In ancient times, the equinoxes were approached with an almost religious reverence. Tied to planting in spring and the end of harvesting in autumn, the days served as important marking points in the agricultural year. And because the days and the nights became of roughly equal length, it was believed that the world of the living and the world of the spirits grew closer. As a friend says, the fabric between the living and the dead grew thinner.
O-higan お彼岸, occurring around the two equinoxes in Japan, is a time of reflection, when families gather and pay respect to the dead. In autumn especially, as the colors seem to be fading from the world around us, o-higan has a particular poignancy. Suddenly you see red ohigan flowers (like red spider lilies) in all the flower shops and my tea teacher would sometimes serve ohagi, a brownish sweet cake made with red bean paste thought to ward off evil.
In California, I visit my father’s grave often on his birthday or on the day he died. Sometimes I visit on Memorial Day, as he is in a National Cemetery near UCLA.
In Japan, there were so many such days.
When I first met Tetsuya, he told me that people in Japan take funerals and the dead very seriously. I soon saw this for myself, when we visited his family in Shizuoka, at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Before greeting his mother and father, we always went straight to the family altar to pay our respects to his ancestors. Ringing a small bell, we bowed our heads in prayer. Then, after a big family meal, we were off to the graveyard, where Tetsuya helped his elderly grandmother clean his grandfather’s gravestone.
I always joked that he was nicer to the dead than to the living. But he frowned and told me to be serious about my father.
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I never knew this until recently, but the word ohigan originally came from 日願 Higan or “Wishing for the sun.” Over time, this kanji was replaced by a word of the same pronunciation 彼岸 meaning the “other shore.”
In Buddhist teachings, Ohigan translates as “crossing over to the other shore,” meaning nirvana— or the realm of deceased loved ones.
Well, Leanne, of course you would write for the autumnal equinox! So beautiful to have the family altar for celebration of your ancestors. Your picture is so lovely; it makes me feel the sweetness of love given in light of loss. And thank you for illuminating the word ohigan! FWIW from the very beginning of my Buddhist practice, I have made one prayer to be steadfast throughout, and that is to reach for clarity of thought. Several months ago, one of the priests said that there is "a new definition of faith: clarity of thought". The other shore welcomes us. xoxoxoxo