The Japanese people have come to believe humans are not simply material beings but have been born with the blessings of nature and a divine breath of life. In the Japanese myths, humans are viewed as another small "nature".

At various turning points in the individual Japanese person's life, visits are made to Shinto shrine (jinja) to pray for the divine (kami) protection and give thanks for the deities' blessings. These occasions called "lifecycle rites (jinsei girei).

About a month after a Japanese baby is born it is taken to a Shrine for its first pilgrimage, and tile parents' offer their joy find thanks at tile birth of a new life. Since it is believed that a child's life is a human beings is unstable until the age of seven, special rites of ..seven-five-three(shichi-go-san) " have long been performed during a child's third, fifth and seventh years of life., as an opportunity to pray for tile safe growth of the child.

Special rites of purification and blessing are also sought at other junctures of tile life-cycle, including times of school-entrance ceremonies and at the time a young person reaches his or her majority. The most radiant occasion in life, however, is the marriage ceremony, when the new couple exchange ritual toasts of rice wine (sake) before the deity and pledge their vows as husband and wife.

Rites of purification and prayer are held on other occasions as well, to exorcize a variety of banes whenever a physical or spiritual change in tempo is felt, together with year-celebration rites on the occasions of a person's sixtieth, severity-seventh and eighty-eight birthdays.

Through the repetition of such year-celebration and life-cycle rites, tire Japanese people have come to make the life granted them even fuller, and to seek a way of life full of peace and joy in communion with the divine.

From "MATSURI-Japan, Land of Festivals" (Jinja Honcho)