As I introduced the other day, a small Shinto shrine about a hundred yards from my place here in Kyoto shut down because its main benefactor had passed away, so they had a ceremony to ask the shrine's spirit(s) to return to whence they came. Apparently, such ceremonies are exceedingly rare.

Some shrines like the nearby Heian Shrine are huge multi-acre affairs, but most are much smaller. There are literally thousands of shrines in Kyoto, with the median size probably about the size of the one that shut down: about the area of a single parking space.

As part of the ceremony, the name/age/gender of local folk were written on sticks that were then burned. The idea is that the smoke goes along with the departing spirit, imparting wishes for good health to those whose names are included.

While the sticks burned, the priest chanted something that I assumed was a prayer of some sort.

It was difficult to take pictures because the shrine was very small, and the road in front was quite narrow and tended to be filled with people both standing and passing through. In taking the wide-angle shot above, my heels were hanging precariously off the edge of the road over the Shirakawa river.

The priest is standing under the entrance gates, with the “altar” (I'm not sure what it's really called, but it looks quite similar to the tabernacle in a Catholic church) a bit to the back, and that's it. I don't know what will become of the location, but as I said, size-wise, it's just large enough to park one care comfortably.

Once that was done, the priest actually opened up the altar/tabernacle thing. It apparently hadn't been opened in a very long time, because someone needed to fetch a screwdriver so he could pry it open.

Beside whatever was expected inside, he also found wasps, so someone ran for some bug spray....

Once that was taken care of, he removed everything from inside, and the ceremony was over.

Despite the rather unappealing look of the surroundings in the “The Whole Thing” photo above, it's actually a nice area. The path the shrine is on parallels a small stream, and there are a lot of nice things about the area (traditional houses, quaint bridges, cherry trees), and as such, it gets quite a bit of foot traffic. While the ceremony was going on, lots of people would pause as they went by, and if they happened to have a quizzical look, I'd tell them that it was a ceremony to close down the shrine. Invariably, the first words from their mouth was “oh, that's too bad!”

It was only after it was over that I chatted with some others there about why the shrine was closing. I knew that the man had been ill, but didn't know he had passed away, so that was quite sad. I wanted to say something to his wife who was there, but my Japanese is not at all good enough that I could be sure not to phrase something inappropriately, so I just quietly left. Half an hour later, I was at Sunday mass, at which time I said my own little prayer for the man and his family.