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Amaterasu | Griselda Steiner | Scene4 Magazine | March 2016 | www.scene4.com

Griselda Steiner

"The radiance of the Sun Goddess filled the universe and all deities rejoiced." Records of Japan

 

 

At the time when heaven and earth began seven generations of Shinto gods and the last couple, Izanagi and his sister/wife Izanami, became the ancestors of all mortals and immortals. They created the magnificent islands of Japan.  When Izanami was consumed  by  her son,  the  god of  fire,  she was  condemned  to the  Underworld. Seeking his beloved in the Land of Night, Izanagi ignored dire warnings and tried in vain to save her.   When he fled the horrors that befell him, he reached earth and bathed to purify himself.  From his left eye Amaterasu was born. The rays of the sun became her necklace of lights. By all gods it was decreed that Amaterasu be made Queen of the Solar Star on the High Plain of Heaven and Goddess of Agriculture and Weaving.  As the sun's powerful light rules the harvest of the earth, it also reveals the frailty of reality and the waking mind. Centuries after Amaterasu's birth, legends were recorded in the 8th century sacred texts, the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. She was known as the High Priestess of the Imperial family of Japan and is revered to this day when devout Shintoists visit her ancient shrine at Ise on Honshu Island.   In her temple’s inner sanctuary rests her sacred  octagonal  mirror, the  Shintai  of her  deity  by  which  her spirit  enters  the ceremony. She is honored as the supreme Kami of Shinto and eternally endeavors to be worthy of this great respect.

 

 

AMATERASU

 

 Mother to the emperors

Regal in her clime

Across the naked horizon

She mounts the eastern sky

In her silk kimono

Raising mist off the morning sea

 

Gloriously gliding higher

Her long journey begins

Across all the lands of her realm

 

Her jeweled necklace of orbits

That circle the globe

Blushes in flares of gold and red

That surround the earth’s swirling sphere

Of sapphire and pearl colored clouds

 

Shadowing earth’s rotation

Her sword the axis

Her bright octagon mirror

 A compass of directions

 

The center of a spinning wheel

Floating on the galactic sea

Cosmic dancer on tides of space

Her eclipsed light captured in stone

Pillars of ancient calendars

 

Inspiring myths embroidered

With tales of her subjects’ clashes

Loud sounds that shaped the winds

Her brother Susanoo’s thunder

And pelt of dead horses

Ruined her weavers’ chambers

 

With fear and disgust she hid

In a mountain cave

Robbing earth of seasons and life

 

When the moon ruled the black daylight

Casting demons on human souls

A bawdy stripper brought laughter

That stirred the Goddess from her cave

Seeing herself in her mirror

Stunned by her blazing beauty

She rose to her star zenith

 

Looking down over the centuries

Casting light on man’s corruption

She saw violent world wars

Fought on rough terrain burnt by bombs

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

In a virtual dream world

She was reborn as Okami

A white wolf warrior

With flames on her back

 

Then the islands drowned by ocean walls

Deluged a modern civilization

With waves of radiation

 

Still worshipped in her sacred shrine

Amaterasu

Mother to the first dawn

 Mother to the Islands

Mother to the First and the Last

 

Regal in her clime

Across the naked horizon

She mounts the eastern sky

In her silk kimono

Raising mist off the morning sea

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Griselda Steiner is a poet, dramatist and a freelance writer and Senior Writer for Scene4.
Visit her website:
sedna2003.wix.com/gris#!contact/c6os
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©2016 Griselda Steiner
©2016 Publication Scene4 Magazine

 

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March 2016

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