By the traditional Japanese calendar, it’s already spring.
節分 (Setsubun) passed the other day, and with it came 立春 (Risshun), the official beginning of spring, even if the air still bites and winter hasn’t quite loosened its grip yet.
As proof, I offer this: an 梅 (ume) blossom I spotted the other day. Ok, not a very good photo. I was on the go. But anyway, they always show up early, almost defiantly, as if to say the calendar knows something the weather doesn’t.
What I’ve always liked about the old seasonal reckoning is how it thinks about time. Instead of dividing the year valley-to-valley — cold to cold, heat to heat — it works peak-to-peak. The moment a season reaches its height, it begins to give way to the next.
In other words, a season includes the downhill slope of what came before and the uphill climb of what’s coming next. Winter doesn’t end when it’s gone; it ends when it has nowhere left to go.
By that logic, spring isn’t a sudden switch — it’s already underway, quietly gaining ground. You can see the logic, I'm sure. Every day forward, winter gets less. But one way of looking at it, less winter everyday is still winter, at least to a point. But by another way of looking at it, every day of less winter is another day of stronger spring.
If you've ever looked at a yin-yang, you can see this idea. In the dark "fish" is the beginning of the light one, and in the light fish is the beginning of the dark one. If we were to imagine the yin-yang in motion instead of fixed, we might imagine each of those "seeds" steadily growing until it consumes the fish and becomes the fish, then the process starts again.
But I digress.
If the ume are blooming, well… the calendar is probably right. Spring is here!
| David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |
