The gods also are said to have feasts where they enjoy the sake offered up by local brewers. While the gods are at Izumo Taisha, they are said to hold meetings to determine the destiny of all people for the upcoming year, and people come from all over the country to pray for good luck in the various relationships they will have. This procession is blocked from direct view on either side by white fabric also carried by Taisha priests. Bonfires are lit, and after a short ceremony, shrine priests escort the gods from the beach back to special shrines on the Izumo Taisha grounds, where the myriad gods are then temporarily enshrined. It is held after sunset on the beach at Inasa-no-Hama (part of Sono-no-Nagahama from the Legend of Kunibiki), about a kilometer (3/4 of a mile) from the shrine. It all starts with the Kami-mukae-sai, a ceremony that welcomes the gods to Izumo. Basically, for about a week during the tenth month of the lunar calendar, all of the myriad gods throughout the country (called by the collective name Yaoyorozu-no-kamigami) leave their respective areas and gather at Izumo Taisha in Izumo City, and special festivals and ceremonies are held at Izumo Taisha during this time. What does this have to do with Shimane? Well, in the Izumo region of Shimane, the same month is called Kami-ari-zuki, The Month of the Gods.
When you get to the tenth month of that lunar calendar, it has a very interesting name: Kan-na-zuki, The Month of No Gods. The first month of the calendar was called Mutsuki, the second Kisaragi, the third Yayoi, and so on.
While Japan now uses the same calendar as the West, up until the mid-1800’s it used a lunar calendar, and instead of the numbered names of the months they use now (Month 1, Month 2, Month 3, etc), each month had a more complicated name.
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