The Dewdrop World

Everything I have ever heard about Chrysanthemums (重陽の節句）

from the Peony Archives (re-uploaded: 09-09-09)

I have to admit, it took me a long time to really understand chrysanthemums. Compared to all the colorful flowers of spring, chrysanthemums had always left me somehow under-whelmed. That is, until I really started looking at them.

Because I am stuck again in ancient calendar time; and because according to the ancient calendar, today happens to be the Chrysanthemum Festival, I will tell you everything I know about chrysanthemums.

The Chrysanthemum Festival-- also known as the Choyo no sekku 重陽の節句 (known as "the double nines" for you all on the Continent) occurs on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month (during the Time of White Dewdrops). Choyo no sekku marks the final festival of what is known as the Five Seasonal Festivals (go sekku 五節句) of the old lunar calendar, following the Seven Grasses Festival (or jinjitsu, falling on the Seventh Day of the First Month), the Peach Blossom Festival (or Girl’s Day, falling on the Third Day of the Third Month), the Iris Festival (or Boy’s Day, falling on the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month) and the Star Festival (or Tanabata, falling on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month.) All five of these festivals have their origins in China and were festivals marking the major changes in the seasons.

According to i ching philosophy, the doubling up of the odd, or yang numbers 1,3,5,7,9 was seen as auspicious, so that in Japan at least we have major holidays occurring on January 1st, March 3rd, May 5th, July 7th and September 9th. These "double yang" holidays were days of both celebration as well as purification and abstinence. Like so much else from China, the five festivals were adopted from the Continent by the Heian Period aristocracy; only over time being transformed according to Japanese tastes.

In ancient China, the ninth day of the Ninth Month was considered to be the seasonal marker of the “first chill of Autumn.” It was thought to be particularly potent because of the belief that the number nine, being the highest odd number (yang) from one to ten was especially lucky, and therefore this day with its “two nines” (that is, Ninth Day of the Ninth Month) was considered to be the ultimate in propitiousness.

Like the phases of the moon, the ancient Taoist philosophers taught that everything in the universe was in a constant state of vacillation. Everything therefore was either in a stage of waxing or waning so that at that very moment when something appeared to reach perfect fullness, its waning had in reality already begun. In this way, things which appear to our human eyes to be perfectly complete or full are in fact already in decline. Due to this belief, the number nine was preferred to the number ten (since 10 was already-- according to this way of looking at things-- already in a state of decline).

In much the same way that the number 10,000 indicated countless or endless numbers, the number nine signified “the largest” or “the greatest.” It was believed that there were nine heavens above reflecting the nine provinces comprising the ancient empire below, and this was further reflected in the Nine Gates and Nine Imperial Decorations of the Chinese Imperial Palace. The number nine therefore signified, "All under Heaven." It was also thought to express virtue or virtuous actions, so that when people bowed repeatedly or made offerings at formal occasions or at temples, this was known as the “nine bows” (九頓首) or the “nine offerings” (九献). This, too, eventually filtered into Japanese thought, and the “nine bows” of ancient China came to be known in the Japanese phrase sanbai-kyuhai (三拝九拝) which means to “bow repeatedly.” The “nine offerings” became the rational behind the Japanese ceremonial partaking of the “three times three exchange of nuptial cups of rice wine” (三三九度) which is still one of the main rituals performed in a traditional Shinto-style wedding ceremony in Japan today.

Nine, by the way, has always been my favorite number.

