Within the Shinto tradition, the rhythm of the year is marked by festivals that renew the bond between humans, nature, and the kami. At the turning of the year, Shōgatsu (New Year) is central: people purify themselves of the past year’s defilements, welcome the New Year deity, and visit shrines in the practice known as hatsumōde to pray for health, prosperity, and good fortune. This same concern for spiritual cleanliness and auspicious beginnings appears again in Setsubun, when roasted beans are cast out with the cry that drives away misfortune and invites good fortune as spring approaches. Both observances express a desire to step into a new cycle with a cleansed heart and a renewed relationship to the unseen world.

Several festivals attend to the growth and protection of children and the shaping of a wholesome life. Hinamatsuri on the third day of the third month, with its displays of dolls, is rooted in purification rites for girls and has come to focus on prayers for their health and happiness. Tango no Sekku, now widely known as Children’s Day on the fifth day of the fifth month, celebrates the well-being and courage of children, symbolized by carp streamers and protective imagery once directed especially toward boys. Shichi-Go-San, held in mid-autumn, brings children of three, five, and seven years to shrines to receive blessings at traditionally vulnerable stages of life. Coming of Age Day extends this life-cycle concern into youth, marking the transition to adulthood with shrine visits and prayers for a responsible and guided life.

Other festivals turn the community’s attention to the land, the seasons, and the harvest. Spring rites such as Haru no Taisai or Kinensai are offered to the kami in anticipation of a good planting season, with rice, sake, and other offerings presented to agricultural deities. In autumn, Aki Matsuri and Niinamesai give thanks for the rice harvest, with the first fruits offered to the kami before being shared, and Kannamesai at Ise Shrine similarly centers on gratitude for new rice presented to Amaterasu. Midyear and year-end Great Purification rites, such as Nagoshi no Ōharae and the Ōharae of the last day of the year, explicitly address the removal of accumulated impurities, often through symbolic acts like passing through a ring of reeds or transferring defilements to paper figures that are then destroyed.

There are also festivals that weave together local history, communal identity, and the presence of the kami in specific places. Gion Matsuri in Kyoto, for example, began as a rite to appease spirits associated with plague and now unfolds as a grand procession of floats and purification ceremonies seeking protection from disease and disaster. Tenjin Matsuri in Osaka honors the kami of scholarship, Sugawara no Michizane, with river processions, mikoshi, music, and fireworks, expressing prayers for cultural flourishing and the safety of the city. Obon, though deeply shaped by Buddhism, is lived in many communities as a time when ancestral spirits are welcomed and honored much like kami, with lanterns, dances, and offerings guiding and greeting them. Across these diverse matsuri, common threads appear: purification, gratitude, the honoring of ancestors and deities, and the renewal of harmony between human communities and the living world that surrounds and sustains them.