Building our castle - Land Blessing Ceremony

Today marked the most important day in the house-building process so far. In the morning heat we held our "land blessing" or "ground-breaking" ceremony, which lasted around 30 minutes.

Up until today, not much had happened. This is mainly because we had to complete this ceremony before anything else could take place. However, since the last blog post on the house, we have had to choose many things like doors, floors, walls and basins, while at the same time the contractors completed the outline of the house on the ground and some soil testing.

The outline startled us straight away, sending us back to the blue prints to see if these were the right measurements (looked too small). Our architect then reassured us that it was very deceiving at this stage and everyone has the same first impression.

Secondly, contractors conducted soil testing to a depth of five to six metres at six different points to determine the load capacity. Fortunately, all points were strong enough.

However, today was a day of significance. The jichinsai (地鎮祭, じちんさい) is a Shinto ceremony that is performed before the construction of any type of building, whether it is a large commercial or residential site, or a small house. In our case, it was attended by only our family and the architect/managing director of the company we are using. It was conducted by one Shinto priest.

The priest arrived well before the scheduled time and prepared the sacred space for the ritual.

It basically consists of a small area with bamboo poles at each corner, and rope and Shinto paper strips connecting all of the poles together. On the altar are offerings to the Shinto gods/spirits, known as kami (神, かみ) - I will refer to it as kami from now on. Everything is real and fresh, including the snapper on the top shelf. The significance of snapper/bream in Japanese culture is related to a word association. The word for snapper is tai (たい), and the word for auspicious/special/happy is omedetai (おめでたい), so on a celebratory occasion a snapper is usually present.

Being the "head of the household" (everyone knows that's not the case), I had to don a special Shinto vest and take the centre seat for the ritual. The priest checked that he had the pronunciation of my name right (perfectly done too) and the new address, before things got underway. Other than my brother in-law's wedding, this was the first Shinto ceremony I had experienced. We did not have a ceremony for our wedding here in Japan, only a reception/party. Our official ceremony took place at our Australian wedding.

What a cracker of a start to this ceremony though. It caught our whole family by surprise and nearly had us begin a giggle-fit from the start. The priest summoned the kami with a rousing oooooOOOOOOhh, equal to something you would hear at a Noh drama. With the kami present, he then performed the purification of the land, symbolised by the four corners of the small area. He shook the special bamboo branch in specific ways, chanted various purification verses, which included the calling of my name and the building company's name, and then threw small squares of paper from each corner.

We were then asked to perform the ritual ground-breaking. This was symbolised by the breaking a small mound of soil (reminiscent of the mounds at the Silver Pavillion in Kyoto (ginkakuji) or even Mt Fuji) with a ritual hoe. We were all asked to break it with three digs and saying "ay-ay-ay" as we did it. The architect was given a different tool (a shovel) and asked to do the same. Having done this on numerous occasions, he was naturally a pro at it.

Each of us was then asked to place a sacred branch on the altar and bow twice, clap twice, then bow one more time to pay respects to the kami.

With our association with the kami complete, the priest then gave one last and even more chilling OOOOOoooooooohhh, replete with body quivers, to send the kami off. That was outstanding!

The priest announced that the formal ceremony was now over, but there were some final tokens from the ritual. Firstly, we all had a kampai (cheers!) with sake as part of the purification. We (including the kids) were asked to put the sake to our lips (don't have to drink it) and then spread it on the ground in front of us. Then the priest gave us a sacred wooden board with an inscription of the Shinto shrine he belongs to and instructed us to keep it on the kamidana (Shinto altar inside most houses) of the residence we are currently in until the completion of our new house. He also gave an amulet (fortuitous message written by the Shinto priest and placed inside a silk pouch) that we passed on to the architect. This is quite cool. The architect/building company will then place this under the foundations of the house so it remains there and protects us... forever.

And that was it.

However, the meaning is a lot deeper than that. This ceremony is not only a rite of passage for the new homeowners, but an important and somewhat superstitious ceremony for the architect and builders. They now feel a lot more comfortable knowing that the land is purified and will not have any lingering thoughts of bad luck associated with any workplace accidents/mistakes.

Everyone I have spoken to about this ceremony has mentioned that things progress at lightning speed from now on. This will be the case for our construction as well. Straight after this ceremony, we officially signed the paperwork (address, loan - related etc.) and were reminded of the upcoming schedule. Basically, the official construction begins in about 2 weeks time, then there will be a roof up a month after that. The expected date of completion is the end of January next year, and we move in early February. Wow!!

Of course, we celebrated with food.