Month 9, Day 6: A Shinto Prayer for Peace

Before I do anything else, I wanted to give you a quick update on the status of my kamidana—my personal Shinto shrine. Last time, I told you all about how I went through the effort to build it and make sure it was clean and how I took special care to wash my hands thoroughly every time I approached it.

Well, apparently, my boyfriend didn’t get the “be careful around the kamidana” memo because he banged into the table where it was sitting, knocking over the sacred vessel of water and soaking everything else.

Maybe I should have realized after the first incident that my boyfriend seems to be playing the role of Godzilla in my month of being Japanese and moved the kamidana safely out of his reach. But nope. I just re-purified everything and put it back where I had originally put it.

And then, later the SAME day (no kidding), my boyfriend came out of the bathroom and tossed me a shirt. And when I say he tossed it to ME, what I really mean is he hurled it directly into my kamidana, knocking everything over yet again.

Luckily, I am smart enough not to make the same mistake THREE times, so after Godzilla finished his second rampage, I re-purified everything yet again and moved the shrine up on top of my tall bookshelf, where even he will have trouble getting to it (see the photo below). I now have to stand on a stepstool to pray, but at least my kamidana is out of danger—or so I hope. 

And I thought the dogs were going to be my only problem in keeping the kamidana safe. Strange.

Anyway, because my own home has been a virtual war zone with all this kamidana destruction over the last few days, I thought today would be a good time to share a Shinto prayer for peace with you. So here goes:

Although the people living

across the ocean

surrounding us, I believe,

are all our brothers and sisters,

why are there constant troubles in

this world?

Why do winds and waves rise in the

ocean surrounding us?

I only earnestly wish that the wind will

soon puff away all the clouds which are

hanging over the tops of the mountains.