Today's Goddess Card - Amaterasu

Today's Goddess Card
Amaterasu (Beauty)

Today's Goddess Oracle card is Amaterasu who brings messages of beauty.  Amaterasu, also known as Amaterasu Omi Kami or Amaterasu-omikami (pronounced a-ma-te-ra-tsoo) and her name means "shining heavens".  She is a main Goddess in the Shinto pantheon of deities and is sister to the storm God Susanowa.  

One day when Susanowa unleashed his wrath on the earth the noise was too loud for Amaterasu and she hid in a cave covering the opening with a large bolder.  She stayed inside the cave which took away light and life from the earth causing it to be covered in darkness for a time.  Uzume, the Shinto Goddess of joy and happiness, devised a plan to get Amaterasu out of the cave.  

Uzume gather together the other Gods and they went to the cave where Amaterasu was hiding.  Uzume began to do funny and obscene dances outside the cave causing the other Gods to roar in laughter.  The sound made Amaterasu curious so she moved the bolder a little so she could peak outside. As she did a beam of light came out from the cave with her and caused her to catch her reflection in a mirror that Uzume had hung from a tree branch outside of the cave.  When Amaterasu saw herself she started to move closer to the mirror and away from the cave.  The other Gods grabbed her and pulled her from the cave, causing the light to come flooding back to them.  Amaterasu saw her beauty in the mirror and the joy that her light brought to the others and she immediately returned to her place in the heavens. 

The message the Amaterasu brings is one about beauty and realizing that we are all beautiful and bring a ray of sunlight to the world, even if we're feeling physically "ugly".  Society has sadly caused many of us, women especially, to equate our worth in the world with our bodies and our perceived physical beauty.  In truth the measure of physical beauty has changed over the centuries and the current standard will one day be out of fashion as well. Instead we should focus on the light that we bring to the world and to those around us through our love and personality.  

Today, take some time to find where your beauty that you spread to the earth originates.  Amaterasu calls on you to find your beauty and express it without fear or reservation.  One way that you can work on this is to see yourself as beautiful through a self-blessing ritual.  If you have a full length mirror, that's perfect, if not any mirror will work.  Using something like blessing oil or rose water you'll anoint yourself and declare yourself beautiful and power.  This ritual is meant to be done in the nude and part of the point is to help you be more comfortable with yourself and your body, whatever shape and form it takes. 

Standing before the mirror naked take your oil or rose water and you'll anoint these points and say these words working from your feet up...

Anoint both feet: May my feet be blessed in beauty as they walk this path.
Anoint both knees: May my knees be blessed in beauty as I kneel at the altar of the Gods.
Anoint the womb: May my womb be blessed in beauty as I create my life in harmony.
Anoint the heart: May my heart be blessed in beauty as I spread my love to those around me.
Anoint the throat: May my throat be blessed in beauty as I speak my love of the Gods to the world.
Anoint the forehead: May my inner vision be blessed in beauty as I see the world in truth with pure sight.
Anoint the top of the head: May my crown be blessed in beauty as I connect to the Divine and the world.
Anoint both hands: May my hands be blessed in beauty as I do my work in the world.

Now look at yourself in the mirror, blessed and full of Divine light and say:
My mind is beautiful.
My eyes are beautiful.
My voice is beautiful.
My heart is beautiful.
My strength is beautiful.
My creativity is beautiful.
I am a being of love and Divine beauty and I radiate this light into the world and to all who cross my path.
Blessed Be!