Author: kamys

The Best Time in Spring is Dawn

Japan’s most famous essay written in the 11th century “Makura no Soshi” tells so

Photo by Josh Felise on Unsplash

When asked about seasons, a Japanese person, with no exception, would utter “春はあけぼの Haru ha akebono!”  Featured in elementary school textbooks, the opening phrase of this famous essay called “Makura no Soshi 枕草子” is so ingrained in our brains. 

Makura no Soshi (The Pillow Book) was written by Sei Shonagon 清少納言, a court lady, in the late 990s and early 1000s.  In this essay, with her sharp wit, Sei Shonagon depicted her observations about nature and her everyday life in the imperial court.

More than a thousand years later, we still enjoy this essay and learn how the aristocrats in Japan used to perceive and conduct their lives.

Sei Shonagon starts by listing the best time of the day for each season.  The best time in spring is dawn, according to her. Below is the English translation of the opening phrases of Makura no Soshi by Ivan Morris (1925 – 1976), an English writer, translator, and editor of Japanese studies.   I think his translation reflects the snappy, witty rhythm of the original writing by Sei Shonagon quite well. Here you go!

In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful.  As the light creps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish cloud trail over them.

In summer the nights.  Not only when the moon shines, but on dark nights too, as the fireflies flit to and fro, and even when it rains, how beautiful it is!

In autumn the evenings, when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the hills and the crows fly back to their nests in threes and fours and twos; more charming still is a file of wild geese, like specks in the distant sky.  When the sun has set, one’s heart is moved by the sound of the wind and the hum of the insects.

In winter the early mornings.  It is beautiful indeed when snow has fallen during the night, but splendid too when the ground is white with frost; or even when there is no snow or frost, but it is simply very cold and the attendants hurry from room to room stirring up the fires and bringing charcoal, how well this fits the season’s mood!  But as noon approaches and the cold wars off, no one bothers to keep the braziers alight, and soon nothing remains but piles of white ashes.     

Source: The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, translated by Ivan Morris

An Idea of Becoming Rich Fertilizer

I learned about Natural Organic Reduction (=human composting)

Photo by Gabi Miranda on Unsplash

The Northwest Flower & Garden Festival was full of garden and plant lovers.  Located just an aisle away from the main stage, our Ikebana International Seattle Chapter 19 booth was attracting many visitors. 

“How beautiful!”  “Oh, I want to learn Ikebana myself, too!” Such words always fuel us volunteers with more passion to serve those visitors with creative flower arrangements to be displayed at the booth.

I was assigned to be sitting at the booth as a host from 6 to 8 pm.  Since I got a one-day ticket, I went to Seattle Convention Center early afternoon, so I could walk through the entire event floor before my shift. 

Dream gardens with waterfalls and rock patios, many house plants displays, rows of flower bulbs for sale… It was a challenge not to open my wallet compulsively whenever I encountered unique foliage and blossoms. (I bought a couple of bulbs of two types of lilies, Star Gazer and Casablanca.)

My highlight of the day, however, was that I learned about natural organic reduction, a fancy term for human composting. 

A Seattle-based startup called Recompose had a small booth.  They didn’t have any sample products to try or fancy-looking tropical plants on the booth.  Instead, there was a simple circular diagram with a photo of the forest on the panel. 

Next to the diagram, there was a US map with Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, and a couple of states on the east coast highlighted in green.  Intrigued, I stopped by and started listening to the person at the booth talking.

According to the salesperson, these states have legalized human composting so far, and many more states are considering it.

The brochure of Recompose says, “For every person who chooses Recompose over conventional burial or cremation, one metric ton of carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere.”

My body is nothing more than an accumulation of what I eat.  After my death, my body returns to the soil as fertilizer.  Not a bad idea.

I’m not ready to rewrite my will yet, but this encounter has ignited my interest in my “Ecological Death Care.” 

