Dazaifu: walking on fire

Yesterday morning we (WJC students) went to Kamado shrine (竈神社) at Dazaifu to walk on fire. “Walk on fire?” you ask. Yeah, well, that’s all I remembered from class, as I was dozing off during the explanation.
Luckily, I díd pay attention when we arrived, so behold, here follows a blog with tadadadam.. some information!

We attended a ritual called gomadaki (護摩焚き), which has influences from Buddhism and Shintoism. The Kamado shrine was built to put a stop to bad luck and once a year they build a big fire and everyone can write their wish down on a small piece of wood (300円). As soon as it is thrown in the fire, the wish can go up to the sky to the god up there (or were it gods?) so it can be granted. So, well, purification ritual.
Makes sense, no?

“Heeeere, heeeeree” followed by a long explanation

The ‘pieces of wood’, ready for the ritual

See the green thing in the middle? Yeah, that’s the centerpiece

Since we were there rather soon so we waited.. and waited.. the parade came up and there was a whole ritual with a lot of talking, which took…. Quite some time, certainly since I didn’t understand everything (rather almost nothing). It kind of felt like a play, the way they did everything. One by one the men entered ‘the ring’, greeted the god(s) at the altar, presented their bow, arrows, other attributes, all very theatrical. I almost wanted to applaud for them after a ‘scene’, haha.

It was actually a relief when they finally put the pyre on fire. Around that time they started chanting and the atmosphere changed. For the first time I actually tried filming so, if you want an image of how everything was, or just wanna hear the chanting, check it out!
First: short movie about how they present things. I actually left out the very long text.. but here you have a guy with an axe!
And then a video with the chanting. Some background music while reading? 😉

After a while our teacher told us to line up so we could walk through the fire. The fire would burn our worries from our heart and purify us. Everyone took their shoes off and the atmosphere got tensed. How was it going to be? We couldn’t see a thing! As we got closer, a monk hit us softly on the back before urging us towards the fire (what’s up with monks and hitting?).
Actually we walked in between the remnants of the fire, on the ashes. I had expected it to be hot, but it wasn’t really. By the time I got out, my feet were pitch-black, so we just hàd to take a ‘footsie’ with the teacher (Okay, they don’t look that bad from above :’) but it was funny).

Lining up

I could barely see a thing 😀

Korean/German/Japanese/Thai/Belgian feet… Guess who is who? 😉

Since the temple was a place for love, there were also two stones that might bring you luck in love, IF you can walk with your eyes closed from one to the other. If you fail though, you might be unlucky, and, the teacher added (smilingly) “if you ask your friends for help, you also need help in love”.