journal features

praying at the new year

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Nichinan, 2020.01.02

Today we went to a shrine to pray, as it's a new year. This involves trading in the old prayer doo-dads that the family picked up at a shrine at the outset of 2019. These, made of pine and lightly decorated with prayer characters, are then ritually burned while we ritually buy new tokens.

After that, Mari's father's sister arrived with her husband and daughters and their husbands and children. They were praying at a family-specific shrine that was built inside Mari's parents' place.

The household shrine is on the left in this pic.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges