I am posting this in case anyone wants to see how I observed Shinto's biggest holiday.

Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu! (Happy New Year) Welcome to the (Japanese) Year of the Rabbit! May your life in 2011 be like a cruise ship buffet - everything you could ever hope to want and then some.

It was an event a week in the making. It was the most epic Oshogatsu preparation ever. Let's hope next year's is a tad more tame. This Oshogatsu, I mailed out 30 nengajo to 15 states and 3 countries. I also mailed gifts, which was a new thing this time around. It was an effort to spread a little joy and start the new year with a happy surprise. Oshogatsu is all about new beinnings, and in that vein is also about redemption. The gifts I sent put were things that I wanted to be given a new life in the hands of people that could really use them.

The Week Before - Osoji

It began with my a good friend lending me his truck to haul wooden pallets and firewood. That should give you an idea of just how big this little Oshogatsu project of mine was going to be. I started the Sunday before New Year's Day with cleaning to such a degree that the cats were convinced I was moving again, and as a result became very upset. They hate moving. At one point they colonized my lap while I was sorting stuff in an effort to root me in place. I tried repeatedly to comfort them, but they were inconsolable. For the next two days my entire house looked like this:

Keep in mind these stacks of boxes were in most cases as tall as I am. I cleaned out every closet, the loft space, and the corner of the house that was formerly known as The Black Hole. I wish I had thought to take a picture of The Black Hole before I destroyed it, because it was left in an utter state of devastation. So was the loft space. It took 5 trash bags to clean out all the trash left up there. Empty bottles, wrappers, discarded papers, opened and forgotten mail... that was actually the hardest space to clean.

But before I could begin the process of putting my home back together, I had to deal with the basement. The space that I had originally claimed to put down the pallets ended up getting filled in with junk at some point by other tenants in the building, so then I had to clean the basement - well, at least enough of it to make room for my three pallets. That took quite a bit of doing, and was nasty work, but in the end I had the room I needed. It was then time to start transporting boxes down my three flights of terrifying stairs and into the basement. I attempted doing this with my hand truck, but it failed catastrophically, so I carried them all down in stacks of twos and threes. It took me two days. I fell in the process, tearing a muscle in my back and adding to the discomfort of a cracked rib from falling on an icy sidewalk the week before. But in the end, this is what I accomplished:





Believe me when I say that picture does not do justice to the sheer volume of stuff on those three pallets. But I am very proud of all that I accomplished and very, very pleased with the results. I swear my little Treehouse feels like it just randomly grew by about 200 square feet. So after all the boxes were gone, I cleaned. And then I cleaned again. And then I cleaned some more - all part of osoji, which is ritual cleaning in preparation for Oshogatsu.

And here is the ultimate result of a week's worth of osoji:





This little nook at the end of my kitchen is known as The Round, because, well, it's round. I cleaned it out in an effort to get going on my Oshogatsu resolution of turning The Round into my office. I've been wanting to do that since I've lived here. It's high time I got on that.





As part of the osoji tradition, I cleaned out the fireplace of all its ashes, which included the ashes of my regrets, which I had burned in the fireplace previously. It was the last act of cleaning that I performed, done on Omisoka (see below).





The above is the result of me reclaiming The Black Hole. It went from a blue dwarf to a red giant, all with a little interior design magic. And I spent nothing to transform this space. It was all done from repurposed items. After putting the house all together, I did a banishing and blessing ritual to cleanse everything of its previous attachments and purify them. As a part of this, I washed everything fabric that I own - blankets, sheets, comforters, clothes - everything. What's sad is that everything I own fit comfortably in two 50lb washers.





I was going to turn the red giant into my new kamidana space, but it wouldn't fit where I wanted it to go. So for now it's just a pretty room until I can rework the layout in a way that makes sense and will accommodate everything.

On the Thursday before Oshogatsu, I went to Choi's Asian Market with my two best friends to do a little grocery shopping. I bought daikon, renkon, gobo, nappa cabbage, mochi, and a variety of other things for making osechi ryori. If you want to see the food, see this .

Omisoka

Omisoka (New Year's Eve) was spent cooking for the most part. Traditionally, soba is served as the Omisoka meal, so I made Triple Threat (see this ). It. Was. Awesome. I also started the prep work for osechi ryori. When all of that was said and done, I closed the day with the traditional burning of regrets in the fireplace. Before I went to bed, I opened all of the windows in the house to let the New Year in and to let the heat out. It was 70 degrees outside at night on the last day of December. I was incredulous.

