Bon Festival
15 August 2026 — May the lanterns light the way for our loved ones. May the lanterns light the way for our loved ones. A bright and peaceful Obon!
Obon, or simply Bon, is a Japanese Buddhist festival honouring ancestors. According to tradition, the spirits of departed relatives return to visit their family homes for a few days. The festival has roots in Buddhist teaching linked to the Ullambana Sutra (known in Japan as Urabon), and in Japan it blended with older local customs of ancestor veneration. In most regions it is observed around 13–16 August, while in some places, such as Tokyo and parts of eastern Japan, it is held in July, around 15 July: the traditional date, the 15th day of the seventh month, applied directly to the modern solar calendar. In other places, such as Okinawa, the date is still set by the old lunar calendar and changes every year. Families clean graves, make offerings of food at the household altar, and light chochin (paper lanterns) to guide the spirits. In some places lanterns are floated on water at the end of the festival. Towns and villages hold bon odori dances, where people in yukata (light cotton summer kimono) dance in a circle around a raised stage with a drum. Historically the date followed the lunar calendar, but today most people observe fixed dates. It is a time for family reunions, remembrance and gratitude.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure made of luminous dots and thin connecting lines, like a constellation drifting across the night sky: a ring of dancers in light summer kimonos circling softly around glowing paper lanterns
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