In ancient China on this day people climbed hills, had picnics outdoors and long life was prayed for by drinking chrysanthemum wine. Wang Wei, in the mid-eighth century, wrote of feeling very homesick spending the festival alone in a faraway place:

Remembering My Brothers in Shandong on the Double-Ninth Festival:
  Alone, a stranger in a distant province-
  At festivals I’m homesick through and through.
  In my mind’s eye, my brothers climb the mountain,
  Each carrying dogwood- but there’s one too few
   trans. Vikram Seth

“Dogwood” is how Seth translates the Japanese word for shuyu-- a Chinese type of citrus plant (related to the Japanese pepper tree, sanshou 山椒, cf. Kojien 562) which was placed in bags, called shuyu-no-fukoro. These bags were hung in homes and carried around on that day in the belief that the magical plant had the power to purify, scaring away evil demons-- much like the effect of garlic on vampires. Because of this practice, the day was also known as the “Dogwood Festival” (shuyu-setsuKojien 1241.) This custom spread to the Japanese aristocrats of the Heian Period, and these shuyu-no-fukuro 茱萸袋 were put up on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month replacing the “medicinal bags” (kusuri-dama 薬玉) hung in rooms (especially rooms where people slept) beginning on the Iris Festival on May Fifth.

Chrysanthemum wine has been prepared and consumed in China, at least since the Han Dynasty (206BCE- 220CE) as both a cure against sickness and aging, as well as for reasons of purification similar to that of dogwood described above.  Beautifully cultivated chrysanthemums were displayed and admired on this day, and the flower, in addition to being known as one of the “four gentlemen blossoms” (四君子）in the company of orchids, bamboo and plum blossoms, has long been associated with longevity due to the fact that the flowers bloom so magnificently just when the rest of nature seems to be giving up and dying (Kojien 1685.) In Chinese, the flowers’s name, ju(菊) is phonetically associated with the word for “nine” (jiu) and is identical with the word for “long time” (jiu) so that this symbol for long life was firmly associated with the Ninth Month from very ancient times. This belief was early on transported to Japan:

消えぬべき
露のいのちと
思わずは
久しき菊に
かかりやはせぬ

Rather than dwell
on the dewdrops
which only fade away
Why not instead align yourself
with the long-lived chrysanthemums?
-Izumi Shikibu Nikki

The flower was often used as a metaphor in poems written- to the Emperor, for example- wishing long life or a long reign. In both China and Japan, the Ninth Month was known as the “Chrysanthemum Month”. In Japan, however, this is only a secondary name, as the month is mainly known as the “Long Month,” (Nagatsuki 長月), or “Nights Growing Longer Month” (Yonagatsuki 夜長月).

The chrysanthemum, which eventually became not only associated with the Emperor of Japan, but, along with cherry blossoms, became symbolic of the Japanese people themselves, is believed to have been native, not to Japan, but to China. There is no mention of the flower in all of the Manyoshu and it is assumed to have arrived in Japan only in the late Nara to early Heian Period, valued at that time for its medicinal qualities. By the mid-Heian Period, it was cultivated and appreciated at Court and among the aristocracy. “Chrysanthemum Flower Contests” (菊の花合わせ）with poetry matches and banquets (菊花の宴）were held, and in relation to the world described in The Tale of Genji, Ivan Morris describes the festival in this way:

The emperor and his Court inspect the chrysanthemums in the palace gardens. Afterward there is a banquet. Poems are composed and the guests drink wine  in which chrysanthemums have been steeped. After a performance of dances, Palace Girls present small white trout to His Majesty, and later the guests are
served dishes of white trout.

 Lady Sei Shonagon, in her Pillow Book, describes the Heian custom of covering the court chrysanthemums on the eve of the festival with cloth and allowing the perfume of the flowers to mix in with the autumn dew, seeping in overnight so that the next morning they could be rubbed over one’s face and body to prevent aging and premature death. And, Murasaki Shikibu records in her diary that:

On the ninth of the ninth month Lady Hyobu brought me floss-silk damp with chrysanthemum dew.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Her Excellency sent it especially for you. She said you were to
use it carefully to wipe old age away!’

The Festival is also briefly described in The Tale of Genji:

Early in the Ninth Month came the chrysanthemum festival. As always, the festive  bouquets were wrapped in cotton to catch the magic dew

(Collecting dewdrops-- Why does that continue to fascinate me?)

