David Chart

I was going to write a serious article about cash offerings and transaction fees today. But it snowed! So, instead you can have some pretty pictures of Shirahata Hachiman Daijin. As you can see, the autumn leaves in the last photograph I took from this angle have fallen off. The clouds have passed, so it is a beautiful morning, but the ground is treacherous. Even where the snow was cleared, ice has formed. The sun will clear that up soon enough, so the approach to the prayer hall was safe… Read More »Jinja in the Snow

A while back, I mentioned that I had written an introductory booklet on jinja for Jinja Honchō. Unfortunately, it is only available at jinja, which meant it was inaccessible to most people reading this blog, particularly over the last couple of years. However, as part of a revision of Jinja Honchō’s English-language webpages, much of it has now been put online. It has been revised to be web pages rather than a PDF, but most of the content from the booklet is here, along with most of the illustrations. About… Read More »Pamphlet Online

“Ōmisoka” is the Japanese term for the last day of the year. “Misoka” is the last day of the month, when the moon goes into hiding (because in the old Japanese calendar, months always started on the day of the new moon), and so Ōmisoka, or “Great Misoka” is the last day of the whole year. Within Shinto, I very occasionally see “misoka” used to refer to the last day of the month, but that word seems to no longer be used in normal Japanese society. In Shinto traditions, Ōmisoka… Read More »Ōmisoka

The December 6th issue of Jinja Shinpō carried the second article in the series about sacred forests. This one was interesting because the topic had little direct connection to a jinja. There is a jinja in the area, but most of the forest that was being discussed is in a municipal park in Suita, Osaka Prefecture. The park apparently surrounds the jinja, so it is possible that the whole area was originally part of the jinja’s precincts, but if so the article does not emphasise it. In any case, in… Read More »Forest Management

Every day, I go for a walk near my home. The walk is about 5 km, and I chose the route to stay away from main roads and be as pleasant as possible, while also taking me past Shirahata Hachiman Daijin. The number of public roadside shrines I pass may, therefore, be a bit surprising. This does not include shrines inside people’s gardens — just ones that are open to the general public. The first one is by the bus stop near our flat, with a petrol station (gas station,… Read More »Roadside Shrines

The December 6th issue of Jinja Shinpō had a short article about a matsuri held at a jinja in Yamagata Prefecture, Shōnai Jinja. The matsuri involves a procession, which was held this year, at reduced scale, after being cancelled last year. However, from this year the date of the matsuri has been changed from August 15th to October 6th, because of “extreme heat caused by climate change”, to quote the article. This is the first example of such a change that I have seen, but I doubt it will be… Read More »Matsuri Timing