Pine cones, coins and some other kind of cone or fruit against the door of a shrineWhere to begin? The people, the places, the sound of furin pinwheeling in the updraft of passing trains? At certain train stations the Japan Rail (JR) workers have hung the furin from the platform ceiling. There are a few videos on youtube.
Summer is a lovely time in Japan — if you put aside the humidity and the fact it might rain at any moment — and it is especially so if you travel just either side of the peak period. People start to relax, to return home, to pay respects to their living family and their ancestors. Those who take their holidays enjoy the few days out of the year that they get off. It is a season of fireworks. The Japanese word for them is hanabi, which means flower-fire (hanami is cherry blossom viewing time, which literally means flower-see, or flower viewing). It is a time for ghosts, and dances, festivals, icecream, cold noodles and seafood; girls in yukata, the uchiwa fan and the sensu fan.
If you travel in the right places, plants and trees ooze humidity-wrought fecundity. Your ears fill with cicada-shrill. The sharp cries of birds, passing trains, and the inevitable thrum and hum of industry bring you back to the wider (or is it smaller?) world around you.
How to begin? With an offering, or two, or three, or four, of course.
Summer is a lovely time in Japan — if you put aside the humidity and the fact it might rain at any moment — and it is especially so if you travel just either side of the peak period. People start to relax, to return home, to pay respects to their living family and their ancestors. Those who take their holidays enjoy the few days out of the year that they get off. It is a season of fireworks. The Japanese word for them is hanabi, which means flower-fire (hanami is cherry blossom viewing time, which literally means flower-see, or flower viewing). It is a time for ghosts, and dances, festivals, icecream, cold noodles and seafood; girls in yukata, the uchiwa fan and the sensu fan.
If you travel in the right places, plants and trees ooze humidity-wrought fecundity. Your ears fill with cicada-shrill. The sharp cries of birds, passing trains, and the inevitable thrum and hum of industry bring you back to the wider (or is it smaller?) world around you.
How to begin? With an offering, or two, or three, or four, of course.