The Heian Period was a time of huge admiration for anything Chinese- from literature to clothes to flowers. The aristocrats of the day associated Chinese things with the height of elegance, and the chrysanthemum festival was part of this cultural milieu.

 It wasn’t until the Edo Period that chrysanthemum-viewing and the Chrysanthemum Festival became truly popular with all classes of people, and by this time many new types of chrysanthemums had been introduced so that chrysanthemum-viewing became part of the yearly calendar of events of the common people. While aristocratic families continued the custom of drinking chrysanthemum wine on this day, common people prepared and enjoyed chestnut rice, giving chestnuts, which had recently been harvested, to friends and relatives. Because the Ninth Month of the old lunar calendar coincided with the time of year when the harvest work had been recently completed, over time Autumn Festivals in celebration of the harvest came to be held around the time of Chrysanthemum Festival so that the original meaning of the Chrysanthemum Festival became blurred over time.

Then by the Meiji Period, with the introduction of the new Western solar calendar, the significance of these “double nines” had all but completely been lost, except that it was still reflected in customs surrounding certain harvest festivals called “o-kunichi” (the ninth day お九日) or “o-kunchi.” These harvest festivals were traditionally held across Japan in the Ninth Month (lunar or solar) on the Ninth Day (either the 9th, 19th or 29th.) Also because of the month-long gap created by the introduction of the Solar calendar, Chrysanthemums are in fact no longer in bloom during the Ninth Month thereby further obscuring the original meaning of the festival.

早く咲け９日も近し菊の花
芭蕉

Hurry up and blossoms
-Chrysanthemum flowers-
The Ninth Day is drawing near
-Basho

In spite of the fact that chrysanthemums are no longer in bloom during the Ninth Month, The Chrysanthemum Festival is still celebrated on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month by the Imperial family, as well as being indirectly celebrated in the Tea Ceremony where the festival is evoked at the “chrysanthemum tea gatherings” (菊の茶) held in September. At these tea gatherings, much like when the cherry blossoms bloom in spring, tea utencils which have names associated with the flower are used and appreciated; tea kettles or incense containers shaped in forms reminiscent of chrysanthemums are used, and of course the flower is used to decorate the alcove in the tea room. Outside the court or the world of tea, this is the least commonly celebrated festival of The Five Seasonal Festivals-- which is a shame since it is a day both rich in beauty and philosophy.

In the end, I too have fallen under the charms of the lofty chrysanthemum. Perhaps that's because I too would like to partake in the flower's secrets of everlasting beauty. While my favorite flower of all, the peony dies a dramatic-- and yes, unsettling-- death (all her flowers falling at once) chrysanthemums just seem to dry out in a beautifully preserved state. They are, in fact, beautiful till the end. And, its true, when the last chrysanthemum has died, no more flowers will bloom till the start of spring the following year. They are the last to bloom. Stubbornly holding off winter with their sheer act of will. You really cannot help but admire them, can you?

butterflies love flowers 蝶恋花

 

 

醉花陰ー重陽　

薄霧濃雲愁永晝，瑞腦消金獸。
佳節又重陽，玉枕紗櫥，半夜涼初透。

東籬把酒黃昏後，有暗香盈袖。
莫道不消魂，簾卷西風，人比黃花瘦

Drinking Wine in the Shawdow of the Flowers-- the Chrysanthemum Festival

Wispy mist and thick clouds
The afternoon stretches on, endlessly in sadness
Sweet incense rises from a golden brazier
On this auspicious festival day—Chongyang.
As evening fall, the chills slips in
Through silken curtains to my little jade pillow

Sipping wine that evening—there by the eastern fence
The fragrance of the chrysanthemums filling up my sleeves, secretely, quietly
How can I not be distraught?
The autumn wind fills the curtains
I have grown thinner than the chrysanthemums.

 

 

Li Qingzhao--longing for her husband who was faraway on business, spent the day in bed-- drinking wine and composing poems, in the shadow of the flowers by the eastern fence (採菊東籬下).

