Cherry blossom season has arrived. Consider the cherry blossoms today. Sakura, which means cherry blossom in Japanese, is a symbol of patience as it is the first of flowers to bloom in the spring after a long winter. When cherry blossoms bloom even before leaves are formed on trees, it represents the end of winter.
Whether you are in Washington DC, the Midwest, at the Seattle Arboretum or the Bay area Japanese Tea Garden, cherry blossoms are blooming everywhere. March 27 commemorates our National Cherry Blossom Festival. It would do us well as is done in all parts of Japan, to take a break from your daily toiling and spinning, to sit underneath a cherry blossom over sake or your non-alcohol beverage of choice, and see if a cherry blossom flower petal falls in your glass. If we established a policy for the people in DC or people everywhere to sit among the cherry blossoms in this special season of life and renewal with friends and foes alike, it would transform us where ever we gather.
So consider the cherry blossoms today and the lilies of the field which neither toil nor spin, yet kings and queens, politicians and billionaires in their best attire are not arrayed like these. Let us consider these.
There is no shortage of songs about flowers or cherry blossom images in Japanese koto music. Today, with the celebration of cherry blossoms and spring flowers, I begin with the most famous of these Japanese koto pieces, Sakura, and found a few others worth noting:
Symbol of the Flower:
The vast array of flowers blooming outside of our door today, represent transformation, renewal, rebirth of ourselves — our thoughts, attitudes, perspectives, feelings, sensations. We may choose to take in their beauty as reflections of who we are. Every part of our lives we are in the presence of an efflorescent moment, and we choose to bring it out in our selves. We choose to seek out and summon the goodness and beauty in others. What better way to start every moment of our life with the flowers of spring front and center in our mind?
At the Haiku society, you can find haiku poems about flowers here. It seems Robert Frost had something to say about the flowers in spring time too. For my taste, I’ll stick with the cherry blossom color of red in “A Red Flower” by Claude McKay.
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