A couple minutes of video from last night’s Daimonji Gozan Okuribi, the fire festival at which bonfires spelling out giant kanji are lit on hillsides surrounding Kyoto at the end of the summer Bon Festival to see off the ancestral spirits on their journey back to the mountains, where spirits like to dwell the rest of the year.

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far, 39 degrees celsius in Kyoto (over 100 F), so those people up on the hills must have been extra toasty. The fires are lit from east to west starting at precisely 8 p.m. In our neighborhood there are two fires that form a compound kanji, 妙　”myo” and　妙 “ho” making 妙法, often translated as”divine law” . Here is the character “ho” “law” being lit up last night.
daimonji2007.mov (QT mov, 15 MB)