That's So Metal (Pic heavy)
How to participate in a very metal religious ceremony, Japanese style:
1. Visit Mt. Nonodake in northern Japan. This is about 30 or so minutes away from where I live. I like how they name the mountains with -san after the name, like they respect it. So Nonodake-san it is. The festival is called Hiwatari, or Fire walking festival.
I will show how it works (many of these photos are from a colleague as I suck at taking pics)
2. Watch Buddhist priests contruct a wooden structure and cover it in branches. I missed it but there was some chanting and offerings done as well. (These come from someone else)
3. Receive a good luck charm from a priest that looks like a peach. The charm, not the priest
4. Watch Buddhist priests chant, shoot rubber tipped arrows into crowd, and then into structure.
5. Watch priest burn the structure down, after a few false starts because it was rainy.
6. While structure is burning down, the priests throw wooden tablets with people's wishes written on them.
7. Let the whole thing burn down to a giant pile of ash that still has flames shooting out of every so often. At this time, take off your socks and shoes and stand ankle deep in watery mud.
8. The priests then part the pile so that there is a pathway through the pile. They lay down a pile of salt at the start, step into the salt and then proceed to walk on the hard ash path with burning ash on the sides.
9. Give the crowd paper protection flag things, have them one by one step into the salt and walk along the path after getting blessed. The ground wasn't hot, the burning piles of ashes were.
10. Give prayer to giant altar at end, and then try to clean your feet of ash and mud before putting your shoes back on. Eat really yummy rice cracker.
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So there you go. Chanting, rituals, burning things down, include people's wishes, and have people walk through piles of fire over the dying embers of the aforementioned wishes.
As my colleague said: most metal religious ceremony ever.
1. Visit Mt. Nonodake in northern Japan. This is about 30 or so minutes away from where I live. I like how they name the mountains with -san after the name, like they respect it. So Nonodake-san it is. The festival is called Hiwatari, or Fire walking festival.
I will show how it works (many of these photos are from a colleague as I suck at taking pics)
2. Watch Buddhist priests contruct a wooden structure and cover it in branches. I missed it but there was some chanting and offerings done as well. (These come from someone else)
3. Receive a good luck charm from a priest that looks like a peach. The charm, not the priest
4. Watch Buddhist priests chant, shoot rubber tipped arrows into crowd, and then into structure.
5. Watch priest burn the structure down, after a few false starts because it was rainy.
6. While structure is burning down, the priests throw wooden tablets with people's wishes written on them.
7. Let the whole thing burn down to a giant pile of ash that still has flames shooting out of every so often. At this time, take off your socks and shoes and stand ankle deep in watery mud.
8. The priests then part the pile so that there is a pathway through the pile. They lay down a pile of salt at the start, step into the salt and then proceed to walk on the hard ash path with burning ash on the sides.
9. Give the crowd paper protection flag things, have them one by one step into the salt and walk along the path after getting blessed. The ground wasn't hot, the burning piles of ashes were.
10. Give prayer to giant altar at end, and then try to clean your feet of ash and mud before putting your shoes back on. Eat really yummy rice cracker.
--------------------------------------------------------
So there you go. Chanting, rituals, burning things down, include people's wishes, and have people walk through piles of fire over the dying embers of the aforementioned wishes.
As my colleague said: most metal religious ceremony ever.