Lucky days and festival days of the eto

1.Kinoe-ne (甲子) days

The first day of the sixty, coming round once every 60 days. It is the feast day of Daikokuten, god of prosperity, and a good day to begin new things. In the Edo period people held kinoe-ne-machi, staying up late to worship Daikokuten.

2.Tsuchinoto-mi (己巳) and Snake days

Snake days come every 12 days and are the feast days of Benzaiten, goddess of wealth and the arts. Snakes are her messengers, so these are good days to pray for money and artistic progress. The Tsuchinoto-mi day, once every 60 days, is said to be especially blessed.

3.Kōshin (庚申) days

People believed that three worms called sanshi live inside the body, and that on the night of Kōshin they slip out while you sleep and report your misdeeds to the Lord of Heaven. So on Kōshin nights people stayed awake together in kōshin-machi. The Kōshin stones found all over Japan, and the three monkeys who “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil”, are traces of this custom.

4.Tiger days

From the saying “the tiger goes a thousand ri and comes back a thousand ri”, Tiger days are good for setting out on a journey, and lately for a new wallet too, since money that goes out comes back. For the same reason, some regions avoid them for weddings (the bride “coming back”) and funerals (the dead “coming back”).

5.Dog days

Because dogs give birth easily, women in the fifth month of pregnancy wrap a maternity sash on a Dog day and pray for a safe birth, in the obi-iwai ceremony.

6.Tenshabi (天赦日)

The day when heaven forgives every wrong, the luckiest day in the calendar. It falls on a fixed eto in each season (戊寅 in spring, 甲午 in summer, 戊申 in autumn and 甲子 in winter), so there are only five to seven a year.

7.Ichiryū-manbai-bi (一粒万倍日)

Just as one grain of rice becomes an ear bearing ten thousand, what you start on this day bears rich fruit. It falls on fixed branches in each solar month, four to six times a month.

This month’s lucky days are all in the lucky day calendars.