But what brought on this painful realization? Well, today was Joma Shinji. Joma Shinji is a festival celebrated in Kamakura, Japan. The rituals are based in the idea of exorcising demons and maintaining samurai skills. I know, right? How freaking epic is that?
Every year, at the festival, professional archers shoot at a target with the kanji for "devil" painted on it upside down. Why upside down? Because fuck you, devil! No, seriously - that's why. With me being Christian and Justin being Spiritual, we both come from the exact opposite tradition. In both of our faiths, it somewhat goes without saying, but you don't antagonize the devil. You know... JUST IN CASE.
NOPE.
After taunting the demons, the archers shoot arrows at the target. This is for a couple reasons. It is believed that the twang of the bow would scare the demons and that the arrows have magic that drives them away. Now how the heck would we know this? We wouldn't and we didn't until we talked to Jon Hop, who is our super BFF and resident expert on all things far east. He explained all the background to us and walked us through the exorcism rituals we would do later in the day.
As he explained, the Joma Shinji festival commemorates a call by Minamoto no Yoritomo, who took power over another leader whose samurais had grown weak from lack of training over years of peace. To ensure he never lost power the same way, he called on his samurais to practice and demonstrate their skills each year. And if you can flip off some demons at the same time, why not just go ahead and kill those two birds with one stone.
Since we don't have any Shinto templates nearby and it was snowpocalypse outside, we decided to have amateur hour up in here. We found the kanji for oni, which means devil and tried to write it on paper for our target.
鬼 Is what we were going for
Close enough. Again - amateur hour. Besides, the real embarrassment came when we somehow thought we could dabble in archery and have it all work out like sunshine and roses.
Don't lie - I look like such a bad ass and you know it
And my husband is hot like fire. BE JEALOUS.
Hey, look, someone who actually knows what she's doing, sort of.
Per the instructions, our kanji was suspended upside down over the target we were aiming at to mock the devil. Truthfully, I'm mostly pinning our success on the hope that no demons showed up. You know, the weather is bad - if I were a demon, I'd be at home sipping cocoa and planning for mischief when the storm cleared.
What you can't see is that this target is only four feet away.
We kept at it for almost 30 minutes, taking turns shooting and laughing at ourselves. On a serious note, while I always knew archery was difficult, my respect for professional archers has notably increased. I legit missed the target 4 of 6 times. I only hit the paper once and NOT ONE OF US hit the actual kanji or writing.
Unless you count the time Justin got stabby.
Sydney came the closest, with three shots right next to the kanji and on the actual paper. We figured that we had twanged and stabbed enough that the demons should be scared away. Or, barring that, they would leave out of pity at our terrible archery skills.
Just in case, and in following the other portion of the Joma Shinji traditions as outlined by BFF Hop, we performed an exorcism on my parents house. The procedure for the exorcism is as follows:
1. Say a prayer. (There are long recitations we could have looked up, but apparently folks are pretty chill about what exactly is said so we admittedly skipped the memorization part).
2. Bow.
3. Spread salt, the more pure the better, across the entryway.
4. Repeat the following: 悪霊退散 or "akuryo taisan".
Fun fact, akuryo taisan is also apparently the attack catch phrase of Sailor Mars on the anime zeitgeist known as Sailor Moon. That is unrelated to the holiday. Take that free knowledge and use it to do good in the world. Somehow.
There are four doors - Justin took the two doors facing the lake and I took the two facing the road. We started out somewhat jokingly, admittedly, but doing the rituals held a higher level of solemnity than I previously realized it would. The prayer is what sets the tone - each time we started a ritual at one of the doors we said a prayer. It is pretty impossible to miss the import of the task when it starts with "Dear God, please bless this house".
After the bow, it was time for the salt. BFF Hop recommended the purest salt we could find since it was, after all, a purification ritual. Makes sense. We decided to go with Hand-harvested sea salt from Ile de Ré in France.
Hand-harvested by naked virgins. With their breasts.
We used very little. It is... not cheap.
Finally, as BFF Hop explained, this is part of ongoing celebrations of the new year in Japan. Because of that, we sought out other new year customs. One of them, as he explained, is clearing out the old to usher in the new and cleaning house. I mentioned that to my dad, who got a maniacal grin and graciously offered to let us put away all of the Christmas decorations. What kindness.
I kid - it was actually perfect. It did feel like the end of the old year and we could stand in the room that previously held the Christmas goods and see the openness and clean floor left in its wake -- which is exactly the feeling we were attempting to capture.
Joma Shinji was a lovely holiday - the traditions are beautiful - even when they are amateured-up. In particular, much of our lives lack noticeable ritual. There is something so solumn and real about ritual that we never really think about. Are there actually evil spirits living in our house that we banished with salt and words? Meaning no disrespect here - I doubt it.
Instead, the ritual seems to be about ourselves. Are we caring for our home? Are we doing everything we can to make it a kind and safe and loving place? Let us mark the boundaries of our sanctuary - not just to keep evil out, but to keep love in. That is what Joma Shinji taught us. That, and, if you're going to mock the devil, make damn sure you're a good shot.
No comments :
Post a Comment