Hi, I’m Shichimi.
Well — not exactly.
Shichimi was my hamster. He was my best friend during my early years in the United States, back when I barely knew anyone here. In 2002, I registered this domain in his name. Then I had no idea what to do with it, so I did nothing. It just sat there, quietly, for over two decades.
My American husband managed the server the whole time. He kept paying the domain fees without complaint. (He is also the reason I got married at a Shinto shrine instead of in a white dress, but that’s a story for another page.)
I was born and raised in Tokyo and now I live in Washington State, and whenever I go back to Japan, I visit shrines and temples almost every single day. It’s not something I planned or decided. It just became part of how I move through the world there.
I already write about shrines and temples in Japanese — but I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to say to readers outside Japan. About what these places actually are. About the strange, layered, hard-to-categorise world of Japanese spirituality. About the fox messengers you probably shouldn’t mess with, and the warrior whose head allegedly flew across the Kanto plain. So I finally decided to use the domain. The name was still a problem though.
Shichimi, to most people, means shichimi togarashi — the seven-spice blend you’ll find on tables at soba restaurants across Japan. Not exactly a spiritual vibe. I sat with that for a while. Then it clicked.
shi – Shinto
chimi – Chimimoryo
what this site is really about: Shinto Chimimoryo (神道 魑魅魍魎)
The word chimimoryo is often translated as “spirits” or “monsters,” but that feels a little too concrete. To me, chimimoryo suggests the strange, elusive things that resist easy explanation — the shadows at the edge of folklore, the lingering traces of old beliefs, and the tangled territory between culture, imagination, and spirituality. Those are exactly the things this site loves exploring.
One final note.
Shichimi once had a small adventure of his own.
He escaped through a gap near the apartment door and disappeared. I searched everywhere, only to later find him safely kept in the building’s management office — after being rescued by a resident.
He didn’t make it very far, but somehow he made it through a world much bigger than him.
And in a way, this site feels a little like that too. It started small, stayed quiet for a long time, and eventually found its way into places I never originally planned for it to go.
Welcome to Shinto Chimimoryo. I hope you enjoy wandering through it.
— Shichimi (the human one)