Winter gives us respite to turn inward and reflect
With snow in Kyoto the other day, thoughts turn to the beneficial role of winter in the annual round. Rainer Maria Rilke was a prolific letter writer, whose insights into life have been much treasured, and the extract below comes from a 1922 letter to a young woman named Heise reflecting on what winter teaches us about life’s riches (tr. by William Needham). For Shinto, living in the here and now, enjoying the paradise on earth is something to be grateful for in the depths of winter, just as on the sunniest of spring days…
Tending my inner garden went splendidly this winter. Suddenly to be healed again and aware that the very ground of my being — my mind and spirit — was given time and space in which to go on growing; and there came from my heart a radiance I had not felt so strongly for a long time… You tell me how you are able to feel fully alive every moment of the day and that your inner life is brimming over; you write in the knowledge that what you have, if one looks at it squarely, outweighs and cancels all possible privations and losses that may later come along. It is precisely this that was borne in upon me more conclusively than ever before as I worked away during the long Winter months: that the stages by which life has become impoverished correspond with those earlier times when excesses of wealth were the accustomed measure. What, then, is there to fear? Only forgetting! But you and I, around us and in us, we have so much in store to help us remember!
Lining up to pray for ‘good connections’ at a Shimogamo Jinja subshrine
Another person to explore the benefits of winter was Henry Thoreau, as a recent edition of Brainpickings makes clear. The writer considered winter’s rewards in a meandering meditation entitled “A Winter Walk” (in his Excursions). It captures something of the sense of awe that underscores the nature worship of Shinto.
Writing in the winter of 1843, the twenty-five-year-old Thoreau awakens to a snow-covered wonderland and marvels at the earthly paradise:
The wind has gently murmured through the blinds, or puffed with feathery softness against the windows, and occasionally sighed like a summer zephyr lifting the leaves along, the livelong night. The meadow-mouse has slept in his snug gallery in the sod, the owl has sat in a hollow tree in the depth of the swamp, the rabbit, the squirrel, and the fox have all been housed. The watch-dog has lain quiet on the hearth, and the cattle have stood silent in their stalls. The earth itself has slept, as it were its first, not its last sleep, save when some street-sign or wood-house door has faintly creaked upon its hinge, cheering forlorn nature at her midnight work, — the only sound awake twixt Venus and Mars, — advertising us of a remote inward warmth, a divine cheer and fellowship, where gods are met together, but where it is very bleak for men to stand. But while the earth has slumbered, all the air has been alive with feathery flakes descending, as if some northern Ceres reigned, showering her silvery grain over all the fields.
This quieting of the outside world, this kindling of the inner hearth, is winter’s great reward for Thoreau. A century before Albert Camus captured the essence of winter’s treasures — “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Thoreau writes:
There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill…. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter’s day, when the meadow mice come out by the wallsides, and the chicadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our backs as we are treading some snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which has followed us into that by-place.
This subterranean fire has its altar in each man’s breast, for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveller cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart. There is the south. Thither have all birds and insects migrated, and around the warm springs in his breast are gathered the robin and the lark.
Thoreau believed that “every walk is a sort of crusade.” As he walks through the meadows blanketed in white, up the hills draped with snow-bowed branches, through a world enveloped in delicious quietude and covered in a “pure elastic heaven,” he returns to the invaluable inward focus which winter alone invites — a quiet conquest of one’s interior world. A century before Rilke painted winter as the season for tending to one’s inner garden, Thoreau wrote:
In this lonely glen, with its brook draining the slopes, its creased ice and crystals of all hues, where the spruces and hemlocks stand up on either side, and the rush and sere wild oats in the rivulet itself, our lives are more serene and worthy to contemplate.
In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends.
On Christmas Day of 1856, he issues an exhortation central to his philosophy and his daily practice:
Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.
