Land Blessing

On Saturday, June 7 we had our land blessing. It is a ceremony to appease the Earth God. It is to bring protection for the builders and to help keep everything on schedule. According to my research, the Jichinsai ceremony is a ritual intended to calm the kami (god) of the earth whenever a new building or other construction begins. It was/is believed that without going through the protocol of requesting permission from the earth kami, any building constructed would anger the kami and lead to it's destruction. Another purpose is to pray that the actual construction proceeds without any "incidents". Mr. Iwai did the ceremony for us. Usually this ceremony is a Shinto ceremony, but Buddhist priest can do it also. The construction manager, architect and sales guy were all there. To start with we need to prepare many supplies. We offered 3 types of fruits and 5 types of vegetables. Also there were several foods there for their scents such as dried bonito (katsuoboshi), dried squid (tsurume) and seaweed (konbu) as well as fresh flowers. According to Mr. Iwai, a nice scent is the best present we can give the gods. There was also salt, rice and sake for purifying the land. Once everyone arrived we build an earthen alter. First it was dirt, then sand, then it was covered in pine needles and towards the end of the ceremony there were fresh flowers. The alter faced South. Then they made a small dirt and sand pile that we would dig into during the ceremony. Surrounding the alter there were 4 bamboo trees placed around it and a special rope that had symbolic paper in it. Once we got started there was about 20 minutes of Mr. Iwai chanting and praying. He would also use a chime and even symbols. We all stood behind him. Then when it came time to purify the land we had to place the salt, rice and sake at each corner of our house. It was really interesting and exciting to see the house mapped out. At the end of the ceremony Mr. Iwai took all the offerings back to his temple and all that was left was the bamboo with the alter. Apparently once the builders come and start construction they take it down and parts of it go under the house. The following video has some pictures and a video I took from the ceremony. Our official breaking ground day is June 20th, and they are trying there best to have us in before Christmas this year. I will keep the blog updated as we progress with the house!