What Shinto says about cycles and renewal
If you look in Shinto for a hidden design behind things, there is not much to find. What there is instead is rhythm: seasons, festivals fixed to them, purification twice a year, shrines taken down and rebuilt. The pattern is something that recurs rather than something concealed. Ten concepts follow.
Shiki - The Four Seasons
The four seasons are treated as the continuing creative work of the kami, each with its own festivals and foods. Noticing the change of season is itself counted as part of the practice.
Shinto teachings
Musubi - The Creative Force
Musubi is the generative power in things: growth, coming into being, and the joining of one thing to another. It is what gives the cycle its motion.
Tama no Mihashira
Oharae - The Great Purification
Twice a year, at the end of June and December, the great purification clears what has gathered. Impurity is handled as something that accumulates with time and needs a scheduled clearing, not as a verdict on character.
Engishiki
Shikinen Sengu - Periodic Renewal
At Ise the shrine buildings are rebuilt completely every twenty years. The result is a structure that is both very old and never old, and the building skills pass on with it.
Ise traditions
Hatsumode - First Shrine Visit
The first shrine visit of the year is made in the opening days of January: old amulets returned, new ones taken, the year begun deliberately.
Folk Shinto
Setsubun - Bean-Throwing Festival
On the eve of spring, roasted beans are thrown in the house, out with misfortune and in with good luck. The turn of a season gets marked physically, in the hallway.
Setsubun traditions
Niiname-sai - Harvest Thanksgiving
At the harvest thanksgiving the first of the new rice is offered before any of it is eaten. The order matters more than the amount.
Imperial ritual
Hanami - Flower Viewing
Cherry blossom viewing is a short annual appointment with something that does not last. The brevity is the content, not a flaw in it.
Japanese poetry
Mono no Aware - Pathos of Things
Mono no aware is the ache that comes with noticing transience, falling petals or fading light, and it is counted as beautiful rather than as a problem to be solved. The library attributes its classic expression to the scholar Motoori Norinaga.
Literary criticism
Kannagara - Living in Accord with Kami
Kannagara is living along the grain of the divine way rather than against it, described as water running downhill rather than as effort.
Naobi no Mitama
A tradition that rebuilds its holiest buildings every twenty years is making a point about what permanence is. Nothing here is preserved by being kept still. The pattern survives because it is performed again, which also means it can simply stop.