Friday, October 30, 2015

Carpe Diem #847 Kasuga Wakamiya Festival


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the last episode of our Third anniversary month. It was really a joy to make this month for you all and I really had a festive feeling this month. I thank you all for being part of our Carpe Diem Haiku Family and I hope to celebrate our fourth anniversary, October next year, with you all. I am looking forward to another nice year of wonderful themes and prompts.

Today I published our new prompt-list for November 2015. next month we will return to the Altia Mountains in the way of the shaman reading The Zahir by Paulo Coelho and visiting the Altai Mountains and its spiritual power.
Next Sunday I will have finally time to look at our "peace of mind" kukai and than I hope to publish the results and announce the winner and the runner up.

Okay ... back to our prompt for today. Today we are visiting the Kasuga Wakamiya Festival. Let me tell you a little bit more about this Japanese festival.

Credits: Kasuga Wakamiya Festival

This is an annual festival held in Wakamiya Shrine, branch of Kasuga Grand Shrine. It is said that Tadamichi Fujiwara, Kampaku (Chief Advisor of Emperor), started this festival to pray for bumper crops on Sept.17 in the 2nd year of Hoen (1136) in the late Heian era.

In the past, monk soldiers of the Kofuku-ji Temple participated in the festival. However, because of the policy of separation between Shintoism and Buddhism in the Meiji era, the festival changed into one for the whole Nara. The date changed to December 17. On the festival day, Divine Spirit of Wakamiya is transferred to a small place called Otabisho, near the approach to Kasuga Grand Shrine. In the daytime you can see a parade of people wearing clothes of entertainment and martial arts, and feudal lords as well. At night you can see dedicatory entertainments such as Shinto music and dancing (Kagura), court dance and music (Bugaku), ritual music and dancing (Dengaku) and Seinoo until the Divine Spirit gets back to the shrine. These entertainments are designated as important intangible folk cultural assets.

Credits: Kasuga Wakamiya Shrine
A nice festival to close this festive month with. I hope you all did like this month of celebrating our third anniversary and I really hope to celebrate our fourth anniversary next year.

three years of haiku
celebrated here and now
with laughter and tears

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 2nd at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, our first episode of November, frosted grass, later on. Have fun!


3 comments:

  1. Beautiful post and warm haiku. Sorry have not been commenting, will get to all posts. All the best. Hamish.

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  2. I am certain there are no words to completely convey my appreciation for all you do. The magnitude of hours you put into this group shows a true love of this art form. Thank you.

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  3. You've made this site and the third anniversary month special, Chèvre! I cannot keep up with your many interesting posts/prompts but enjoy happy attempts as I have time. Kudos!

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