Hanami hanami, spring the season of outdoor parties and cherry blossoms. For me this year`s hanami celebrations were low key but nice. Sangenjaya to Higashimatsubara the moon peeped out from behind one of those blue edged night clouds shining like neon on metal. Somehow the moon remains very mysterious and calming.

Now most of the blossoms are looking a bit brown or have already been blown off the trees and floated away giving the surreal appearance of snow in April. If you actually have time to be reflective in this city the cherry blossoms capture the essence of a Japanese wistfulness and impossible longing that is summed up in the tales of Genji (Japanese romantic stories about a prince). Somehow everything passes, always, and yet the memory remains. Perhaps the memory of a baby pink tenderness. The Japanese concept of Inochi which is roughly equivalent to life is an interesting concept in relation to what continues on ...

I went to a poetry reading/music night last week in aid of awareness of plans for nuclear power to be used in japan. Considering Hiroshima and Nagasaki this seems like it would be a consideration for people here but I was told people aren`t aware. The event took place ina converted high school which is now the base for a design school see this link

 One of the leaflets on the table outside really moved me. It was a fictional letter written from a child of the future explaining the outcome of the current situation and asking us to make changes now, for their sake. One of my students yesterday told me she is going to make her own soap, baby steps as Bill Murray would say in what about Bob?

baby stepping baby stepping