Giving Your Needle a Proper Memorial

Once a needle breaks, do you curse the break in your flow (or your skin), toss it aside, and agitatedly reach for a new one? 

In Japan, the hari kuyo service holds that needles should be thanked for their hard work and given a respectful memorial. Every February 8 (or December 8, in some regions), hundreds of broken needles are brought by droves of seamstresses and kimono makers to the temple for a final send-off. The needles are driven in a block of soft tofu or a konnyaku jelly cake, an act which envelops them in tenderness after the strenuous duty of punching through heavy textiles has ended. While monks chant and incense swirls towards the sky, prayers are said to both show gratitude to the tools for their service and to ask the gods for improved sewing skills. In some areas, once the ritual is completed, the tofu is floated down a river as a final good-bye.

As described by Reuters, hari kuyo is a 400 year-old tradition that blends the animist beliefs of Shinto with the ritual of Buddhism. In addition to recognizing the duty of the needle, the ceremony reflects a strong ethic of frugality and keeping account of even the littlest things in life. Sadly, the ritual has has been sparsely attended in recent years, as fewer women commission and wear custom kimonos. A recent non-Japanese observer noted that the audience of curious onlookers in Tokyo outnumbered the seamstresses and monks who were performing the ritual. 

I'd never heard of hari kuyo before, but was instantly appealing to me both as a seamstress and as a vegan (tofu 4 lyfe!). I had heretofore hoped to return to Japan at some point in the future to catch kanamara matsuri in April, but forget that, I'm now set on going in February. Brrr.