing confirmation of deity, you might just get it.

The torii gate at Kego Jinja at sunset. In the lore of many traditions around the world, mystical experience is said to be more common at the in-between areas: at bridges, gates and crossroads; sunrise, sunset, and the times between awake and asleep.

I wasn’t planning to share any of the details here in public. It’s the kind of thing that the more I share, the less I’m apt to be taken seriously by anyone who has not experienced such things themselves. (I certainly didn’t take others’ experiences seriously back when I was an atheist.) But I’ve been thinking about it. Simply by coming out and saying I had such an experience, it’s already too late. Shikata ga nai, ne. I might as well just be as honest and forthright as I can.

The experience came in three parts.

When the first part occured, I was lying in bed attempting to sleep. “Just a dream, then,” the more skeptical among you are already thinking. Having experienced it myself though, I have to say that the quality of my sensations were unlike any dream I’ve ever had. I have no doubt that my being on the boundary between conscious and unconscious is part of what opened the door to this other way of perceiving. Still, call it what you will, but “dream” is not the right way to speak of it.

Two impossibly bright sparkling balls of light approached me from a distance. I really mean sparkling, in that they were very much like multicolored fireworks sparklers, floating through inner space toward me. How close or far was impossible to tell. They seemed to be both impossibly vast and as small as, well, a sparkler; they seemed both a part of my physical reality, and not. If this description is hard to understand, that’s a function of the rather inexpressible nature of this kind of experience.

One of them came up to me and touched me somewhere inside, and my awareness hopped out of my body. It was definitely an Out-Of-Body Experience of the classic sort — I had awareness of being out just a few feet over my body, and my awareness extended out a few feet further than normal to include all of the objects in the room around me, and of course these two floating sparkling light shows before me. Then they departed, and I really didn’t know what to do, except think “Did this really just happen?” and let myself drift to sleep.

In the second part of the experience, I had a dream where I entertained two beautiful women who came to visit. Unlike the visit from the balls of light, this did maintain the general feeling and atmosphere of a dream state. However, what actually happened in the dream was completely unique and not something I’d experienced before, and quite special for me. I won’t be sharing more, though, as I feel that the things the ladies presented me aren’t for me to share in public.

Shitateru Hime Jinja. According to the officials at its head shrine Sumiyoshi Jinja, this tiny shrine to Shitateru Hime is thought to be the sole extant shrine devoted purely to her in all of Japan; a bit surprising, given her mythological importance as the first heavenly poet.

Now, when I started out praying at my two shrines, I just kind of implicitly assumed that the kami I was directing my prayers to were male. (Yes, sexism. I have no excuse.) Needless to say, after this experience, I was more than a little bit curious as to just who exactly I’d been praying to this whole time. It’s a little bit embarrassing that I didn’t already know, actually, but what can I say; I’d still been thinking of myself as simply a dabbling spiritual tourist. So as soon as I could, I went to my local shrines, took pictures of the placards, broke out the kanji dictionary. It turned out that this whole time I’d been praying to Toyotama Hime no Mikoto (“Princess Bountiful Jewel”) and Shitateru Hime no Mikoto (“Princess Light That Comes From Underneath”): two goddesses, both invariably depicted as beautiful women.

Back to the experience, though, as there’s still more. The third part of the experience came the next morning, as I was drifting awake. I was not fully conscious yet, and I suppose what I saw here was also probably a dream. But it was also unique — in this case I was not dreaming of a place or people or anything at all. I was dreaming in abstract symbols, symbols that I remembered and wrote down as soon as I awoke. One I felt represented a god, and the other seemed to represent the number two, although it wasn’t in fact a number two. This section was probably the most mysterious part of the experience and I still haven’t really worked out what it meant.

I wrote down all of my experiences from the previous night as fast as I could, as it seemed important. Then I got up and went to work.

