In Conclusion: You, Too, Can Make a Hatsumode Shichi-fukujin

If it isn't one thing, it's another. In my case, if I've remembered to recharge my camera battery, I've forgotten to reinsert that memory thingamajig after downloading the latest batch of pictures. The night before our Seven Gods of Fortune pilgrimage I forgot to recharge the battery. "Way to go, knucklehead!" it sneered just before the camera blinked off at Imado Shrine. I've managed to steal a few pictures from my friends to wrap up this pilgrimage series.

(For posterity, and for friends who might want to make their own pilgrimages when they return to Japan after the radiation wafts into the stratosphere, I've included (here) a link to a nifty website that lists the shrines and temple in the order visited. Don't be dismayed when you see kanji rather than English words. Just click on the links from left to right and you'll be in business. You can pick up a map at the tourist center just outside the train station exit in Asakusa.)

The fifth stop on our pilgrimage was Hashiba Fudouson Temple, dedicated to Hotei, the fat and happy god of abundance and good health. A long and narrow stone path leads to a courtyard graced by a very old Gingko tree.

Just a block or so further along the road we found Ishihama Jinja Shrine, dedicated to Jurojin, the god of longevity. The Sumida River was still on our right but the neighborhood was sorely lacking in vegetation and had an industrial feel compliments of the three enormous tanks looming to the left of the shrine.

Tomoko-san bravely opened a little door in an ancient mound of what looked like lava on the right side of the shrine's courtyard and we all took a peek at a very old statue. 

Weather fondles a beast at Ishihama Jinja Shrine

The seventh shrine is as far from the sixth shrine as the sixth shrine is from the first shrine. There was a lone taxi parked next to Ishihama Jinja Shrine so we hopped in and tooled across Asakusa to Yoshiwara Jinja Shrine, dedicated to Benzaiten, the goddess of knowledge, art, beauty, and especially music. No pictures and I'm sorry about that because the statues flanking the entrance were remarkable for their gem-implanted eyes which sparkled ominously.

We hit one more shrine before we called it a complete pilgrimage, Ootori Jinja Shrine. We had already met all seven of the Seven Gods of Fortune so I have no idea to whom Ootori Jinja is dedicated. Perhaps the god Nara since the map pictures a man leaning against a deer. At any rate, I liked this shrine. Tomoko-san showed us the proper procedure for praying for everything you might imagine.

I approached this enormous wooden face and rubbed the forehead, then the eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and chin, and then ran my hands around the circumference in a clockwise fashion.

My prayer? Please, God, let us have lunch. It is nearly 2:00 pm and I am famished.

My prayer was answered in short order.

Imado Shrine: Beckoning Cats and Happy Marriages

Our original destination, the fourth stop on our shichifukujin pilgrimage, was Imado Shrine.  The lucky god with the cone-shaped head, Fukurokuju, is enshrined here.  He is the god of happiness, wealth, and longevity.  But Imado Shrine is most famous as a legendary birthplace of  Manekineko, the beckoning good fortune cat, one of the most treasured good luck items in Japan.

Manekineko is the subject of a number of legends. Here are three of the most popular:

The Temple Cat: A wealthy feudal lord taking shelter under a tree near Gotoku-ji temple (in Western Tokyo) during a thunderstorm saw the temple priest's cat beckoning to him and followed.  A moment later the tree was struck by lightning. The wealthy man became friends with the poor priest and the temple became prosperous. When the cat died, the first Manekineko was made in his honor.

The Courtesan: A courtesan named Usugumo, living in Yoshiwara, in eastern Tokyo, kept a cat, much beloved by her. One night the cat began tugging at her kimono. No matter what she did, the cat persisted. The owner of the brothel saw this, and believing the cat bewitched, cut its head off. The cat's head then flew to the ceiling where it killed a snake, ready at any moment to strike. Usugumo was devastated by the death of her companion. To cheer her up, one of her customers made her a wooden likeness of her cat as a gift.  (I don't know about you, but seeing my cat's decapitated head fly to the ceiling would have given me a heart attack.)

The Old Woman: An old woman living in Imado (eastern Tokyo) was forced to sell her cat due to extreme poverty. Afterwards the cat appeared to her in a dream and told her to make its image in clay. She did as instructed, and then sold the statue. She then made more, and people continued to buy them. They were so popular she soon became prosperous and wealthy.  (This is the shrine we visited and statue makers continue to prosper today thanks mainly to Shinagawa-san whose cat statue collection rivals my Peko-chan collection.)

Right paws raised mean "bring money in".  The male cat has black spots.

Thousands of prayers for love and marriage

The small wooden plaques pictured above are called ema. Shinto worshippers write their prayers or wishes on these plaques and then hang them at the shrine.  In ancient times people would donate horses to the shrines for good favor, over time this custom was transformed to a wooden plaque with a picture of a horse, and later still to the various wooden plaques sold today for the same purpose.  Sales of ema help support the shrine.  Most ema I've seen cost 500 yen, or about $6 these days.