Ichi-go Ichi-e – The Essence of Tea Ceremony

The phrase also depicts the essence of life

Author Akemi Sagawa served a bowl of Matcha to the guest: Photo by Brian Chu

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I used to hold a tea ceremony demonstration twice a year at Fran’s Chocolates, a Seattle-based chocolatier. 

With a tall ceiling, the venue has such a serene atmosphere.  For four days, the venue turned into a space to experience “Senses from Japan.”  Those lucky two people who happened to sit in the front row got to enjoy a delicious white chocolate truffle and a bowl of Matcha green tea, served by the host.

When I was making tea as a host, my focus was only one thing: to serve the best tea to the guests, so that they could enjoy the moment to the full.  I didn’t know the people who were sitting in front of me.  Most likely this was the only time I encountered those people, let alone serve tea to them.

In the tea ceremony, the phrase “ichi-go ichi-e 一期一会” is often used.  It means “One time, one meeting.”  Each tea gathering is an opportunity for a unique experience that will never occur again.  Forget about the past. Forget about the future. Just enjoy the present moment…

But wait!  Which moment in time will you be able to repeat?  Which moment in your life is not unique? The moment you are reading this article can never be repeated! 

Ichi-go Ichi-e is not limited to the tea ceremony.  The phrase depicts the essence of our very life.  A bowl of tea reminds you of this simple fact of life, that this moment will never come back.

An example of how to create an Ikebana flower arrangement

The process of making an arrangement

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Held in Seattle every February, the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival is an exhibition of horticulture and gardening.  It’s the second largest show of this kind in the country.

For 5 days, the usually monotonous event venue is completely transformed into lavish gardens.  It’s always a delight to see the latest gardening trends and learn ideas on how to take of plants and landscaping.

Ikebana International Seattle Chapter is a regular participant in this annual festival.

Every year members of our chapter display Ikebana flower arrangements, sit in the booth and answer any questions the visitors might have about Ikebana.  Unlike other merchant booths, we don’t sell anything.  We simply share the joy of creating our ikebana flower arrangements.

The visitors come from all over the states, even from Canada.  Every time we hear words of admiration from those visitors, we feel accomplished.  We bring our own flower materials.  The parking fee is going up, but we volunteers are happy to be attending the booth because our reward is to hear such admiration.  Our hope is many more people get to know the beauty of Ikebana and get interested in learning it themselves.

I was assigned to place my arrangement where people will be looking from not only from the front but from all directions.  While breaking symmetry, how can I make something interesting, something pleasing to the eyes?  Keeping three basic elements of Ikebana, line, mass, and color, I prepared my arrangement.

I started by creating a horizontal line with forsythia branches.  Forsythia’s bright yellow flowers bloom first thing in February in my yard. The buds were still hard, so I cut branches and kept them inside for several days so that they hasten to blossom. 

I used a round container with a small opening on top.  With this shape of the container, I can place long branches horizontally without tipping over the container.

The lines extend from the center to the side, showing the naturally beautiful curves.  I made sure that the tip of the branches extended upwards, not downward, so that the energy flow of the arrangement is uplifting, not sagging. The secret of keeping the branch upward like this is hidden inside the mouth of the container.  How exactly? Well, if you take an Ikebana class, the teacher will tell you the tricks you can use.  It requires practice to master the trick, however. 

Next, I chose camellias.  The shiny, thick leaves with vivid green, and the burning red color of the flowers… I thought the camellia will be a nice contrast to the bright yellow of forsythia. 

Camellia branches are also pretty long, but I cut them much shorter than those of forsythia.  The basic structure of the arrangement is already defined by the lines created by the graceful forsythia branches, and I didn’t want to obstruct the structure by adding too long branches of camellia.  Rather, I kept the camellia branches shorter and placed them strategically so that dense green leaves create volume here and there, and red colors on top of it. 

The forsythia lines are sparse, and the camellia green leaves are dense in the center.  This sparsity and density create a nice rhythm to the arrangement.  The vivid red flowers on the tip of the green branches add an accent color.

