Kagami Biraki
11 January 2026 — Hop, hop! The cakes are broken open for luck and health all year!
Kagami biraki (“opening the mirror”) is a Japanese custom in which the kagami mochi, a New Year decoration of two round rice cakes stacked together and often topped with a mandarin orange, is broken and eaten. Its round shape recalls old metal mirrors, and it is placed in the home as an offering to the New Year deities. On 11 January the cakes are taken down and broken by hand or with a mallet rather than cut with a knife, since cutting was considered unlucky. The pieces are then eaten in soup (zoni) or in sweet red bean soup (oshiruko) for health and good fortune in the year ahead. The custom is also linked to martial arts, where dojos (training halls) often hold a ceremony to start the year. In some regions the date differs. The festival follows the solar calendar rather than a lunar one, yet it falls in the cold, often clear nights of midwinter, when the sky is especially beautiful.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver star figure made of luminous dots and thin connecting lines, like a constellation: two stacked round rice cakes topped with a small round orange, hopping gently across the night sky
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