Four days later, Thoreau amplifies his point:
We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. We must make root, send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day. I am sensible that I am imbibing health when I open my mouth to the wind. Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is in this sense a hospital. A night and a forenoon is as much confinement to those wards as I can stand. I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost almost the instant that I come [outdoors].
There is nothing so sanative, so poetic, as a walk in the woods and fields even now, when I meet none abroad for pleasure. In the street and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean. No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it, — dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!! But alone in distant woods or fields, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine. I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing and prayer. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.
In the embrace of winter, we see from Thoreau’s words, is not simply a health-restoring remedy, but deep spiritual insight into the wonder and grandeur of the universe. It’s this sense that Shinto does so much to celebrate and treasure.
Snowman at Shimogamo Jinja, celebrating the joys of midwinter
The report below, featured in today’s Independent newspaper, prompts the question of what the women will be wearing when they partake for the first time in a Naked Festival with over a millennium’s worth of tradition . As can be seen in the picture below, the men are not naked but wearing fundoshi (loin cloth). The festival should rightly be called, The Near Naked Festival.
(courtesy Wikicommons)
Quote:
A shrine in Japan that organises the famous Naked Man festival will allow women to participate for the first time in its 1,250-year history.
A group of local women in Inazawa, in Japan’s Aichi prefecture, are all set to join the annual Hadaka Matsuri, held in February at the Konomiya shrine.
While the women will remain fully clothed and avoid the traditional violent clash of near-naked men in loincloths, they will participate in the naoizasa ritual, which will require them to carry bamboo grass wrapped in cloth into the shrine grounds.
Men typically wear a minimal ensemble, consisting of a Japanese loincloth known as a fundoshi and a pair of white socks called tabi. The festival, celebrating the abundance of harvest, prosperity, and fertility, kicks off around 3.20pm local time.
The Mainichi reported that this is the first time a group of about 40 local women will be a part of the ancient event.
Entrance to Kosaki no yashiro and the newly (re-)created stone-lined pond.
Regular readers of this blog will know that our local shrine is the World Heritage site of Shimogamo Jinja in Kyoto. Over the more than thirty years I have been living close to it, I have noted the many changes that the shrine has undergone. Most of these have been improvements or additions in order to increase the attraction of the shrine to worshippers, on whose money it depends. It seems to be working. There are far more visitors these days than there used to be. (See this post for previous additions, such as a rugby subshrine. )
There is a big new project in the heart of the Tadasu forest, a remnant it is said of the original wild forest that once covered the whole river basin. A large portion of the woods has been cleared in order to make what looks like walkways and a stone lined pond. In Japanese fashion nature has been modified and beautified.
The entrance to this ‘nature park’ leads through a series of torii to a small shrine named Kosaki no yashiro. Originally it stood in the area between present-day Kyoto University and Tanaka Shrine, indicative of how far Shimogamo’s reach once was, but over the years the Kosaki Shrine suffered damage from fire and was destroyed in the Onin War (1467-77) which devastated Kyoto. In 2014 it was reconstituted here at Shimogamo as part of their shikinen sengu (regular renewal).
However, the highlight of the cleared area is the Hojoki hut of Kamo no Chomei. The author is thought to have lived in this part of the precincts. The model of his famous hermitage has been relocated from the nearby Kawai Jinja, where it stood in the shrine’s compound. Now it has a more atmospheric setting, surrounded by trees and with stone steps leading to it across a stream and up to the hut set on a slight incline. It looks more appropriate, closer to how the original would have been when Chomei lived on a hill outside the capital.
For the moment the Shimogamo clearing is still off-limits, and it is uncertain when it will be open to the public. Something to look out for on your next visit, perhaps, to what is slowly turning into a Shinto theme park.
A model of the famous retreat of Kamo no Chomei. The original was situated on a hill outside the capital. Chomei’s book Hojoki has inspired countless hermits and nature lovers down the centuries.
For further reading about Kamo no Chomei together with pictures of his Hojoki hut, please see here.
For an account of other changes and additions at Shimogamo, see here.
