Every year I like to visit my local shrine, which just happens to be a World Heritage site. Shimogamo Jinja in the north of Kyoto is surrounded by an ancient grove known as Tadasu no mori, and during the more … Read the rest
Category: Kyoto shrines (Page 7 of 28)
The great scholar and eccentric, Richard Ponsonby Fane, was an interwar resident of Kyoto who turned himself into the foremost Shinto expert of his day – and that includes Japanese! It’s a remarkable achievement, all the more so when
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
Tonight’s the night! The evening before the big parade, known as Yoiyama, is happening in downtown Kyoto tonight when people throng around the massive festival floats, with their musicians and displays. It’s a great communal festivity, marking the highpoint of … Read the rest
Green Shinto has written before of the remarkable preeminent Shinto scholar, Richard Ponsonby-Fane (1878-1937), an English aristocrat who made Kyoto his home in the prewar years and wrote extensive volumes about Kyoto and shrine histories. It’s said he knew more … Read the rest
The Gion Matsuri: Foreigners’ float
(The “Hakurakuten Yama” float this year will consist of 18 men from all over the world.)
By Shaheed Rupani (from Why Kyoto? Jun Sept 2017, p. 42-43)
Kyoto is known as the old capital of … Read the rest