Today is a national holiday, the National Foundation Day. I have written about this last year, so instead of repeating the details, I give you a beautiful image instead, made by Eitaku Kobayashi (1843 – 1890). It shows how the gods Izanami and Izanagi churn the waters of the ocean with a spear to make the very first island of Japan. Those two are among Japanese earliest deities, and their union eventually produced the whole Japanese archipelago as well as most of the other Japanese gods. 