“The cave is not the sun.”
A cave. The crops fail. Laughter at the door.
After a conflict with her storm-brother, Amaterasu seals herself in the rock cave Ama-no-Iwato. Crops fail. The kami gather. Uzume dances an outrageous dance; the laughter is so loud that Amaterasu cracks the door. She sees her own brilliance in a mirror and steps out. A rope is stretched so the cave cannot close the same way again.
The light does not return because it is scolded. It returns because the world becomes interesting.
Inspect
INTERPRETATION
Amaterasu is depression as withdrawal of the solar self: not laziness, a protest. The medicine in the myth is not force. It is community, humor, and a mirror that does not shame. You cannot drag the sun. You can become a reason for it to look.
The shadow
The cave called virtue. Light underground as self-protection, and the flinch at one’s own brilliance.
Four lookings
Campbell
What light in you went underground as a form of self-protection?
von Franz
Who is dancing outside your cave without demanding that you perform?
Hillman
If you saw your own brilliance without flinching, what image would you have to serve?
Coelho
What laughter in the ordinary day is trying to coax you back?