Obon

Yesterday, I took part in the Obon celebration sponsored by the New York Buddhist Church.  The NYBC has been celebrating Obon in a public park for over 60 years, and so, like many traditions, there is a lot that is the same from year to year - the parade around the circle, the particpants dressed on yukata or happi coats, the opening address and benediction, the heat.  The biggest part of the tradition, of course, is the dancing - there are usually two circles of dancers, the inner circle composed of members of the Tachibana dance group, leading the outer circle composed of everyone else - church members, other performers and members of the audience. 

In Japan, this sort of celebration is very local, and there are hundreds or more that take part on hot, sticky nights in different city neighborhoods.  In NYC, the party is held in the daytime on a Sunday afternoon.  Drinking is kept to a minimum, and the practice is held more closely to Buddhist ritual than it ever is in Japan, for Obon is a folk tradition that may actually predate Buddhism.  Like many other practices (lion dancing in Chinatown comes to mind), Obon takes on amplified meaning outside its homeland - ritual, religion and folk tradition all in one. 

This year's celebration was a true illustration of Margaret Thompson Drewel's idea of ritual as a spiral rather than a cycle.  The crowd was much larger than it has been in recent years.  At one point, we had three circles of dancers.  I found myself noticing all kinds of things.  An old woman, supported by family members, her body contorted by what looked like late stage Parkinson's (my uncle died of the disease), determined to dance anyway, no matter what  - and she did too.  When I saw her later, she was making her way around the circle unassisted, and while she was not able to follow the steps very well, the painful looking jerkiness of her movement had softened.  A silly, middle-aged woman danced "Tanko Bushi" with her little dog jumping excitedly at her feet.  A very, very old man, braving the heat, his body hunched over, waved his hands and shuffled along with us, the smile on his face suggesting that he was far away, in both a different time and place. 

By the last set of dancing, the shadows of the trees had cooled off the slate plaza somewhat.  I was invited into the inner circle of dancers, an honor, and more people from the audience joined too.  By the end of the 40-minute set, the inner circle seemed to melt into the other circles (by this time four in all), and, though I am bad at estimating numbers, we may have had as many as 200 people, all moving to the rhythm together.  The sense of harmony, the audience members hanging on the edge, including tough-looking bully boys in backward-facing caps, with gentle grins on their faces, seemed to suggest that in a corner of Bryant Park, on an almost obscenely hot day, a little piece of the world bobbed and swayed in unison and seemed very right.

I have danced at Obon for most of the past ten years.  I consider it a way of honoring my friends and family who are gone, as well as simply having a great time.  But this year was different.  We all have occasions, like when the team wins, when we feel like part of something larger than ourselves.  It takes rhythm and movement, however, to feel like part of the universe.