The folk deity Ebisu is at the centre of the businessman’s festival of Toka Ebisu
The approach to Kyoto’s Ebisu Jinja is down narrow streets of stalls and jostling crowds
The small shrine compound is packed, with queues for the Worship Hall stretching out beyond the entrance torii
Green Shinto has covered the Toka Ebisu Festival before. It’s the first big festival of the year, taking place on January 10, and particularly popular in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. The event in Kyoto takes place at the Ebisu Shrine adjacent to the Zen monastery of Kenninji. Toka means tenth day, and the festival lasts for five days centred around January 10. It’s a joyous affair, a true festival of the common people.
Because Ebisu is a deity of business, all the shopkeepers, self-employed and small business owners flock to the shrine to get their lucky charms for the year ahead. And because Ebisu is one of the Seven Lucky Deities (Shichifukujin), the charms come in the form of treasure boats tied to sasa bamboo branches. The packed streets, lines of stalls and bustling throngs have something of the feel of Edo times, and the infectious mood is augmented in the small shrine compound by kagura dance, maiko (trainee geisha) and famous actresses who help sell and promote the event.
At the centre of it all is the little fisherman, Ebisu, guardian of business and the only one of the Seven Lucky Deities to be native to Japan
Ebisu Jinja is next to a geisha district and trainee maiko help sell the lucky charms
While the maiko sell, the miko dances
There are all kinds of charms ranging from 30 to 80 dollars and more
For the shrine it’s a prosperous New Year
Ebisu Jinja is one of the shrines in the local Seven Lucky Gods pilgrimage, and to signify their visit pilgrims get their goshuin books signed and sealed by people skilled in calligraphy.
Such is the throng before the Worship Hall that many resort to throwing their coins over the heads of those in front.
After paying respects at the Worship Hall, people knock on heaven’s door at the side of the building…
… because behind the ‘door’ is Ebisu himself, said to be hard of hearing. The knock is to ensure that the entreaty for a successful business year is heard okay.
The above angry dragon was displayed at Shimogamo Jinja prior to the change of year and seems very apt in retrospect, given the awful earthquake at the very outset of the year, Jan 1, in the Hokuriku area (Kanazawa and the Noto Peninsula in particular). Hopefully the uplifting attributes of the dragon will come to the fore in the rest of the year.
Meanwhile, there were enormous queues at the small dragon shrine that is one of the seven eto shrines at Shimogamo commemorating the twelve signs of the Chinese Zodiac. In the picture below, the left-side queue is for the dragon hokora (small shrine), the right-hand queue to pay respects at the main shrine. There’s a temporary roofing to keep off rain.
One of Kyoto’s numerous shrines is Takio Jinja, near Tofukuji Zen monastery. Takio means Dragon, which is why the small shrine was packed with New Year worshippers, eager to ensure they have a blessed year ahead. The queue spilled out from the shrine and along the adjacent road.
The shrine has one special attraction, and it made a killing by charging ¥500 to see it. The sculpture of a dragon, carved out of wood on the ceiling of the Maiden (Dancing Platform) was made in the Edo Period (eighteenth century) and is a quite unique work of art. There was a separate queue to view it…
In mythology, the dragon is associated with watery realms, and in paintings it is often surrounded by water or clouds. From watery depths it is able to soar upwards towards heaven breathing fire and overcoming all obstacles in an example that serves to inspire humans. In this way it is able to transition between this world and the other, a fictional creature that is the only unreal animal in the Chinese zodiac but one that has captured the imagination of both East and West.
The dragon’s affinity with water makes it a perfect figure for water purification at the temizuya, especially here at Takio Jinja. Such was the demand for dragon charms and amulets that the small shrine had to put up Sold Out signs – even though it had eleven years to prepare for this Year of the Dragon. May all Green Shinto readers have a good one!
On the left, the Chinese characters state that two types of ema (votive plaques) have been sold out. The amulets on the righthand side were in hot demand too. And yet the majority of Japanese claim to be non-religious. To the Western mind, it is a startling paradox and just one of the many ways in which the Japanese tradition baffles the need for clear categorisation.
Previously Green Shinto reported on plans for the establishment of ahokora shrine at Manla, Phoenecia in NY state. In an interview about the project, Fukiko Ostensen spoke of the origin of the project and how it was tied to Japanese cultural heritage and the production of traditional health food. Now comes news of the opening ceremony of the hokora shrine.
Fukiko Ostensen reports that, “The day of the ceremony was blessed with beautiful weather, and we successfully established the new hokora in which Sukunahikona resides. The ceremony was powerful and many people were really moved by witnessing it. And the teacher’s talk afterwards explaining about what it means to live according to the Shinto way of life was so beautiful, and touched our hearts deeply. We have a recording of this lecture, and Menla will edit it and make a webpage dedicated to Sukunahikona in the near future.”
In an extraordinary move, Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America shut down its operation on June 30th, 2023, and the grounds have been closed to the public. The kamisama and sacred items have been transferred to the newly restored and revived Shin Mei Spiritual Centre run by Shinto priest Ann Evans on Knapp Island off Victoria in Canada’s far west.
When Green Shinto visited Washington State and the Vancouver Islands in 2011 , the Tsubaki Shrine was flourishing under Rev Barrish and the Canadian shrine barely active, not responding to email or telephone. Now it seems the respective fortunes of the two shrines have been completely reversed.
The Tsubaki Shrine was Shinto’s leading light in America, representing a significant focus for practitioners throughout the mainland. Its closure looks like a failure to gain a foothold in the US. The shock to America’s burgeoning Shinto community of the surprise closure can be clearly felt in an article in Unseen Japan. (The report also gives a rare overview of Shinto origins in the US and its prewar history.)
Despite two decades of dedicated and pioneering work in setting up the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America, including soliciting donations for improvements and additions, it seems that Rev Barrish has relocated to Kissimmee, Florida, which is located near Orlando International Airport. Apparently for health reasons he was unable to continue his work and has decided to continue with his aikido work, as well as setting up an ‘earthshinto’ website. The relationship of this is to the Tsubaki Shrine in Mie Prefecture is unclear.
In mythology, Sarutahiko no okami, the chief Tsubaki kami, is the first Earthly figure to welcome the Heavenly kami after their descent. However, the naming of the shrine looks more like a statement of universalism than a link with Tsubaki. As the article in Unseen Japan puts it, ”The shrine, which he [Barrish] has named Earth Shinto Shrine (Kannagara Chikyū Jinja), has no apparent affiliation with Tsubaki Grand Shrine in Japan. Barrish asserts the Earth is this shrine’s kami. While there are many earthly kami (kunitsukami), enshrining the planet is certainly a new direction. No parent shrine by the name of Chikyū Jinja exists in Japan.’
In an indication of a new direction, the website for Barrish’s new project posits an ‘Earth Shinto’ (www.earthshinto.com), which sees the concern with an animating life force as central to the religion. The form of the rituals are viewed as a gift from ancient Japan to the world, while the talk of a ‘living earth’ recalls the Gaia theory of James Lovelock. Already up on the Earth Shinto site is information about amulets, rituals and membership, together with the price.
In acknowledging the deep ties of Shinto with Japanese culture, the website reflects the narrow line between the traditional insularism of Shinto with a contemporary universalism as it spreads to the West. Is Shinto a tribal, primal neo-shamanic religion, or a nature religion open to everyone everywhere? There may be different responses inside and outside of Japan, and it is Green Shinto’s supposition that a form of Neo-Shinto will spread amongst non-Japanese based on individual practice rather than community ties. In the current debates about the nature of the so-called ‘nature religion’ can be seen a struggle for its soul, and we look forward with anticipation to learning more about how this unexpected development works out.
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For a comprehensive interview with Rev Barrish from 2011, see here.