Sending him the poem, it is said that when he read it, so impressed was he that he vowed to not leave his room until he had composed a poem back of equal perfection. Refusing all food and all visitors for three days, he composed poem after poem. Later, he would incorporate her words with words of his own in a poem that a friend would remark about, "there are only three good lines in this one" (and those three good lines were, of course, the ones he had borrowed from his wife's masterpiece!)

She was the greatest poetess in Chinese history. And like all great poets, she sought to refine her emotions in elegant and edifying metaphors about nature. Lady Li loved flowers and by situating her emotions in seasonal images, personal emotions were therby refined and made universal. But at the same time, she saw things in the flowers themselves that were admirable and worthy of emulation; for not only are flowers beautiful and joyous but they also symbolize strength and nobility of character-- attributes that we can all learn from. Or, in the words of my ikebana teacher, when a flower blooms, it either blooms in its fullest capacity and with all its might, or it’s a dud.

No half measures for flowers.  --with Ting-Jen

Interesting article on emotion, nature and japanese Buddhism--here. Photo and video by the Great Ninagawa Mika

TED Talks-Gratitude and Flowers too

**

Be like a flower,  from Sri Aurobindo's The Spiritual Significance of Flowers

Be like a flower. One must try to become like a flower: open, frank, equal, generous and kind. Do you know what it means?
A flower is open to all that surrounds it: Nature, light, the rays of the sun, the wind, etc. It exerts a spontaneous influence on all that is around it. It radiates a joy and a beauty.
It is frank: it hides nothing of its beauty, and lets it flow frankly out of itself. What is within, what is in its depths, it lets it come out so that everyone can see it.
It is equal: it has no preference. Everyone can enjoy its beauty and its perfume, without rivalry. It is equal and the same for everybody. There is no difference, or anything whatsoever.
Then generous: without reserve or restriction, how it gives the mysterious beauty and the very own perfume of Nature. It sacrifices itself entirely for our pleasure, even its life it sacrifices to express this beauty and the secret of the things
gathered within itself.
And then, kind: it has such a tenderness, it is so sweet, so close to us, so loving. Its presence fills us with joy. It is always cheerful and happy.
Happy is he who can exchange his qualities with the real qualities of the flowers. Try to cultivate in yourself their refined qualities

  

The Time Of White Dew (白露)

[First appeared at 3 Quarks Daily on Sept 16th with photos by my Sis]

1.

Back from three weeks on the road, I immediately consult my Japanese almanac. To my delight, I see we are now in the Time of White Dew (白露): 

Falling just prior to the Autumnal Equinox, the sun is said to have passed the 165th solar degree on its journey south. Although the afternoons are still dominated by the lingering heat of August and September, Autumn-like weather can increasingly be felt, deepening with each passing rain shower, especially noticeable in the mornings and evenings as the equinox approaches.

It's like clockwork. Every year, by mid-September, the dew point is reached and suddenly there are glistening dewdrops --like diamonds-- scattered in the morning grass.

This was true in Tokyo and it's true in Los Angeles.

In Japan, these pearly gems are not only treasured for their gem-like beauty, but they are also appreciated  for their fleetingness; which, like scattering cherry blossoms, are likened to the transience of our human existence. For life, like the disappearing dewdrops in the morning sunlight, is too often cut short. In this way, dewdrops have been considered, since ancient times, along with “scattering flowers and fallen leaves” (飛花落葉) as a poetic metaphor for impermanence, or mujo (無常).

Have you heard of the dewdrop world?