Me setting my regrets alight, and...





watching them burn away. Afterward, the fireplace was cleaned out and the wood for hatsuki was laid.



It was all hands on deck with osechi cooking in the back and toshikoshi soba cooking in the front and on its way to becoming Triple Threat.

Oshogatsu

Oshogatsu is all about firsts, and we celebrate every first... well... everything. I distinctly remembered my dream as my alarm woke me up. Hatsuyume (first dream) went like this: I was on a quest for… something. I think it was some type of food related item. Everyone I asked said they didn’t have it, but instead offered me some alternative, all of which I politely declined. I don’t recall if I ever found the item or not, but I do know that I never gave up looking. So the take home message of hatsuyume: don’t trade down for something you don’t really want. The wait for what you really want is worth it.

I got up before sunrise, received my first phone call and first texts (12 of them), then took the first shower. I then went outside and awaited the dawn. It was grey and rainy, so there was no clear first sunrise, but I toasted the sun where I thought it would be:





Hatsuhinode - First Sunrise


I then came inside and lit the first fire, which I made small and did not tend long, because the day started out so warm:










Hatsuki - First Fire

After that came the first meal of the day. Again, see the this .

Since I made a mess of myself with that epic breakfast, I decided to do the first shave afterward.

And if you are wondering what happened to my wall, several months ago I randomly passed out in my bathroom, knocking the mirror and the light fixture down when I did so. I have yet to fix this issue, but it is on my Oshogatsu resolutions list.

Again this year, hatsusuzume (first sparrow) eluded me. You would think it wouldn't be too terribly hard to snap a picture of the birds that are nesting in the eaves of your very house, but try as I might I could not. With my windows open and very near where they are nesting, their chipper chirping sounded like it was in my living room. That was good enough for me. I'm glad to have them living here.

Waraizome (first laughter) was brought about by the boyfriend, which made me happy on numerous levels. Anyone and anything that makes me happy on my biggest holiday is someone/something I will always treasure. Holidays are not for your issues and drama. Whatever business you have, it can wait. Just enjoy the day, you know?

Unlike last year, my kakizome (first calligraphy) was not so wretchedly embarrassing as to need to be destroyed in the fire. In fact, I even decided to post it this year:

Kakizome - First Calligraphy

I photoshopped in the letters to spell out what each of the hiragana characters say. It spells Kibo(u), which means "hope."

The first gift was brought to me by one of my best friends :




Hatsushinmotsu - First Gift



A detail of hatsushinmotsu, because it's not just a daruma doll bracelet, it's a HAND PAINTED WITH AMAZING DETAIL DARUMA BRACELET! The skill in creating this thing is incredible. I love it so much, but I'm afraid to wear it because I don't want to damage it! It's a one of a kind! And sorry I went all Billy Mays on you there. I got kind of excited.

First letter was this year plural. Much to my surprise, the mail ran on New Year's Day (I didn't think it did), so I got mail on Oshogatsu. In it was a card from a friend in Arizona (right). I was also hand delivered a card from  my other best friend (left).




Hatsudayori - First Letters


This year was a first first - I received my first textbook in the mail on Oshoatsu. Auspicious? Methinks so!





Yes, I'm taking inorganic next semester. Yes, that sucks, but I'm still excited about it and looking forward to it.

The first sunset and the first moon (hatsutsuki) were both hidden behind a wall of grey, but I took a picture of it anyway, because tradition is tradition:




Hatsubanshyoo - First Sunset


My kigo haiku I actually posted to facebook   as a status:
The guests gone
The dishes washed
Another holiday ended

I closed out Oshogatsu with my first shrine visit, which once again involved the great and arduous trek to my bedroom. I had much to be thankful for, as this past year was bountiful in its blessings (you can read all about that here ).




Hatsumode - First Shrine Visit


My predictions for last year  were completely wrong. I interpreted the signs to be a kind of bell curve year. In fact, it took a total nosedive, hit rock bottom toward the middle of the year, then skyrocketed to the moon after that. It was a wild roller coaster of a year that went in with a whimper and out with a roar of victory. So this year I am not going to interpret the signs, because I really don't think this year will be grey and sluggish with a bright spot in the middle. I think this year will be another one for the record books, perhaps one that will change the face of my personal history. A lot rides on what happens this year, and I am ready to meet those challenges.

