I love a parade

We are fortunate in the location of our apartment that we are just across the river from the Shimogamo Shrine--one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Kyoto. The shrine itself is pretty interesting--Noh stages, an inner sanctuary, a Chinese bridge, a large torii gate, and beautiful trees and flowers--but the landscape which contains it is another reason we're glad to be nearby. It's in a large (for an urban area) forest with several magnificent old trees. The mythology of the forest is that one can tell no lies there. S tries to disprove this every time we enter the forest, but I always catch him, so I suppose the myth is true. In any case, we enjoy walking there and appreciating the stream, the trees, and the relative quiet.

In the first two weeks of May, the forest and shrine were anything but quiet. The Shimogamo Shrine and its sister the Kamigamo Shrine (several blocks north) are home to the two-week Aoi Matsuri, one of the "three big" festivals in Kyoto. The first part of the festival features mounted archery, which is just as exciting as it sounds. The archery course was quite crowded, but we were able to appreciate the horses, the period dress, and the actual archery. The horses galloped full throttle down a straight course while the riders shot arrows at tiny wooden targets. It was very dramatic! I think my crazy horse would love this event.

Today was the culmination of the festivities with a 600 or so person processional that represents a ceremony from the Heian period Kinmei Emporer (8th century) in which offerings were made at the Kamigamo and Shimogamo Shrines to appease the gods and to lift a curse (resulting in slow ripening grains) of the Kamo (river) kami.

Today, hundreds of people dress in Heian period clothing and bring horses, oxen, household goods, and other offerings to the two Kamo shrines. There are also private ceremonies at the shrines, including the installment of a young woman as high priestess, but we only saw the public events, which were pretty spectacular. The highlights of J's first "parade" were the giant decorated oxcarts and the beautiful horses, some of which were given as gifts. Mounted archers were at the front and rear of the processional, I suppose to protect the goods. In the middle were the ladies of the court, decked out in full kimono and white makeup. Beautiful.

"Aoi," by the way, is variously translated as hollyhock or geranium, but seems to most resemble the wild ginger in our woods at home (also blooming this time of year). These leaves decorated every hat, oxcart, horse, and sword of the processional, and even graced the modern hats of the police officers handling the crowd. Finally, there's only one thing better than a parade, and that's a parade with food. I was delighted to find a stand selling frozen chocolate-covered bananas--my favorite summer treat, which I usually get at Sam's Doghouse back home. This place is a far cry from the Doghouse, but, here or in Vermont, nothing says "summer" like a good parade.