February

From a distance the mountains and fields seem to be still bundled up for their winter’s sleep.
Yet the ground and water nearby show signs of warming up.
After the water-drawing ceremony at Todaiji Temple, we have now entered the three cold, four warm day season.
With delicate sensitivity to the seasons, Japanese call this the spring-like or early spring season.
In the world of nature, plants and burrowing insects are waking up and beginning to reach out toward the sun.
Ostrich ferns and butterbur are beginning to show their faces in the depths of streams, and dead nettle (Lamium purpureum, with small pink petals) and Holland cerastium flowers are blooming in sunny spots.
These are perfectly suited for arrangement in an austere earthenware compote such as those used in inside parlors of Edo period mansions.
I have arranged Cymbidium orchids blooming in mountain recesses and horsetail, rape and skullcap blooming on the ridges in rice paddies and along mountain paths and planted them in mountain moss.
Here, the inside parlor is engulfed in the gentle sunlight of early spring.