I accidentally came upon a concise model for how I see the universe: a Newton's Cradle. Why? Because the universe does not operate unidirectionally and because even in the vastness of space, conservation of energy and recycling of materials still takes place.

I suppose the pervasiveness of Eastern thought becomes self evident when my philosophy of How It All Began(tm) is laid out. There was a creative force. It was The Domino (or in this case, the end ball of the Newton's Cradle). It fell, and the chain reaction began. It is not all knowing and all powerful, and probably is not even aware of our existence. It is a pervasive force in that everything that is stems from it, but it is not interventionist or even present. The Overarching Force(tm) in Japanese religion gets just a passing mention, acknowledging that it is there. Other than that, not much is made of it.

I actually think of the universe itself as the human body. We're aware, we're sentient, but we don't have the ability to know everything that happens within every single cell in our body. They're still part of the system, but not a conscious part. We are cells in the body of the universe, functioning, diversifying, going about our business, but the greater whole is not aware of our day to day activities. Only when we do something on a large enough scale that it affects the whole system are we noticed.

And if we keep in the vein we are in (no pun intended), we'll be identified as a disease and obliterated as such. But that's another story, I suppose.

That's not to say that I don't believe the gods I worship are real. In fact I believe they are just as real as I am, Buddhist philosophies dealing with reality aside. Energy is. It is constantly moving, and I believe we are able to direct that energy. Direct enough energy into something and it becomes. If enough people elect to worship The Facade (a historic landmark in my city) and pour their directed energy into it, it can then emit energy and have an effect on its surroundings. In addition, objects have energy of their own. Any interaction with anything else results in an exchange, an intermingling of said energy. It is a measurable phenomenon, demonstrated by chemistry and physics. Oxidation, electron transfer, chemical change from one substance contacting another. All of these occur with simple touch. All take in and/or release energy.

Something my genetics professor has been investigating is the ability of certain viruses to seem to be able to communicate with each other over distances. She began this process after being diagnosed with shingles and noticing that anyone who has chicken pox or shingles nearby activates her shingles. She believes they communicate through some kind of chemical signal, perhaps released through sweat. Since we know that what happens in our minds affects our body chemistry, perhaps we have the ability to communicate in a similar way. Sure that's a huge leap of conjecture, but I am only espousing possibility and that which seems impossible really isn't once we have a fundamental understanding.

Those of us that have an investigative mind instinctually want to take things apart to see how they work. It isn't necessarily a search for proof or validation, but a curiosity and a drive for understanding. However, everything that is demonstrable is not always testable. Technology is limited, and can only go so far. Likewise, if you go about studying something with the goal of finding a certain answer, you will most likely find it whether it is the best answer or not.

If you want to find god in science, you will. If you want god to disprove science, it will happen. Likewise of you want science to disprove god, it will. Any data can be bent and stretched enough to still resemble its original form but made to fit a certain goal or criteria. There are volumes of books out there that are doing just that. I've been looking at titles like Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality, Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos, and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness, and other applications of science in the realm of faith, each having their own data to support their own point. Science cannot test what we don't understand in the first place. You cannot seek the answers when you don't even know the questions.

I really don't understand Western views of things like sex and sexuality. From what I understand, considering the sheer number of organizations out there trying to regulate sex, in the Christian world sex is immoral. I have yet to figure out how this makes sense, and I wager it never will - especially since I come from a religion that has Kanamara Matsuri - the Festival of the Steel Phallus. Once a fertility festival, now it is a celebration of sexuality and a fund raiser to raise money for HIV/AIDS research. Oh, and it's still a fertility festival too, where people go to pray for increased intimacy in their relationships or to be freed from sexual dysfunction. This is a festival where the props and party favors are penises. That could never happen in this country, where Christian censors try to have Michelangelo's David's genitals covered over because they are indecent.

This festival is a place where all sexuality is celebrated. Queers of every stripe of the rainbow flag attend, as well as just regular people that aren't in a relationship of any kind. The locals of Kawasaka don't just support this debauched display, they are fiercely proud of it. They don't look at their festival as an outlandish pink penis parade like we would. If we had such a thing, it would be to shock people, embarrass people and elicit attention and immature giggles.

Here in a country where some people base their entire identity on sexual shock value, we could never have a festival where sex and genitals are just another thing to enjoy and be happy about. I wish we in this country just grow up.

