in shinto, there is not a single specific god, as is in most religions, but instead, a wide variety of deities called "kami", they are the spirit and essence of all nature things, both animate and inanimate, even including rocks, trees and poetry, for example. as shinto is a polytheistic religion, it is usually believed that there are "eight-million kami" (八百万の神 yaoyorozu-no-kami), in the japanese language, the number "eight-million" is normally used to mean infinity.