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Mythological Meditations: Reflections on Amaterasu
In Japan, there is a goddess in the Shinto tradition named Amaterasu. She is considered a goddess of the sun, of weaving and of harmony, and it is her ancestry that it is said that the Imperial family shares. (Having been thought of as being divine until after World War II, when the emperor declared otherwise.)
One of the legends of the goddess has to do with the actions of her brother (the storm god Susanoo), who (through a number of variations of reasons) scared her into hiding away in a cave, which (her being the sun) resulted in total darkness over the lands. Her fellow gods and goddesses gathered outside the cave and pleaded with her to come out, but nothing they said would coax her from her hiding.
Finally, Ama-no-Uzume (sometimes known as a shaman, sometimes known as the goddess of revelry and dawn) thought up something that would work. Hanging a mirror in a nearby tree, she upturned a bathtub near it. She hopped up on the tub and quickly began a raucous dance. A few of the gods noticed her and drifted away from pleading with Amaterasu in order to better watch the dance. Some of them started giggling at the silliness of the dance, and the more risqué the performance, the more gods began to gather and start to laugh. Before long, the dance was so outrageous that all the gods were laughing. Amaterasu, who hadn’t heeded the sound of pleading, was puzzled by the laughter, and while the words hadn’t been enough to bring her from her cave, wanting to find out what was causing the amusement was enough.
The sun once again illuminated the lands as the beautiful woman stepped from her hiding place. Another god seized the chance and leapt between Amaterasu and the cave, but it soon became apparent that the goddess had no plans to return there in the immediate future. For while the silly dance did not catch her attention, something else did, and she drew close to the mirror that Ama-no-Uzume had cunningly hung from the nearby tree. Reflected in the mirror as the sun approached it was all of the radiance and beauty she brought to the world, and it was only then that she realized just what wonderful qualities she possessed. Perhaps most importantly, she finally understood how sad it made people when she withdrew from their lives, and vowed never to do so again.
When thinking of this story, it reminds me of one of the blessings that we are given: the ability to hold up a mirror to another person and to remind them of their own beauty. Sometimes we do so in our actions. Echoing the greatest aspects of people’s behavior is an easy way to present them with an objective view of how wonderful they are. In the same way, using a person’s characteristic type of encouragement, of kindness, can serve as a way for them to see their own reflection in our actions. It is one of the greatest gifts we can give that, when these people see beauty, we can remind them that the reason it is present in the world because of their own nature.
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