Tsukuyomi, the Kami of the Moon
The fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11 turned our thoughts to the moon and thus, in the context of Shinto, to Tsukuyomi (or Tsukiyomi) no Mikoto, a brother of Amaterasu Ōmikami and generally accepted to be the kami of the moon. In the Kojiki myth of the birth of Amaterasu Ōmikami, she is born when Izanaki washes his left eye, and Tsukuyomi is born when he washes his right eye. (Susano’o is born when he cleans out his nose.) Amaterasu Ōmikami is clearly a kami of the sun in some sense;… Read More »Tsukuyomi, the Kami of the Moon