And here is your daily almanac for Sunday the 26th of March 2023.

Today, in 903, Sugawara no Michizane died. He was a politician, scholar, and poet. Today he is revered as the god of learning. While in the past it wasn't uncommon to deify emperors or shogun after they died, such things usually didn't happen to scholars or poets. So what was different in this case that led to him being considered a god? That, my friends, is an interesting story.

^{Michizane reborn as Tenjin by Kobayashi Eitaku}

He was born into the aristocracy and became a scholar in the court when he came of age. He wasn't very highly ranked and except for his skills in Chinese, which was very important at this time, he probably would have stayed at that level for life. Two things distinguished him: his Chinese ability and his poetry. Being good at poetry was a very big deal back in the day. Even so, his career wasn't going very far until fate stepped in.

At the time the very powerful Fujiwara family controlled the Imperial family. The Emperor didn't really have much power, not unlike today, and was more or less required to follow what the Fujiwara wanted. In 888 Emperor Uda ascended the throne and he had ideas of restoring Imperial rule and pushing the Fujiwara out. One of his early acts was to promote key non-Fujiwara officials whom he felt he could trust and who he thought could help him regain power for his family. Michizane was one of these people. He rose in rank quickly and gained a lot of influence.

Unfortunately the Fujiwara were just too good at the political game and Emperor Uda's reforms were quickly suppressed. Not only that, but he was forced to abdicate. With him gone, the Fujiwara reëstablished their control and they forced the new emperor to banish Michizane. He died in exile two years later.

Here is where it gets interesting.

After Michizane died, a drought hit. Then the plague started spreading in Kyoto. The sons of the new Emperor Daigo died from it. To top it off, Kyoto experienced terrible storms and flooding for many days. During the storms the imperial palace was struck my lightning repeatedly.

Court priests attributed these things to the angry spirit of Michizane so they built a shrine to appease him. They didn't seem to work, so they restored his titles and office and erased all mention of his exile from the records (evidently not all mention because we still know of it today). This seemed to work and all was good. But the next time these bad events happened 70 years later they must have suspected his spirit was still angry, because they deified him as Tenjin-sama, the god of storms. Later he morphed from this angry god into the god of scholarship. Today there are shrines all over Japan dedicated to him.

^{Tenjin-sama by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi}

Interestingly, one of his favorite things in life were the ume blossoms. His own garden was covered with them. When he was leaving Kyoto in exile, he wrote that his biggest regret was leaving behind his beloved ume blossoms. Due to this, all of the shrine dedicated to him around Japan have many ume trees on the grounds.

Today is shakkō (赤口), one of the rokuyō, the Buddhist horoscope. We have just a slice of good luck today during the hour of the horse (11am - 1pm) and all the rest is bad. Good thing it's Sunday. Just sleep all day.

(Read more about the rokuyō here)

On the old calendar, today would have been the fifth day of the second month. It is sakura hajimete hiraku, "First cherry blossoms" (桜始開), the second microseason of Shunbun.

As the name suggests, this is when the cherry blossoms are spreading across the country. In ancient times when news moved slower they couldn't follow the blooming across the country as closely as they do today, when there will be sakura forecasts showing where in the country the blossoms are blooming on any given day and week.

We are a bit past the ume blossoms now, but in honor of Michizane here is a haiku about his favorite flowers from Buson:

梅遠近南すべく北すべく
ume ochikochi minami subeku kita subeku

ume blossoms all over
should I go south?
should I go north?

^{"Ume Trees in Bloom" by Toyohara Chikanobu}

What to do when all options are good? To the south they would be in full bloom, to the north just blooming. Which is best? Obviously both, so it's a no lose situation. If only all problems were so easy!

The haiku scholar Blyth reminds us that in spring, there is a feeling of unlimited beauty: everywhere we look, nature is renewing herself, giving us unlimited things to enjoy looking at, smelling, experiencing. Is it any wonder that we feel younger in spring?

Have a good day, everyone!

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.