Asakusa Pilgrimage: Cutpurses, Radishes, and a Garden Oasis

Honryuin is the actual name of the temple listed as Matsuchiyama-shouten on our pilgrimage map. I mention this in case you visit Tokyo some day and want to visit the temple's peaceful garden on a little hillside just west of the Sumida River.

Weather-san and Shinagawa-san at Matsuchiyama-shouten

Two (other) middle-aged ladies wandering around the garden when we were there pulled Shinagawa-san and Tomoko-san aside while Weather and I feasted our eyes on pink cherry blossoms floating against a background of red maples and restful green stuff. There was a little waterfall off in a corner trickling into a pond at the center of the garden. I am beginning to understand why my gardening friends are so enamored with "water features".

Those two (other) middle-aged ladies were quite a Godsend as they told us about a garden behind the five-story pagoda at Sensoji that is open to the public only a few days a year and one of those few days is today. Our circuit will end back at Sensoji so this is fortuitous news. But we are worried that such a diversion will cause Shinagawa-san to miss an appointment with her computer repairman. One peek at her face tells me that, computer repairman or not, we will not be returning to Yokosuka until we have seen that special garden.

Weeping cherry, red maple, and waterfall

We visit the temple after exiting the garden.  We watch a lady pick up an enormous Daikon (Japanese radish that resembles a fat white carrot) at a booth halfway up the path.  She pays the cashier 200 yen and then marches up the steps and into the temple.

Daikon and kinchaku (money bags) are the temple's special prayer items.  The lanterns on the walk circling the temple are decorated with forked radishes and money bags.  Apparently the forked radish represents a health family unit and a money bag is a symbol for business success. 

We slip off our shoes, congratulate ourselves on remembering to wear shoes that don't tie, and enter the temple.  A benefit of exploring with our Japanese friends is that they encourage us to walk through doors we would be hesitant to open on our own.

Inside the temple there are a few people kneeling or sitting on the floor reading or praying.  About a dozen radishes and half a dozen bouquets of flowers are lined up on the step leading up to the altar area.  I am dying to take a picture for you but manage to control myself.

Money bag on lantern

Daikon radishes on lantern

On one of the two dozen websites I perused while preparing this post, I read that the radish represents hate and ambivalence. You hold the radish and pray to purify your mind, strengthen your body, and bless your family with happiness.  These strike me as worthy objects of prayer no matter what I might be holding.

What strikes me even more is the number of people praying in that temple on a Wednesday morning.  Is it because of the earthquake/tsunami/radiation or are they there every day?

A Lenten Pilgrimage Featuring the Seven Gods of Fortune and a Partial Rosary

I spent a lot of time watching cartoons as a kid. One of my favorite visuals from that era is the snowball that gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down a mountainside. Maybe the reason I liked watching that snowball's size and momentum grow is that I imagined one of my family members, whichever one had tattled on me most recently, standing at the bottom of the mountain just where the cartoonist positioned Wile E. Coyote. In my defense, I never imagined an anvil dropping on any of their heads. I've always considered myself a slightly over-sensitive pacifist.

Our trip to Asakusa in Tokyo this week was a good snowball.  Weather Explorer got wind of a shrine not far from Sensoji famous for happy cats.  Since our friend Shinagawa-san has quite a collection of happy cats, Weather and I thought she might enjoy visiting that shrine.  I'll tell you more about those happy cats when we actually get to the Imado Shrine which won't be today.  The snowball has to roll about halfway down the mountainside before we reach the Imado Shrine.

The three of us squeezed into the first car of the train that left Yokosuka-chuo station shortly before 9:00 am.  The trains are more crowded since the earthquake because they are shorter.  I think this has something to do with energy conservation.  A 12-car train on March 10 is now an 8-car train but as many people are riding the trains so they tend to be squishy.  Squishy doesn't bother me the way it bothers some Americans, and Weather and I rarely have to stand past Yokohama because we have developed keen eyes for seats about to be vacated and quick reflexes.  A facial expression that combines innocence and cluelessness is also helpful when you're trying to beat a young salaryman out of a seat.

Tomoko-san was waiting on the platform when our train pulled into Yokohama.  The trains here always stop in the exact same place next to the platform so Tomoko-san only had to take two steps forward to join us in the first car.  She pulled out a little map and that snowball started rolling down the mountainside.

What's not to like about maps?  The one Tomoko-san was clutching was about as intriguing as a map can get.  It charted a pilgrimage to the shichi-fukujin (Seven Gods of Fortune aka the Seven Lucky Gods).  Our original destination, the Imado Shrine, was number four on the proposed pilgrimage so how could we possibly resist turning our little outing into a hatsumode (which I think means pilgrimage)?  This tradition began in the Edo era all across Japan when the common people who believed in the power of these gods to bring good luck and happiness began making circuits shortly after the new year.  The Asakusa circuit we followed was popular until the beginning of World War II.

It being Lent and all, I opted to view the shrines and temples on the circuit as "stations" on the order of "Stations of the Cross".  I said a Hail Mary at each shrine and temple after tossing a coin into the money receptacle.  Call me ecumenical.  And brace yourself for a summary that just might take as long to read as we spent on our pilgrimage.
 

