Explanation of the fortunes on the Omikuji, a fortune-telling paper strip

  I know it's quite sudden to ask, but what do you think this art-work is?  This is one scene during the New Year Days in the famous shrine.  I will explain later.　　

According to the newspapers, this year's New Year's Day was blessed with warm weather, so about 185,000 people visited the Taga Taisha Shrine on New Year's Day alone. The Taga Taisha Shrine is one of the most prestigious shrines in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. It is very crowded in particular at the first shrine visit of the new year.

So, I visited this Shrine on January 6th to avoid jam packed crowd, although it was a rainy day.

Let's steer back to the main point. First of all, worshippers prayed in front of the main shrine and threw money offerings. In the shrine, some people are getting Shinto purification ritual. 

After praying, worshipers usually purchase various lucky charms, such as sacred arrows, sacred rakes, good luck charms etc. And they also often draw an Omikuji, a fortune-telling paper strip. In addition to fortunes such as "great luck" or "bad luck," the Omikuji also tells you whether your wish will come true. It also tells you about illness and health, marriage proposal and words of wisdom etc. 

How to draw "Omikuji", it depends on the shrine, but at first, I shake well the black hexagonal column written "Omikuji", then turn it upside down until a stick comes out from a small hole in the top of the lid.

By the way, the brown hexagonal column seen left is specialized in your love fortune and the small hexagonal column with blue label is for children.

I checked the number on the stick. The number was No.30. I told the number to a shrine maiden called Miko at the shrine counter and paid 200 JPY, then she handed me an Omikuji paper corresponding to the number.

This is the initial part of the Omikuji paper corresponding to No.30.

Please look at the Kanji characters (末吉, Suekichi ) at bottom right of above photo. This Kanji character means grade of the luck. 

The following table shows the kanji characters arranged in order of luck. According to this order, the fortune of my Omikuji was the lowest, because it was Suekichi.

Three days later, I visited Taga Taisha Shrine and tried Omikuji again. Actually, we can try only once, but I drew 3 times this time. The first Omikuji was Chukichi (the third fortune), then I tried once more, the result was Kichi (the second-best fortune). The last one was Chukichi (the third fortune) again. I think luck is on my side today. 

Following photos are the Omikuji paper strips that I drew twice at Taga Taisha Shrine last August. Regrettably, as for the grade of fortune, the left Omikuji (Shokichi) was the second from the lowest, and the right one (Suekichi) was the lowest.

In the lower right column of each Omikuji, the fortune is expressed in a Tanka form that is a Japanese short poem with 5-7-5-7-7 syllable. But it is difficult to interpret it even for me. The contents written in the lower left column are the several sentences explaining each fortune specifically, then about illness and health, marriage proposal and words of wisdom. However, it is said that what is said in the explanation of fortune is more important than whether it is simply good luck or bad luck. So, I think it is necessary to read thoroughly these sentences. 

 
By the way, there are three colors in the Omikuji sheet in this shrine, but I think the sheet color does not relate to the luck.

"You can take the omikuji home with you or tie it to a tree branch". If we draw bad fortune, we usually tie it to a tree branch or something like that in the shrine.

But in fact, there are no proper tree branches in the precinct to tie Omikuji. Even if there were a tree branch, it cannot cope with too many worshippers.

Therefore, this shrine provides the facilities to tie Omikuji paper, at least three spots in the shrine. 

There are three colors in the Omikuji sheets at Taga Taisha: white, wisteria, and peach. So, it is very colorful. 

Huge amount of Omikuji papers tied to ropes show how many people visited this shrine during the New Year Days.