Lastly, I placed lacy white baby breath in between.  Since the color contrast of yellow, red, and green is stark, I wanted to add some softness to the arrangement.  Baby breath is such a great material for this purpose.  Its lacy flowers, placed delicately on top of the vivid red and green, do not hide them completely.  Rather, the baby breath flowers become like a translucent shade to camellia, giving them a somewhat mysterious impression.

I’m not a professional photographer.  I tend to believe that the real arrangement is far better than that in the photo above.  Hopefully, this article helps you understand the process of how such an arrangement is created. 

Our booth was not set ready yesterday, but by now all the arrangements must be complete.  I will be going back to our booth again tomorrow evening as a hostess, so I will take photos of all the arrangements and share them with you.  Please stay tuned!

Passionate Love, Like River’s Flow

The most passionate love poem in Hyakunin Isshu

Photo by x ) on Unsplash

Ancient Japanese poets weren’t shy and quite good at expressing their passionate love in varieties of ways.  Out of 100 poems in Hyakunin Isshu 百人一首, as many as 43 sing about love.

And out of those 43 love poems, which one is the most passionate?  I would pick the one below. What does an ancient love poem have to do with the river’s flow, you may wonder…

77/10 崇徳院- Sutokuin

瀬を早み岩にせかるる滝川の　われても末に逢はむとぞ思ふ

THE rock divides the stream in two,
  And both with might and main
Go tumbling down the waterfall;
  But well I know the twain
  Will soon unite again.

Quite an appropriate poem of the river’s flow on this Valentine’s Day, isn’t it?

Our Life, Like River’s Flow

According to the 12th-century Japanese poet

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

It’s almost impossible not to recite the opening phrase of Hojoki.  The image of the flowing river is so inseparable from this essay written in 12th-century Japan, by Kamo no Chomei (1155 – 1216). 

There are quite a few English translations of this famous opening phrase.  Among them, the one by Minakata Kumagusu is my favorite.  It goes like this:

“Of the flowing river the flood ever changeth, on the still pod the foam gathering, vanishing, stayth not.  Such too is the lot of men and of the dwellings of men in this world of ours.” 

Translated by Minakata Kumagusu and Viktor Dickins

…

In this quite short essay, the author mentions disasters, both natural and human-made, that he experienced while living in Kyoto. 

  • a great fire in 1177
  • a significant storm in 1180
  • a temporary move of the capital to Fukuhara and the great confusion caused by it in 1180
  • a terrible famine in 1181 – 1182
  • a devastating earthquake in 1185

So many people’s lives were lost.  So many houses, small and large, were destroyed.  Wealth, power, fame… nothing stays the same.  How fragile a person’s life…

Impermanence is the underlying theme of this essay.  And the author finds the theme best exemplified by the river’s flow.

行く川の流れは絶えずしてしかも元の水にあらず。澱みに浮かぶうたかたは、カウ消えかつ結びて久しく止まることなし。世の中の人と住みかと、またかくの如し。

Source: Minakata Kumakusu and F. Victor Dickins “A Japanese Threau of the Twelfth Century, Notes from a Jo-Square Hut”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, April, 1905.

Can You Bring Nature into Your Home?

I began questioning the Japanese translation of the English word “nature”

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

I had a visitor from Japan last night.  As a nice gesture to welcome the guest, I cut a branch from the camellia tree in my yard, made a simple arrangement, and placed it at the entrance.

For me, this short stem with vivid red flowers and thick leaves in shiny green represents nature, with no doubt.  You can bring nature into your home.  Being at home and enjoying nature at the same time has no contradiction in my mind.

In articles written by American or western writers, however, nature seems to be something different.  In their articles, nature seems something you encounter or experience only when you drive away from the city and step into mountains or forests.  If you find man-made structures around you, you don’t say you are with nature.

