This old picture of the baby showed up in my newsfeed. It's about ten years old so that means he was around six. We were out to see the still-frosty hills near our house blanketed in purple blossoms. The flowers are one of my favorite flowers of the year. But would you believe that for the life of me I could not recall the name of the flowers in Japanese or English?
Now, I am really feeling old.
Thankfully, I started blogging around that time so going back to the start of my blog I found the post on かたくりの花.
(March 26, 2007)
Erythronium japonicum.
The Japanese dogtooth violet--just like its American counterparts--is a small flowering plant that grows along shady hillsides. Understated is to put it mildly. These stubby little lilies are reminiscent of wildflowers --but because they don't flower every year, the blossoms are even less noticeable if that's possible. Especially compared to the cherry blossoms which bloom just a few weeks later and which are so dramatic they are able to utterly transform an entire landscape. Compared to that, these little blossoms seem hardly worth the time. And yet, the hillside is always packed with flower viewers. On this day, I remember all the amateur photographers camped up along the edge of the path waiting for the perfect shot.
"The perfect shot."
And in addition to the flower photography enthusiasts, hikers and flower lovers were hiking upward toward the top of the hill: "Oh, look, aren't they adorable?" "Look at the lovely white ones." Like I said, at first glance it was almost hard to believe. But then looking a little closer-- yes, those little dogtooth violets could really break a person's heart they were so sweet. Like ferns, they seem somehow almost prehistoric, with their one heavy flower bobbing on the end of a leaf-less, squat stem. The Japanese variety have very attractive mottled leaves which are almost mossy or ferny looking. Built low, the pendant flowers seem like they are almost too heavy for the stems to support. An older gentleman who was eavesdropping on our conversation as we stopped to point something out to the baby piped in to mention that the mature plants we were looking at were eight years old and that only one of many many plants will blossom at the same time so that there are good years and bad years for katakuri viewing. Eight years, no wonder people applaud them.
There are so many reasons to love Japan--none the least the way this humble little blossom is appreciated. Indeed, the humble katakuri have been revered at least since the times of the Manyoshu Poems. The Collection of the Thousand Leaves is not only Japan's oldest poetry anthology, it is without question its most beloved. The poems in the collection date from 600 to 794 ad, and they are really thought to capture the spirit of the Japanese people. I think poems about sakura are surprisingly absent from the collection. Still the collection is full of flowers-- to put it mildly! And, not surprisingly, our little dogtooth violet makes an appearance.
大勢の乙女たちが入り乱れて水を汲む、寺の泉のほとりにひっそりと咲くカタクリの花よ。
Dogtooth violets inconspicuously blooming/ In the crannies of the fountain, where young women are noisily drawing water
Because their heads point shyly downward they have been idealized as lovely young women since ancient times, and even in the year 2007, all around the hillside we heard them praised for their feminine gentleness やさしい and prettiness 可憐な.
Watching the men who lined the hillside path cameras held patiently in their white-goved hands, I wondered what exactly they were each hoping to capture? And, how would they even know when the perfect moment had arrived?
In the traditional art of Ikebana, the main aim is for the practioner to transport the beauty of flowers-- such as they appear in their natural state in the fields or mountains-- into the very different setting of being cut and arranged in the interior of a room. In other words, the object is arrange the flowers in such a way as the bring about their maximum inherent beauty as it exists in nature. Ike-bana literally means "living flowers"-- an interesting name given that one is significantly shortening the livespan of the flowers by cutting them and placing them in a vase. But, an ikebana teacher might argue that, no, quite the opposite to shortening their lives, ikebana aims to give the flowers a kind of immortality. By meditating on their true essence in order to arrange them in the most beautiful way possible to express their inner nature, the Way of Ikebana is actually the way of "living flowers"-- hence the name, perhaps?
A famous ikebana teacher wanting to answer the question why people can be moved so deeply by flowers said simply, we love them because お花は一生懸命咲きます。Flowers bloom "ishokenmei." "Ishokenmei" is another uniquely Japanese word that is rather hard to find a fitting English equivalent. "Ishokenmei" connotes someone throwing all their energies-- their very Self-- into something. That is, throwing one's heart and soul into something. I really like that. "Flowers bloom with all their heart." "Flowers bloom to the utmost of their ability to bloom." Its true, most flowers either don't bloom at all or seem to hit the 100% mark. If they aren't duds, they are perfect. Even those humble little katakuri on the mountainside. Taking a full eight years to produce a flowers that seems almost impossibly too heavy for its wobbly stem, when it finally blooms; well, it is perfection. And for that it is something to marvel.