There was, in a way, a fourth part to the experience, although it didn’t occur while I was in any kind of obviously mystical state like the other three. When I got to work, the other teacher on duty asked me if I’d heard the news — a meteor had hit Russia. I googled it, and was astonished. I hadn’t heard anything about this.

On February 15, 2013 — that’s the same time as I was having my experience — not only were the eyes of the entire scientific community watching the skies as near-earth asteroid Duende (Duende is Spanish for “sprite” or “fairy”) made the closest-ever pass to Earth of an asteroid of its size on record; meanwhile, the whole scientific community got sucker-punched by an entirely different and completely unexpected near-earth asteroid, which swooped in from a totally unrelated orbit and exploded over a place called Chelyabinsk Oblast.

That magnitude of meteor explosion only happens about once a decade; when over land in a place where people notice, only roughly once every forty years. For these two events to happen on the same exact day is a coincidence of literally astronomic proportions; for it to happen on the same exact day as my religious experience, which involved two balls of light, two women, and a symbol for the number 2… Well. You can probably guess what kinds of conclusions I drew.

Please do feel free to declare it to be mere coincidence, I don’t mind. My more skeptical friends already have. As I said before, I’m not trying to convert anyone here. I know what happened to me; I am also comfortable knowing that the experience was timed as it was to convince me, and me alone. That’s exactly what personal gnosis is: I’m the only one it can convince.

(By the way, lest you think I am an egomaniac, I don’t believe that the asteroids were a personal message to me or anything. But I don’t believe the timing of my vision was coincidence, either.)

Starting to really believe in invisible, powerful, hopefully benevolent deities is all well and good, but the proof of the okonomiyaki [Japanese omelette] is in the eating, as they say. Has my life meaningfully changed since I finally learned to give up worrying and love the kami?

I’m happy to say that it has.

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For more about Shitateru Hime, mythological Japan’s first poet, click here.

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Shinto spirit

February 10, 2014 / John D. / 1 Comment

courtesy Japan Times

There was an interesting item on a television variety show last night involving Yamamoto Masahiro, a professional baseball pitcher with Chunichi Dragons. The programme centred on admirable people who were doing things remarkable for their age. Yamamoto is 48!

Yamamoto came into the studio and was asked to explain the secret of his relative longevity in baseball terms. How was he able to continue for so long when all his peers were so much younger? The answer he gave was surprising. ‘I respect the baseball kami,’ he said.

It’s a great example of animism and how traditional notions are very much alive and well in modern Japan. I recently wrote about a kami of football, deriving from the ancient game of kemari.

The big difference with baseball is that kemari (like sumo and horse archery) was performed as an entertainment for the kami, whereas baseball is a modern game. As far as I know, it’s never been performed primarily for the kami, nor indeed have I ever come across a shrine that deifies a kami of baseball.

Photo courtesy Wikicommons

By way of explanation of what he meant, Yamamoto gave some examples of how he went about his job in terms of respecting the kami of baseball.

First of all, he cleaned up any litter or dirt he came across on the baseball pitch (in line with Shinto notions of cleanliness). Secondly he always did his best, no matter what the activity (training, preparing, showing solidarity, etc.). Thirdly he never spoke ill of baseball or made fun of it (in keeping with Shinto notions of purity and sincerity).

The rest of the participants all reacted with surprise and amazement, but in a few brief moments Yamamoto had clarified the most basic virtues and tenets of Shinto. I’m no fan of baseball, but I’ll be watching out now to see just how long the kami of baseball will continue to support him!

Tohoku festival

February 10, 2014 / John D. / 1 Comment

The 'namahage' demons of Akita Prefecture descend from the mountains to check everyone is behaving properly. (Photos by Nathan Hill)

Japan Today carries a report of an interesting midwinter festival in northern Japan. Fifteen “namahage” bearing torches of fire come down a mountain on Sunday night at the 51st Namahage Sedo Festival. Held over three nights every February in Oga City, Akita Prefecture, it is one of the five major festivals of the Tohoku winter. The “namahage” travel with a “naughty and nice” book in which is recorded information about the inhabitants of each house gathered in advance. Using this information the “namahage” will admonish children to behave better, study harder, wash behind their ears, or whatever it is that the child’s parents told the “namahage” earlier.

