Tanabata

     Today, July 7th is tanabata festival day. In early-modern times, it is linked to several mythologies. But when I imagine this word, I imagine a waving flag. This festival was held originally on the lunar calendar. Thus in the solar calendar date, it should be around August 7^th.  Spiritually significant time in Japan is obon.  Once a year, around mid-August is the time when ancestral spirits come to visit us. And the 7^th of August will be a week before the obon. I feel it was originally the day to start the greetings to the ancestral spirits. The tanzaku notes were originally used to write the names of ancestors and not your wishes. The bata(夕) of tanabata（七夕) means evening… which signifies the night time, the dark place.. Yomi-no-kuni.. the spiritiual dimension of the dead.  The mythology tells that only once in a year, the male and the female is able to meet crossing the milkyway. But in fact, it makes sense to me if it’s really about the ancestors and the descendent meeting once a year.






      Today the astronomical phenomenon shows



(http://www.astroarts.com/index.shtml）that at 22:53 the distance between Earth and the Moon will be in the closest distance which is 369567km. This number, 369 and 567 is a very interesting number. 369 is Miroku (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/miroku.shtml). And 567 is a significant year that is written on a sutra related to Miroku. The distance between the Moon is showing this number at this day. I cannot stop thinking that it may have been all planned from few millions years ago.




     I will say, from the ancestral worship point of view, tanabata is a day to start preparing for obon. On the sutra, it says that a new bosatsu, a practitioner, will appear. I would like to think that from today, people would start to have a new perspective, to see things in a different manner.


* You can search more about Miroku on this blog.

Ikashite-itadaite arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live