Setsubun 節分 In Japan – Ritual for Seasonal Renewal

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Happy Setsubun 節分 2024!

I’ve been settling in Nara, Japan this past week. I made it Nara Park today with my Japanese friend Misa for some traditional Japanese rituals to celebrate Setsubun. Usually held on February 3, Setsubun marks the end of winter, noting the division in seasons as we head toward spring the following day. It dates back to classical Japanese history and previously China.

My first stop was the Todai-ji Buddhist temple for joyful participation in mamemaki 豆まき, the bean throwing ritual celebrating Setsubun. This ritual includes someone wearing a demon mask. 鬼 Oni are demons in Japanese culture, and the word mamemaki is similar to the word for destroying demons, mametsu 魔. Revelers throw beans at the demon and shout:

鬼は外! 福は内
Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!
Demons out, good luck in!

At the temple, lucky beans were passed out instead of anyone wearing a mask, and people lined up in droves for the ritual. I love ritual, because it involves the body and the soul, which is powerful medicine in our alienated, consumer world devoid of meaning. You bring yourself good luck just by performing the ritual at Setsubun, not to mention align yourself with nature and the seasons.

Uchi 家 means house in Japanese, and a house is a metaphor for the soul. Demons are metaphors for negative tendencies, so by physically enacting this intention, one can drive away negative forces from oneself and invite good luck and fortune in.

Naturally, as western influences have taught a young generation of Japanese to consume their holidays instead of mystical participation in them, stores are full of options to buy stuff for the celebration, including candy and candy-coated soybeans. I bought some, and they were delicious!

Many people celebrate Setsubun by eating a giant sushi roll called ehōmaki 恵方巻き. Those were on sale everywhere today with the Oni demon face on them along with the Goddess of mirth, meditation and the dawn, Uzume. Ehōmaki has usurped for the past 25 years the bean-throwing tradition in Japan. My Japanese teacher said she prefers ehōmaki to beans because it’s easier to clean up after her kids have fun throwing beans at Dad wearing the demon mask.

The word eho 恵方 means lucky direction and maki 巻きmeans roll. You’re supposed to face in a certain direction that brings good luck and it the whole thing silently. Setsubun ehōmaki eating requires sitting and facing the year’s auspicious direction as determined by an old Chinese calendar system — east-northeast in 2024. You have to eat the whole thing at once too.

Later that evening, we went to Kasuga-taisha 春日大社 Shintō Shrine for its Setsuban Mantoro 節分万燈籠. The ritual dates back more than 800 years, as 3000 bronze and stone lanterns, many donated by citizens, are lit at dusk. It’s so dark, at one point Misa and I were separated, and the internet isn’t too stable there. We finally found each other again. Can you imagine what it was like for people 1,000 years ago at the shrine’s founding?

It’s profound to walk along the dark paths and see the lanterns’ light against the night. It is said that the spirit world comes closer on this day before spring, so people’s prayers and wishes written on paper are placed over the lanterns so that they are granted on Setsubun.

I was here seven years ago for Kasuga Taisha’s August lamp lighting Chugen Mantoro 中元万灯籠 during Obon. I loved getting my hana chochin, a candle-lit flower lantern to walk around the dark with.

Usually the large lanterns are lit with candles, however, this year I’ve noticed some modern lamps using electricity were included.

I noticed as a whole the changes to the area with the boom in tourism. More cement and tourist facilities, such as toilets and parking lots were added, which rather desacralizes the whole place and experience starting to feel more like Disneyland, especially many things have a charge to enter and little knicknacks are for sale among the more traditional objects. The woods are just not as mysterious, dark and deep with these mundane additions. As the world becomes the same in culture, everything authentic becomes sold back to you as an alienated consumer rather than union with the object. So travel now while you can before Starbucks takes over everything!

My favorite experience, as was my friend Misa’s, was to just go into the darkest part of the forest where few others went and no lanterns were. The blackness and quiet is surreal as you walk the path with your little lantern. Finally a shrine appears on a hill, and you drop your coin offering in a box and pray. The silence permeates your being and seems to answer back to you: your wish has been granted. And on this evening of the last day of winter, your efforts have paid off. Tomorrow is spring and the world, and yourself, is new again.

That is the power of ritual.