Bright Night
A fragment of dream
whispered me awake
to awareness of light
seeping around shades
brilliance at midnight
full moon doubling white
on a snow-field lawn,
radiant as an angel’s aura.
Opening the shades
I am bathed in pearl-perfect
luminescence, a moment
to mull into metaphor.
Miko Winter -- Laura Milnor Iverson
Miko are Shinto shrine maidens who perform institutionalized roles in daily shrine life ranging from sacred cleansing to performing the sacred Kagura dances that re-enact fables and religious stories. Though their shamanic role has declined over the centuries, they may still participate in takusen, dream revelation ceremonies or rites in which a possessed person communicates a divine message. Originally the miko were regarded as descendants of the goddess of dawn and revelry, Ame-no-Uzume, who overturned a tub and danced on it, tearing off her clothes in front of the other deities, thus causing the sun goddess Amaterasu to emerge from her self-imposed exile in the Ama-no-Iwato ("heavenly rock cave") in order to find out the cause of the disturbance. While she was transfixed by her reflection in the bronze Yata no Kagami mirror which Ame-no-Uzume had hung on a tree, the god of sports and physical power, Ame-no-tajikarao, prevented her from re-entering the cave while other gods tied shimenawa (rice straw or hemp rope used for ritual purification and to indicate a sacred or pure place) to keep her from going back into hiding. Thus light and heat were restored to the world.
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