"Five seasonal days" (
gosekku) celebrate simple but essential blessings. Timing of the five seasonal days is still based on the lunar calendar, but transferred to the solar months. For example, the days were originally observed on the third day of the third lunar month, the fifth of the fifth, the seventh of the seventh, and the ninth of the ninth. The days now retain the same position, but in solar months of the same numbers. Seven Herbs Day now falls on January 7, when people greet the spring with a specially seasoned soup. For Hina-matsuri, or Doll Festival (nowadays called Girls' Day) on March 3, many people reenact the ancient practice of floating clay or paper dolls on a river or the sea to ensure the health of their daughters. Boys' Day (
kodomo-no-hi) falls on May 5, when little boys receive dolls of heroic figures who model valor and loyalty. On July 7, Tanabata, or "Seventh Night," recalls the Chinese story of the celestial cowboy and the weaver maid, condemned to be distant stars forever because their romance caused them to slacken their labors. On this night the two reunite briefly on the bridge of the Milky Way. Farmers and textile workers take the opportunity to pray for success in their occupations. Finally, Chrysanthemum Day (
kiku-no-sekku) falls on the ninth of September. Many still go to local shrines to appreciate the beautifully cultivated flower, which became the official symbol of the emperor during the Meiji era in the mid-nineteenth century. One curious period calculated by the lunar calendar (equivalent to October usually) sees all shrines sending off their kami to the Izumo Taisha, where they stay together for a spell before moving for similar brief visits to two other shrines. At their home shrines, worshippers observe "a month without kami" (
kami-na-zuki).
O-Bon matsuri is one of those feasts whose timing is determined by adding a solar month to the lunar reckoning. Hence a feast formerly celebrated during the middle (i.e., full moon) of the seventh month now occurs during the middle of August, the eighth. On November 23 and 24 falls the "New Food" festival (nii-name-sai). Acting as high priest, the emperor himself leads the ceremonies. When a newly enthroned emperor presides, the feast is called "Great Food" festival (daijosai), and the ritual seals and formalizes the new ruler's accession. This is one of some thirty regular imperial ceremonies (koshitsu saishi) that occur through the year, most conducted privately within the palace. The Autumnal Equinox still calls for quite elaborate observances in some places. The Suwa shrine in Nagasaki, for example, holds its annual Okunchi for three full rousing days and nights. Involving a full range of activities, from raucous processions to solemn predawn purifications conducted in almost total silence, the festival engages large numbers of worshippers actively. Festivities begin and end with more private rituals designed to bring the kami into the ceremony and see them back to their places of repose.
Some ceremonies occur often but on a more ad hoc basis than the regularly scheduled festivals. Nearly every new architectural venture occasions religiously inspired observances. "Earth Sanctification" (Jichin-sai) is a ritual of Daoist origin conducted by a Shinto priest to prepare the ground for new construction. Participants call on the kami of the place for protection. These ceremonies are roughly analogous to the American practice of hoisting a small evergreen to the top of a newly completed structure--perhaps religious in origin, but now purely customary. A rite called senza-sai or sengu can occur on any number of occasions. In the ritual a kami is relocated, either permanently to a new shrine or temporarily, such as during repairs, or for a matsuri, or for a time of repose in one of several of the deity's regular abodes. In the case of Ise shrine, for example, the ceremony happens every twenty years, when a new shrine is constructed on the grounds.
From The Handy Religion Answer Book, Second Edition by Jack Rendard, Ph.D., (c) 2012 Visible Ink Press(R). Your Guide to the World's Major Faiths