I learned at school that nature is an English translation of the Japanese word “自然shizen”.  In my interpretation, the camellia branch I brought home is something of  “自然.”  However, maybe it’s not appropriate or it makes no sense to bring nature into a home?

Definitely some words, concepts, or expressions in one language has no direct translation into another.  “生きがい ikigai” is one example.  A simple concept the Japanese people take for granted, but a foreign one to the western culture.  Some people made a thorough analysis of this word and created a whole training business out of this concept.

Does “自然shizen” also fall in this category? Maybe I should be careful not to simply translate it into nature in English?   

My Mother Worships Mountain

And my grandma worshipped the sun… Is it that crazy?

Mt. Miwa – Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

My mother visits Omiwa Shrine in Nara, Japan, every 1st day of the month.  It takes about an hour by train and bus from where she lives.  Rain or shine, she never fails to make a visit, and always brings back sacred water in bottles.  She shares the water with my cousin and her family who live nearby. 

Omiwa Shrine: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Although Omiwa Shrine has an impressive building, the sacred object is not housed there.  The sacred object of worship is Mt. Miwa, a mountain, or rather a large hill behind the building. 

My mother told me that her mother (my grandmother) used to bow down to the rising sun every morning, praying that the day will be a good one for her and her family.  My mother has a little shrine at home and bows to that shrine every morning as well. 

Praying to the sun and worshiping the mountain… I grew up despising these behaviors of my mother and grandmother as superstitious and primitive.  In today’s scientific, modern days, they are outdated.

When I went back to Japan several years ago, I decided to accompany my mother to visit the shrine.  It was April 1st, and the cherry trees in the shrine property were in full bloom.  When I looked up at Mt. Miwa through the pink clouds of the cherry blossoms, I felt awed. 

The clothes that people wear, the vehicle they used to come here, and the buildings surrounding the mountain have all changed.  But for centuries and centuries, the mountain has welcomed those who come to worship it.

Even with today’s advancement of science and technology, there are so many things that human beings don’t know at all.  One scientist was saying in the interview that the more you research and study the more you realize how little the understanding is of us human beings.

Both my mother and grandmother realized that their existence is tiny compared with the sun, the mountain, or the whole existence in the universe.  Their perception is not blinded by the arrogance of human beings. 

What a fool was I to despise their behavior?  Time for me to be humble…

War and Tea Ceremony

Why Murata Juko is said to be the founder of Wabicha

Image of Murata Juko – Public Domain by Wikimedia

Part of practicing the Japanese tea ceremony is to learn its history.  The name Murata Juko (村田珠光 1422 – 1503) comes up first as a person we should remember.  That he introduced the “wabi” concept to the tea ceremony. 

 “Wabi” is becoming quite popular even among non-Japanese-speaking people.  Often combined with “Sabi”, the word represents something simple, rustic, and profound, a distinct characteristic of Japanese culture.

What happened to tea ceremony as a gamble, you may ask.   Well, there is a slight remnant of tea gambling in the practice today.  Chakabuki 茶歌舞伎, it’s called.  And in the procedure, you try to guess which tea is the same one as you had before.  There is no betting, however.  We only practice the procedure to further deepen our experience of tea. 

When Juko was alive, tea as gambling still existed, practiced among high-ranking aristocrats and samurai.  How come Juko didn’t follow that trend?  Why did he choose to pursue “wabi”cha?  Why his direction had a significant influence on the development of tea ceremony in later years?

I haven’t found any clear answer to this question, so I can only do some research on my own. 

Juko was born in Nara.  At the age of 11 he was sent to a Buddhist temple.  He was there until 20 years old, but for a while after that, it is unknown where exactly he lived and what he was doing

A document that was written years later says he taught then Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa tea ceremony, but recent studies deny it.  But it’s likely he spent some time in Kyoto.

During the Onin no Ran （応仁の乱 1467 – 1477）, Juko is said to have gone back to Nara and lived in a humble hut serving tea. 

