telophase | (no subject)

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japan trip

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Woke up at 6:30 AM because my body thought it was, like, 8:30 PM or something. I'm completely, utterly, totally run down, which I'm sure is due to the flight plus the cold. I had many confusing dreams about walking around in a big airport or train station composed of many little confusing Shinto shrines, with all text written in Japanese. Which isn't too far from a lot of urban Japan, actually.

Have been doing a bit of online research to see if I can figure out anything about the kitsune shrine we found in Arashiyama. Have come up with nothing so far, because naturally most of the info online about kitsune and shrines tends to be neopagan and/or unattributed, so finding out specifically what these things are to Shinto practitioners is hard.

If anyone knows of why small rocks and stones would be placed on top of a tori gate, let me know. That also fascinates me.

Plan for today: grocery store so I don't starve to death, then SLEEEEEEEP.

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I asked my spouse about that, when I kept seeing them in Japanese movies. He said that they are memorials.

Cool, thanks! :D

I'm rather curious about the rocks myself.

They have a couple stories about Foxes in my Tales of Old Japan book. They have the fairytale The Foxes Wedding and the section called Concerning Certain Superstitions is all about cats, foxes, and badgers; even providing some info on Inari, the kami foxes are most often linked to. It's published by Dover and $12.95 if you can track it down.

There's an Ainu kitsune-story starring a fox cub and dog puppy who shapeshift into a lithe warrior (fox) and a dancing maiden (dog) to steal back their (human) master's enchanted thingamajig from an eeevil puppy-eating ogre. If I could draw I would totally call dibs on the shapeshifting shojo quest OT3 crack material.

Do you have any other details about the shrine in Arashiyama? It sounds like another Inari shrine.

http://telophase.livejournal.com/956596.html - my account
http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/511709.html - Rachel's account

* We'll have photos once Rachel gets her film developed and her digital ones downloaded from the camera.

Oh, oh, right, I read that before, sorry.

I don't know, it could just be someone's old private shrine to pray for good rice crops. It sounds small and mysterious enough that it'll be hard to find anything out online. :)

I'm working more on the idea of similar shrines, and once I get back to my job I'll do some searching in the databases for academic work on the subject. Between my anthropology background and library job, if it's out there in English, I should be able to find it. :)

You see why I'm stuck on the idea (anthropology background, considered library science as a career, former research assistant ;D). Looking forward to seeing what you find out!

i googled it and found several answers,
*If you throw the stone up on to the torii, your penmanship will improve
*You will be able to marry well (but do not let other stones fall)
*Your wish will come true
sorry couldn't help much. i look forward to seeing the pictures.

Hey, that's three more answers than I came up with! Thanks! :D

It's probably one of those things that people do that everyone has a different reason for.

Mebbe the kitsune messed with your camera....

Heh, the stones thing sounds like something similiar to (but obviously more cheerful than) the Jewish custom of putting stones or pebbles onto grave stones/burial markers, a custom also has mutiple possible meanings (the most common one being simply to indicate that someone has visited the grave).

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