Bad Luck at Heian Jingu Shrine

As it is customary in Japanese Shinto shrines, also the Heian Jingu in Kyoto has an area where bad luck is left hanging in the open.

御御籤 —o-mikuji—are small strips of paper that people can choose at random to find out their fortune. As every tourist is told, the general rule is that you should keep the good omens and leave the bad ones hanging on a pine tree or a scaffold.

The o-mikuji can be taken for free, however it is also customary to leave a 100-yen coin in return. In fact, this is one way in which shrines are able to sustain themselves, given that there is no direct state support for religious institutions (which, by contrast, benefit from favourable tax arrangements).

I was inspired to take this photo by the interaction between the paper slips’meaning and the heavy rain that the gods were showering from the sky. The overall result looked to me like a fair representation of the unfortunate fate that the omens had foretold and the whish to get rid of them. The amateur philospher in me would say that the scaffold symbolises the pain of existence. It bears the weight of the misfortune of many people who do not know each other but who share a common fate, and the bad weather makes this load even heavier.

As per more mundane matters, I took the photo with the Nikon 35TI —which has become my go-to camera when I don’t shoot digital— loaded with a roll of Ilford HP5 400.