Halfway Through the Year

Today marks Nagoshi no Harae ( 夏越の祓), a Shinto purification ritual on June 30th at shrines across Japan. It marks the year’s midpoint. This is an important Shinto ritual to cleanse away the impurities we accumulate in our daily lives for the first half of the year before stepping into the second half clean.

The Nagoshi no Harae ritual is particularly characterized by the Chino-wa Kuguri, where participants pass through a large woven grass ring woven from kaya grass, set up at shrine entrances. Visitors pass through it, often in a figure-eight pattern, as a form of purification. The intention is to ward off evil spirits. 

In Kyoto, the day has its own culinary tradition: minazuki, a triangular rice-flour cake topped with red azuki beans. The white triangle evokes shaved ice (a luxury in the old imperial capital’s summer heat), while the red beans are believed to ward off evil. Consuming this represents the same meaning behind the chinowa, marking the threshold, asking for protection as the year continues.

Similar to the pause in tea practice, we pause midway through the year, to be present and proceed with intention.