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Yuletide fires and demons of the night create a pagan atmosphere in the midwinter cold of northern Japan

A website dedicated to the ‘namahage’ operated by the Oga Board of Education states that the oldest record concerning them dates back to a travel writer in the mid-Edo period. There are various theories concerning their origin. One is to do with a legend about Emperor Wu coming to Oga. Another is that they represent Shugendo mountain ascetics (in similar manner to tengu). Another is that they are simply messengers of a mountain god which protects Oga. And yet another is that they may represent immigrants who arrived on the Oga coast and were ‘demonised’ because of their appearance.

On New Year’s Eve, young men of the various villages dressed as Namahage go from house to house shouting loudly “Are there any crybabies here? Any kids who don’t listen to their parents?” and “Does the woman of the house wake up early?” To the people of Oga, the Namahage are visiting gods that come with the New Year to warn against laziness, and bring protection from illness and disasters, a good harvest, and plentiful food from the mountains and sea. The houses that welcome the Namahage prepare traditional food and sake and offer it graciously to them.

Namahage events used to be held on the Lunar New Year in Oga, but now they are held on Dec.31. Due to a lack of participants to pass on the tradition, the number of areas holding Namahage events has been decreasing year by year. However they have recently been making a comeback. In 1978, Oga’s Namahage were designated officially as an Important Intangible Cultural Asset.

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Like Santa, the namahage descend once a year - but with a stern message instead of presents

The Sedo Festival

Under the light of the Sedo fire at Shinzan Shrine, after the “Yunomai” dedication of Haraikagura sacred dance (unique to the Oga area), and “Chinkamasai”, an old Shinto traditional religious service using hot water in a pot, the Sedo Festival starts. Young men are presented with masks which have been purified by a Shinto priest, and become Namahage. They then go back to the mountain, and a ceremony called “Namahage nyukon” (Namahage-spirit-investment) is held.

On stage at the shrine’s Kakuraden, some performances are held, including a reproduction of the Namahages’ New Years’ visits, “Sato no Namahage”, in which Namahage appear in different masks and costumes, and Namahage Daiko (Japanese drumming) as folk art.

In front of the Sedo fire, Namahage dance music created by Baku Ishii (modern dancer) and his son, Kan Ishii (composer), is played dynamically.

At the end of the festival, it’s fantastic to see the Namahage with torches coming down from the snowy mountain. After coming down the mountain, the Namahage walk around the shrine among the many visitors, and the festival ends.

The Shinto priests dedicate Goma-mochi (rice cakes) which are roasted on the Sedo fire as an offering to the Namahage. Then the Namahage return to the deep mountain where the God is.

The Sedo Festival is the one of the principal winter festivals in the Tohoku area. Collectively they are called the Michinoku Big 5 Snow Festivals, and also include the Yokote Kamakura, Hirosaki Castle Lantern Festival, Hachinohe Emburi, and Iwate Snow Festival.

The namahage participants gather before the shrine where their ritually purified masks await them.

More Olympic prayers

February 9, 2014 / John D. / 3 Comments

Will the kami smile on this potential Olympic champion? (copyright Yomiuri Shimbun)

An item in the Yomiuri Shimbun identifies another Olympic participant to keep an eye on in the coming days… will the kami shine on her fortunes? This time the article focusses on Sara Takanashi, a ski jumper. Being only 17, she’s apparently one of the generation without a clue about shrines, to the extent that she doesn’t know how to fill in an ema prayer request!

Confusingly the two women in the story below are named Takanashi and Takahashi. Interestingly, the older woman Takahashi retired to a distance while Takanashi wrote her ema request, but apparently later she had no qualms about checking what her younger friend had written – and then having it published in a newspaper. It highlights the very public nature of ema prayers.

