Amaterasu 天照

Welcome traveller and thank you for aiding me on my journeys. 

From the heavens I have looked down on the world for a thousand years with eyes of sorrow, for I have watched the earth's beauty from afar knowing full well that there is still much I will never see.

I have grown weary of being tethered to the sky as the goddesses of the rising sun and wish to leave these majestic isles for the foreign lands of yonder west.

There is much I know of Japan, but little of these foreign lands. Please teach me, traveller, of the wider world and take me to the deities that there lie.

I have taken a lesser form to be able to truly experience the world that I have watched from above for all of these millennia, but it has come at a heavy cost.

Before, I could bound across the earth within a single day, but now I must employ the aid of your generosity to cross the seas and retake those oh so familiar skies.

For this, traveller, the sun will forever have your back.

(Please take this trackable with you to foreign lands outside of Japan and take pictures of her with western deities)

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(この追跡可能物をあなたと一緒に日本国外の外国に持ち帰り、西洋の神々と一緒に彼女の写真を撮ってください)

Amaterasu Omikami (‘the great divinity illuminating heaven’) is the sun goddess, the most important deity of the Shinto religion and ruler of Takama no Hara (the High Celestial Plain), the domain of the kami or spirits. 

Also known as Oho-hir-me-no-muchi or Amaterasu-oho-hiru-me, Amaterasu is the daughter of Izanami and Izanagi who made their daughter ruler of the sky. When her father Izanagi escaped from his visit to the underworld he had to perform a cleansing ritual in the river Woto and it was then, from the god’s left eye, that Amaterasu was born. She is also the elder sister of Susanoo (or Susa-no-wo) the storm god. Amaterasu constantly quarrelled with her mischievous younger brother and finally having enough, she exiled him from heaven.

Amaterasu & the Cave

Perhaps the most celebrated myth concerning Amaterasu is when she blocked herself in a cave following an argument with Susanoo when he surprised the goddess with a monstrous flayed horse when she was quietly weaving in her palace with her younger sister Waka-hiru-me. As a consequence of Amaterasu’s disappearance the world was cast in total darkness and evil spirits ran riot over the earth. The gods tried all manner of ways to persuade the peeved goddess to leave the cave. On the advice of Omohi-Kane, cocks were set outside the cave in the hope their crows would make the goddess think that dawn had come. The gods also placed a large sakaki tree (Cleyera japonica) outside the cave and decorated it with sparkling jewels (magatama), fine white clothes and a mirror at its centre. In addition, the goddess Amenouzume (or Ama-no-Uzeme) danced so wildly in a strip-tease routine that the other gods’ uproarious laughter finally excited the curiosity of Amaterasu. Opening the blocked cave just enough to see what was going on and whilst distracted by seeing her stunning reflection in the mirror, the strong god Ame-no-tajikara-wo yanked the goddess out of the cave. Tuto-Tamu then held behind the goddess a pole of plaited straw and emphatically stated that the goddess could hide no longer and the world was once more bathed in her radiant sunlight.  

- Ancient History Encyclopedia