Any Japanese Child can tell you about Izanagi and Izanami. Unlike Christian or Jewish concepts, Izanagi and Izanami were central deities in the Japanese story of creation. After heaven and earth separated out of chaos, they stood on a floating bridge in heaven and put their jeweled spear down into the ocean waters and created the Japanese archipelago. Taking a very long and complicated story, just like the Bible, I will make it short: Izanagi and Izanami had children. The sun god was born from Izanagi's left eye and the moon god was born from his right eye, and the storm god was born out of his nose. And of course, there were many islands as children too. At one time, it was believed that Japan's royal family descended from this heavenly line of deities. Having lived in Japan, Shinto is still a very active religion - " The Ways of the Gods ." It is an ancient religion that has great respect for nature, spirits or energies that are within the...