The following is my speculation.   

Onin no Ran is a civil war that lasted as long as 11 years.  This civil war started as a dispute over who would become the next shogun. 

Historians still debate today why it involved so many samurai and why it had to last that long.  One monk who lived in that era wrote in his diary, “No matter how hard I try, I still don’t understand why this horrible war had to happen.”

During the war, so many temples, shrines, and palaces in Kyoto, including Daitokuji, where Shuko is believed to have practiced Zen under Ikkyu, a famous master, were burnt to the ground. 

When people in Kyoto say “the last war,” they often refer to Onin no Ran, not World War II.  That’s how horrible the collective memory of this war was.  Buildings were razed. Lives were ruined. The war affected every class of people.

Sitting in the tearoom, people might have contemplated their own dire circumstances and how fragile their lives were, instead of partying and gambling.  In my opinion, Onin no Ran’s impact on people’s mindset towards the practice of tea was profound.  Juko was no exception, in my guess.

One of the very few historical traces of Juko is a record kept by Daitoku-ji Temple.  In memory of the thirteenth anniversary of his Zen master Ikkyu’s death, Juko contributed money for the rebuilding of Daitoku-ji in 1493.  

3 Basic Elements of a Beautiful Flower Arrangement

Don’t forget line, mass, and color!

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Beautiful flowers do not always make beautiful ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement).

Sofu Teshigahara

When creating an Ikebana arrangement, there are three basic elements that you want to keep in mind: Line, Mass, and Color.

Line

Straight, curved, twirling… Nature provides tree branches and flower stems with countless different shapes of lines.  For Ikebana, you want to make the best use of these interesting lines in your arrangement.

If you place the line upright, you are creating something vertical in shape.  Place it sideways, your ikebana spreads horizontally. 

Looking at how the leaves and flowers are growing on the branch, you can see from which direction it was enjoying the sunlight for its growth. The side where the sunlight was shining on the leaves, we recognize it as the front of the branch.  Also, you can tell from which side to which side the branch was growing.

Place the branch with the tip on top, you can feel the energy going up.  Place it with the tip down, the energy flow seems downward. 

Facing all the front leaves towards you, then the branch is facing you.  Turn around, and if you see only the back of the leaves, then the branch is showing you its back. 

With only one branch, you can express so many things; direction, energy flow, and movement (up or down?).  That’s because the branch has a life!

Use two branches.  However you place these two branches, the space between the two becomes the surface.  Remember the geometry class in high school? 

With the third branch, you add depth to your Ikebana.  It’s like sculpture.  Your canvas is the three-dimensional space in front of you. 

Lines determine the basic structure of your Ikebana arrangement.

Mass

When you take a look at one branch, you notice that there are abundant leaves in some parts, and you see barely any leaves in other parts. Similarly, there are some flowers that have massive volumes of flowers like hydrangea, and others that have sparse flowers here and there, like cherry blossoms. 

The massive volume gives you a strong impression, and sparsity gives you a gentle impression. 

When creating an Ikebana arrangement, you want to utilize this variety of mass (or volume) and sparsity (lack of mass or volume) to make it interesting. 

Place some volume in one part and add some sparsity on the other.  Then you are adding a rhythm to your arrangement.  Yes, Ikebana can be similar to music!

Color

Can you imagine how boring it would be if nature came with only black and white?  Thankfully, there are flowers in every single color you can imagine.  Leaves have countless shades of green! 

You want to make best use of the colors that nature provides you in your Ikebana arrangement. 

Place vivid red color flowers right next to the deep, shiny green leaves if you want to make a strong statement.  The high color contrast combination is effective. 

If you want to give a harmonious, gentle, and soft impression on your arrangement, use similar, pastel colors. 

Line, Mass, and Color… The fun part of learning Ikebana is how you can improve by utilizing three elements.  I hope you will keep these three elements next time you make an arrangement!