A Former Shrine Maiden’s Strolling Tales 〜(Part.2) My First Connection with…〜

2024.10.04

英語版「元巫女てくてく小噺」その② 神様との繋がりは・・・

Neither my family nor my relatives are particularly devout when it comes to religious matters.

In fact, my mother used to stick the sacred talismans (ofuda) on the refrigerator with magnets, without any regard for direction or anything, until I showed her how to properly enshrine them a few years ago.

Although they might visit shrines, they don’t typically participate in any formal prayers or rituals, and offerings are usually just small coins. To top it off, my family hasn’t even enshrined the ofuda from the shrine where I was named. The only ofuda enshrined at home is the one from our local guardian deity (ujigami), which we receive during festivals.

And, as I mentioned earlier, even that is just stuck on the wall with magnets…

We have a decent-sized Buddhist altar, but no Shinto altar (kamidana).

In the past, we had a main house and a detached annex on our property. My paternal grandparents lived in the main house, where they had a kamidana. But after rebuilding the house, only the Buddhist altar remained.

However, we do have a small shrine in the garden where we enshrine an Inari deity.

It’s a bit strange, isn’t it? We seem to be a family with some religious faith, but it’s kind of ambiguous.

Since we were originally a farming family, we enshrined the Inari deity to pray for good harvests. That’s why I feel a bit disappointed that we didn’t also set up a kamidana.

When it came time to rebuild the house, I told my mother, “We need to be careful and do things properly” regarding the Inari shrine, especially because of some past troubles our family had. But I figured the kamidana wasn’t as important, so I didn’t say anything about it…

 

日本語版はこちら！

元巫女てくてく小噺②

https://note.com/jyun_en/n/ne1d063871466