Nanakusa no Sekku
7 January 2026 — Seven herbs in a little bowl – warm porridge for a healthy year!
Nanakusa no Sekku, also called Jinjitsu, is celebrated in Japan on 7 January and is one of the five traditional seasonal festivals (sekku). The custom came from China and over time merged with Japanese practices for welcoming spring. In the morning people eat nanakusa-gayu, a rice porridge with seven herbs. Commonly listed ones are Japanese parsley (seri), shepherd's purse (nazuna), cudweed (gogyo), chickweed (hakobera), nipplewort (hotokenoza), turnip (suzuna) and daikon radish (suzushiro). The exact mix can vary by region. The porridge is believed to bring health through the year and to rest the stomach after the rich New Year feasts. The festival follows the old lunar calendar, in which the seventh day of the first month fell near the start of spring, which is why the herbs are called spring herbs. Today shops sell ready-made herb sets for the day.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure made of bright dots and fine lines, like a constellation: a small bowl of steaming rice porridge with seven delicate sprouts of star-dust herbs rising from it and drifting gently across the night sky
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