Shinagawa-san, Weather, and Tomoko-san at Sensoji

Daikoku-ten was the first god we visited. We found him in a little garden off to the left of the main hall at Sensoji. Daikoku-ten is the god of wealth, commerce, and trade. He is often paired with Ebisu on the walls of small retail shops.

Asakusa Shrine for Ebisu (the god, not the beer)

We found Ebisu, the god of fishermen or merchants, at Asakusa Shrine, to the right of Sensoji's main hall. Ebisu is the happy chap who graces the Japanese beer of the same name, my personal favorite. He is usually shown holding a big fish which my sources tell me is a sea bream.

The Asakusa Shrine was erected in memory of the fishermen who are believed to have found the large statue which is the focal point of Sensoji Temple. As we were approaching the shrine, Tomoko-san taught me something new. She told me to walk on the side of the path leading to the shrine rather than the center. The center of the path is apparently reserved for the shinto gods. Walking on the side of the path is not required when approaching a temple. Apparently Buddha is more casual than the gods in the Shinto pantheon.

After an interesting little ramble along the Sumidagawa (Sumida River) which will be the subject of a separate post so as not to confuse you, we entered the incredible grounds of Matsuchiyama-shouten. Shinagawa-san taught me that "-shouten" is the suffix denoting a combination shrine and temple.

Matsuchiyama-shouten is the home of Bishamonten, the god of warriors.

The temple is on the top of a small hill but we took a quick right halfway up the hill to explore a lovely garden before poking our noses in the temple. Tune in tomorrow if you want to glimpse that garden and continue on our pilgrimage.

On The Tenth Annual Tokyo Quilt Show, Stout Amish Women, and Riding the Green Car

This started out as a short paragraph introducing a slide show of dozens of quilts I photographed at the Tokyo Quilt Show last week before my camera's battery expired.  But brevity has never been my strong point.  While assembling the slide show – a tedious task without College Boy here to point out shortcuts while rolling his eyes at my ineptitude – I realized that only two of you would ever get around to viewing those pictures.  This thought was a bit irksome at the cost (time as money)/benefit level so I extracted a few pictures to share with everyone.

Our quilt show party this year included seven American and four Japanese ladies. Usually the Americans travel to Tokyo on the Keikyu train line which, during the morning rush hour, means dangling from a strap and trying to score a pocket of oxygen in a crush of commuters until at least Yokohama and sometimes as far as Shinagawa. Knowing we were going to be on our feet all day wandering around the Tokyo Dome, we decided to spend an extra 950 yen for reserved seats on the JR train line. Had I known how easy it is to reserve a seat, I might have read a lot more books on my journeys last year. We bought the upgrades at an electronic kiosk on the train platform, climbed on a green car when the train pulled into the station, found vacant seats (they were plentiful), and then pressed our train cards against the little screens over our seats until the lights changed from red to green. Take note, AmTrak.

We went to the quilt show on a Wednesday to avoid the weekend crowds. A lot of other people had the same idea.

Quilt shows always seem to feature a special exhibit that you’re not allowed to photograph. The Obama quilts at the 2009 Yokohama show are a prime example.  This time it was Amish quilts from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on loan from German and Australian collectors. The exhibit also included photographs of modern Amish people (is that an oxymoron?) and two stout Caucasian women in Amish attire stitching a quilt for the edification of throngs of onlookers. “They can’t be real Amish women,” I observed, “since you can’t get from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Tokyo via horse-and-buggy.” Artistic Explorer suggested the ladies were Mennonites.

In any case, the Amish exhibit made me feel queasy, like I had swallowed a mouthful of scrapple.  What would Homer think if he traveled through time and space to find himself gazing at relics of Ancient Greece in the British Museum?  A little queasy I think.  Just before beating a hasty retreat from that exhibit, I had the distinct impression I was viewing the remnants of US culture from the other side of the planet several hundred of years after my country ceased to exist.  This was not one of the remnants I would choose were I running that museum.

And yes, I do believe I just compared myself to Homer. Eyes are rolling in heaven today.

Here are a few things that tickled my fancy:

A quilted bag in the shape of a guitar

This quilt (above) recalls a pilgrimage to some of Japan's most famous shrines and temples. Nowadays pilgrimages are mostly undertaken by retired Japanese over the age of 60 with the aim of making merit for their next life. My friend Nagasaki-san's husband made one of these pilgrimages with his 80-year old mother and then did it all over again on foot. What a lovely tradition.



The Jazz Quilt



This one is made of linen squares.  I bet it's fun to iron.

The London Underground

Lavish color carried the day in the Original Design category

Vendors' stalls horse-shoed the exhibit three aisles deep on three sides. Two different vendors offered Peko-chan and Poko-chan dolls but were asking 25,000 yen (about $300 these days) per pair. Too pricey for the likes of me. Dr. T thinks I can get them a lot cheaper if I track down the shops where the vendors normally conduct business.

Oh boy. A new quest.

And here's that slide show for Geraldine and JoAnn: