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Appropriate Clothing

What is appropriate clothing to wear to visit a jinja? This is a question that causes me repeated trouble, both in writing advice for my own publications and in the material I prepare with Jinja Honchō. It is also a question that recently made the international news, when Yasukuni Jinja (靖國神社) banned cosplay and military uniforms that the wearer was not entitled to by virtue of being in service. I do not know whether Yasukuni has a problem with people coming dressed as Sailor Moon, but they do have a… Read More »Appropriate Clothing

Myths from Prayers and Poems

I have just published a new book on Amazon, Myths from Prayers and Poems. This is a compilation of three of my Patreon essays, covering the myths of the kami that are found in the norito prayers in the tenth-century Engishiki, and those that are found in the poems in the eighth-century Man’yōshū. There is less in these sources than one might expect. Most of the norito do not retell myths, and the kami are not a substantial presence in the Man’yōshū poems. That is interesting in itself, of course,… Read More »Myths from Prayers and Poems

Led by Sacred Dance

The August 3rd issue of Jinja Shinpō also included the first article by another Komorebi author. Revd Yokota is a sacred dance instructor for Hiroshima Prefectural Jinjachō, and a junior priest at Yoshiura Hachiman Jinja (吉浦八幡神社). Her articles in this series will focus on her half-century and more of experience of sacred dance, and so the first one, naturally enough, is about how she got started. She was born into a priestly family (second daughter, third child). She was part of the family’s preparation for matsuri from a very early… Read More »Led by Sacred Dance

Caring for Sacred Forests

The August 3rd issue of Jinja Shinpō included a double-page spread of articles about sacred forests. One article was about the sacred forests at Jingū, but since I wrote about them two weeks ago, I will skip over that one here. The other articles were about caring for sacred forests. One was by an expert on urban trees, talking about the issues specific to them. As he points out, trees die. They live a lot longer than people, but they do die, and then fall over. Before they reach that… Read More »Caring for Sacred Forests

Sacred Waters

The August 3rd issue of Jinja Shinpō was the special summer issue, which has twice as many pages as usual. Much of the space is taken up by the names of jinja, because they pay to have their name appear in this issue (and the New Year issue). Another distinctive feature of this issue is that the front and back pages are printed in colour, and taken up with what could be called a photo essay. The theme this time was sacred waters. The front page was a picture of… Read More »Sacred Waters

Diversity

There were a couple of interesting articles in the July 27th issue of Jinja Shinpō, into which I may be reading too much. The first was the “Thoughts in the Forest” column, which was one of the pseudonymous entries. The author — whose written name might not even have a reading given that it is a pseudonym, so I will just read the first two characters as “Ueto” — apparently has non-standard colour vision. He (probably, looking at the pseudonym, and the strong hints that he has the red/green variation… Read More »Diversity