Day for Purification
Supervised by Ms.M
Affiliation: KARASU CHANNEL
Traditions studied: 12+ (Western astrology, Four Pillars of Destiny, Nine Star Ki, tarot, runes, palmistry & physiognomy, name numerology, numerology, feng shui, Vedic astrology / Zi Wei, Onmyodo, spiritual reading, and more)
Personal readings: by request via Contact,
currently booked years out
Read about Day for Purification
About this reading: The favorable-day check for purification combines traditional lucky-day notations like Tensha-bi and Ichiryu-manbai-bi with the Rokuyou system and the moon's phase to read whether a given day suits purification or ritual cleansing — this page's own particular angle. In spiritual circles, the new moon has long been treated as a time for new beginnings and the full moon as a time for letting go or marking an ending. The Rokuyou is worked out from the month and day of the old lunisolar calendar (fixed by the new moon and the twenty-four solar terms, in Japan Standard Time), for dates from 1900 to 2100.
Leaving the question of when to act to a calendar or the moon's phase is sometimes traced back to lives once timed to nature's own cycles — farming and fishing schedules built around them. As we see it here, what a "pick a day" reading really offers isn't the luck or ill luck of the date itself, so much as a reason to decide for yourself that today is the turning point. The day you first feel ready to act, before any reading even confirms it, may already be your real day for clearing things out.
The Purification Calendar below scores these days, showing crows on good days for purification and scary faces on days to hold off. Members also see their personal cleansing days: days that clash with the branch of the day they were born. Settling yourself precisely when your energy is easily stirred is this site's own reading.
Lore column: The Night You Must Not Sleep: Kōshin and the Three Worms Inside You
A short read on the legends and strange tales around this reading, with this site's own view.
Among the customs of choosing days, there was once a strange one: a night on which you must not sleep. It was the night of kōshin, which comes around once every 60 days. According to an idea rooted in Chinese Daoism, three worms called sanshi live inside the human body, and on the night of kōshin, once a person falls asleep, they slip out, rise to heaven and report that person's misdeeds to the Heavenly Emperor, who then shortens that person's life accordingly.
So people stayed awake through the night of kōshin to keep the worms from escaping. This was kōshin-machi, "waiting out kōshin." It is said to have been practiced among aristocrats in the Nara and Heian periods and to have spread to ordinary people by around the Muromachi period. In the Edo period Shōmen Kongō was worshiped as the deity who held the worms in check, and the kōshin stone markers raised to commemorate completing eighteen vigils over three years still stand by roadsides across Japan.
As we see it here, kōshin-machi was a night-long watch over the tattletale within. This is our own conjecture, but everyone carries small, hidden guilts, and people may have feared those slipping away on their own while they slept. That is exactly why they gathered, talked and laughed until dawn. Beneath the wish to pick a good day for purification, too, may lie a desire to let go of what has built up inside you yourself, before anyone else can tell on you.
Day for Purification
Check whether today is traditionally considered a favorable day for purification, based on Tensha-bi, Ichiryu-manbai-bi, the Rokuyou, and the moon's phase. This doesn't use your birth date.
Purification Calendar
This calendar layers days said to suit purification (Tensha-bi, Ichiryu-manbai-bi, Taian, around the new and full moon) against days to hold off (Fujoju-bi, Shakkou) for a whole month. More crows mean better for purification; more scary faces mean less suited. Tap a date to see what falls on it.
Sign up for free and save your birth date to see your personal cleansing days (red frame and 祓) on this calendar, based on the stem-branch of the day you were born (members can log in).
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