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Takanashi puts Olympic wish on Yamagata shrine tablet
The Yomiuri Shimbun February 08, 2014

“I hope to give my best performance at the Sochi Olympics. I want to see smiles on many people’s faces!”

This was the wish written by leading gold medal prospect Sara Takanashi on an ema wooden tablet at a shrine in Yamagata Prefecture. Takanashi will compete from Tuesday night (early Wednesday Japan time) in women’s ski jumping, a new event debuting at the Sochi Olympics.

The ema tablet on which Tanakanashi wrote her request for Olympic success. Shinto shrines are where you go for worldly benefits in this life, Buddhist temples for the afterlife. (copyright Yomiuri Shimbun)

The 17-year-old jumper set a new record for victories in women’s jumping at the World Cup by winning 10 World Cup meets this season.

Takanashi wrote her wish on a wooden tablet at Uesugi Shrine in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, a shrine dedicated to warlord Uesugi Kenshin of the Sengoku (warring states) period.

Takanashi visited the shrine in October last year while staying at the home of Megumi Takahashi, a cousin of her mother Chikage, in Takahana in the prefecture.

Takanashi was on her way to Kazuno, Akita Prefecture, a city close to Lake Towada where a competition was being held. Takahashi, 44, asked the teenager if she wanted to go to the shrine after they ate soba noodles, telling her it was said to lend spiritual power to its visitors.

After putting her palms together in prayer in front of the shrine, Takanashi suddenly said she felt like writing her wish on an ema tablet. A bit baffled as she was not accustomed to doing so, Takanashi asked, “Should I write my name?” and “Which side should face up?”

Prayers for victory can come in all shapes and sizes. This one is from Kyoto's Hachidai Jinja where the great swordsman Miyamoto Musashi defeated a host of enemies.

Takahashi watched the world-class athlete write her wish on the tablet from a distance. She first saw what Takanashi had written when she later visited the shrine for her first prayers of the New Year.

Takahashi was about to put up her own tablet, on which she’d written “I hope Sara will be able jump as well as she hopes,” when she happened to find the jumper’s carefully written tablet. They had written basically the same wish.

Takahashi used to visit Takanashi’s home in Kamikawa, Hokkaido, and has watched her grow since she was a baby. Takahashi still remembers how energetic Takanashi was when she talked about the appeal of ski jumping. Takanashi started the sport when she was just a second grader at primary school.

Takanashi suddenly attracted a lot of attention when she made a leap of 141 meters, setting a new women’s record for Okurayama hill in Sapporo, as she was only a second-year middle school student at the time. Since then, Takahashi has had fewer opportunities to meet her. However, in her eyes Takanashi is still “an ordinary girl who loves fun things and laughs a lot.”

Takahashi said she tries to avoid talking about jumping whenever she sees Takanashi. The two went to an amusement park when Takanashi threw the first pitch in the season opener between the Yomiuri Giants and Hiroshima Carp baseball teams at Tokyo Dome in March last year.

The female jumper told Takahashi she wanted to ride a pirate ship-shaped ride that swings 15 meters above the ground. Afraid of heights, Takahashi reluctantly sat at the end row of the ride, said to be the most thrilling place.

Takanashi sat next to her. Though Takahashi kept screaming on the ride, Takanashi laughed out loud, saying, “It’s not scary at all!” Her expression seemed too innocent for a world-class skier.

Takahashi will go to Sochi to watch Takanashi’s performance on the world stage. “I think she might be a little tense, as the Olympics is a big event. But I just want Sara to do her best in jumping,” said Takahashi. She prays that their wishes on the tablets will come true.

Ema in a variety of languages at a shrine in Tokyo's Ueno park, hung out in a public display. For Takanashi there was a question of whether to put her name, but the standard retort is that the kami need identification to make the wish come true.