So I'm driving home from school, and I get this urge to deviate from my standard migration patterns. I get off I-65 two exits early, because my gut tells me to, and I follow that weird side road/service road that runs parallel. Not even a mile down, I find a family walking along the side of the road. There's a man, woman, and a little girl that I would guesstimate to be about 6.

I pulled up behind them, honked and asked if they wanted a ride. They accepted. I apologized for my back seat being full of college crap, and they just laughed and said that it sure beat walking. I had seen a car broken down several exits back, and I asked if it was theirs. They said it was, and they were walking to a relation's house to get help. I offered to take them there. They were grateful.

I dropped them off at their location, and they thanked me profusely. The little girl was so cute. She got out if the car and gave me a big wave and said, "Thank you mister!" She was still waving goodbye as I drove away.

As I left, I got this funny notion of their god talking to my kami and saying, "hey, guys, your follower actually listens to you. You think you could get him to help me answer this prayer? These folks could use a hand."

It's a nice thought, anyway. ;-)

Nowhere near where I live is there a Shinto shrine. The closest thing to one are various Japanese cultural centers, but even those are Buddhist based. The one here in Louisville is a Soka Gakkai based center. The closest actual shrine is the Grand Tsubaki Shrine of America a continent away in Granite Falls, WA.

Ever since I learned of it, I have longed to go.

I still have not been to the shrine in Granite Falls, but a twist of fate allowed me the opportunity to visit the Hawaii Kotohira Jinsha/Hawaii Dazaifu Tenmangu while on a field biology excursion in Hawaii. It was a highlight of my trip and had the entire trip been a disaster, this one event would have made the whole thing worthwhile.

I have no community here. Most people here have never even heard of Shinto, and are suspicious of it. I practice alone, pray alone, celebrate festivals alone. I long for a sense of community and people that understand. I think deep down I want that more than anything else.

It was truly an experience to go to a plae where the primary langauge heard spoken other than English was not Spanish, but Japanese... where I bowed to people out of instinct and they simply smiled and bowed in return. I was not regarded as a curiosity or a freak. I did not make people uncomfortable with my actions, nor was I treated like I was a cultural tourist. They understood. And it made them happy that I understood them.

In that moment, I saw a glimpse of home. I, for the first time ever in the history of my life, honestly believed that there is a place on this earth where I belong, where I can feel at home. Hope surged through me that I can have a community, a family, a place in this world. It is an experience that everyone should be able to have, even just once. It is a life-changing and world-changing event to know you are truly not alone. It is liberating to know at last that you are not the last of your kind.

My visit was very short, and most of the shrine was closed, but it was nonetheless thrilling. I couldn't believe how tense and nervous and excited I was about going. It has been a long time goal of mine to visit a shrine, and now I finally have. I didn't have long, because there was a van of biology students waiting on me.

I went in, prayed briefly, picked up a bunch of omamori, and while I was about to leave, I saw something unexpected. I turned to bow to the alter as I was leaving, and as I did, I saw a kamidana in the corner with a price tag. I asked the priest if it was really for sale, and he told me he keeps a supply for his members, and that occasionally tourists buy them. I bought it without a second thought. And it was only $25.

I now have a real, consecrated kamidana of my very own. I have wanted one for a very long time. You should have seen me with it on the trip home. I never let it leave my hands. I refused to even pack it because I was afraid something would happen to it. One of my professors has a picture of me in one of the very few moments I slept on the plane, with my arms wrapped around the box and my chin resting on the top, the box clutched to my chest.

It is now the single most valuable thing I own.

Outside the Hawaii Kotohira Jinsha/Hawaii Dazaifu Tenmangu in Honolulu, HI, just off the H-1 on Olomea St. It is a shrine with two names because it has two root shrines in Japan. The suffixes -jinsha and -gu can tell you what kind of shrine they are. You can find the root Kotohira Shrine here and the root Dazaifu Tenmangu here.

The inside of the shrine at the haiden, or hall of worship. The hall had chairs, and seiza was not necessary. The sanctuary containing the honden (structure where the kami is enshrined) was closed, and I don't think this particular shrine had a heiden (hall of offerings).

My cherished, treasured kamidana. I have pine candles burning to either side and three sticks of traditional aloeswood incense burning in front. The feather is a redtail hawk feather, used to represent the Tengu. The traditional white porcelain dishes and vases will all come in the not to distant future. I will be creating a shintai token for Inari to be placed inside. My complete altar will have three kamidana: a large, centra one for Inari and two smaller ones on each side for Benkei to Yoshitsune and Kannon.