Random picture thread for Friday

The Cave Shrine (known in Japan as Udo Gingu or Udo-jingu) is located on the southern coast of Japan a short distance from Miyazaki City. Photos are from last month's travels:

As implied by the abundance of rabbit figures, the shrine is associated with fostering fertility.

Rub the stone rabbit (in Japanese, Nade-Usagi) and the anatomatical part of the rabbit you touch will bring rejuvenation and health to that place on your body. Here health to the knee is sought after climbing the 400 plus steps to reach the Cave Shrine.

If you can toss the clay disk (in Japanese, undama) into the roped off circle (and more particularly into the pool of water within the circle) good luck and fortune follows. Men must use their left hand, and women their right hand in tossing the disks to guarantee good luck.

Here is some added Japanese mythology relevant to this unique shrine. The shrine itself is dedicated to Yam Sachihiko, the father of Emperor Jimmu who was the mythological first Emperor of Japan from which all subsequent Emperors are descended.

Udo Jingu Shrine is a sacred place of importance in the mythology of Japan. A child who was born to Toyotama-
Hime became the father of Emperor Jinmu, the first Emperor of Japan and, as above noted, the current royal family is believed to be descendants of his family.

The story as it was related to us is that Toyotam-Hime was herself the daughter of the god of the sea and she told her mortal husband not to look when their child was born but he did anyway. By doing so he saw her as a dragon in her non-human form. Because of this she had to return to the sea but she left her breasts (in Japanese, ochichi-iwa) attached to the wall of the cave to nourish the child. Today the water that drips from those stone breasts is gathered and made into a candy that will bring help to nursing mothers.

@skier07 said:
Poppy’s

Aye Poppy!