In Japan, human transience became so associated with the autumn dew that our frailty was referred to as our “dewdrop world” (tsuyu no yo 露の世); or as our “dewdrop lives” (tsuyu no inochi 露の命), our “dewdrop bodies” or “dewdrop selves” (tsuyu no mi 露の身). One of the most famous haiku written on this theme is one by Issa who, devastated after the loss of his beloved one-year old daughter, lamented:

露の世は露の世ながらさりながら
一茶

this world of dew-
is yes, a world of dew
and yet...
-Issa

The above translation is by Patricia Donegan. I really like the translation since she emphasizes the sorrow of things. "Yes," says Issa, life is fleeting and precarious. filled with sadness. Like dewdrops fated to fade away in the morning sunshine, our lives are all too fragile. Yet even in knowing this, still the poet whispers "and yet..." This is something you can't help but feel in early autumn. After all, the world itself seems to be in a process of death and decay:

秋風に
なびく浅茅の
末ごとに
おく白露の
あはれ世の中

White dew
poised at the tips of 
grass, fluttering 
in the autumn wind-
What a fragile, fleeting world
- Semimaro, Shin-kokinshu

The above poem is from the second imperial anthology of court poetry, compiled in the 15th century. What a fragile and fleeting world, says the poet. But so beautiful too. For indeed, precisely what is fragile and fleeting is what is considered beautiful, as Japanese monk Yoshida Kenkō remarked in his Essays in Idleness :

If man were to never fade away like the dews of Adashino.... but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us!

Buddhism, of course, also teaches that nothing in life can escape the law of anitya or “necessary change” and that all life inevitably must perish.

The Heart Sutra teaches that, All that appears before us is as a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow. All is like the dew or lightening. It should thus be contemplated that nothing has reality. That everything is in flux and that all must eventually perish is a sad but inevitable fact that somehow seems all the more apparent in this season of sparse autumn grass, disappearing dewdrops and sudden, passing thunderstorms. 

2.

We know from classical Chinese poetry that the appreciation of mid-autumn dewdrops and late-autumn to early-winter frost dates back at least to the Warring States Period (BC 453-221) This ancient Chinese love of dewdrops also becomes apparent when we take a look at the calendar itself. Of the six seasonal names of autumn, three are named after the dew or frost:

August 8th 立秋 The Time of First Day of Autumn
August 23rd 処暑 The Time of Manageable Heat
September 8th 白露 The Time of White Dew
September 23rd 秋分 The Time of the Autumnal Equinox
October 9th 寒露 The Time of Cold Dew
October 24th 霜降 The Time of Frost Falling

Because dewdrops become especially noticeable around the time, when the autumn leaves change colors, I suppose it was inevitable that the ancients connected the changing leaves to the dew, and wondered if it wasn't it perhaps the abundant dew which, seeping into the leaves of the trees at night, somehow stained them the many different autumn colors? Not only was it the dew that was thought of to be the reason behind the spectacular brocade of autumn foliage, but frost and the autumn rain showers were also posited as possible causes for why the leaves changed colors so dramatically around this time of year. 

As an aside, my personal preferred explanation for why the leaves changed colors doesn't involve the dew at all, but rather the tears of passing geese:

秋の夜の
露をば露と
置きながら
雁の涙や
野辺を染むらむ
Might it not be that
the dewdrops forming on Autumn nights
are only just that- dewdrops
And that it’s the tears of passing geese
which stain the fields red
– Mibu no Tademine
Kokinshu 258

Isn't that beautiful? 

3.

In the world of tea ceremony, or chanoyu, where purity is one of the four main principles, the garden path leading to any tearoom is called the “dewy ground” (or roji, 露地) and the origin of this name can be traced back to one of the most well-known stories in the Lotus Sutra about how the children of a wealthy man were made to flee a burning house. This parable extols us to escape the burning house of the “three worlds” (of worldly title, position and attachments) and to dwell in the purity of “white dewy ground.”

Poet Issa said it so beautifully:

朝露に浄土参りのけいこ哉
From the white dewdrops,
Learn the way
To the Pure Land
-Issa

The translation is by RH Blyth, who explains: 

Just as the wind is used as a symbol of the unknown comings and goings of the spirit of life, so water is the type of our own life, its swift, willing obedience, its bright, active desirelessness. Above all, the dew drop that disappears so soon, leaving not a trace of itself behind, is our own soul, that is devoid of all qualities, free of any kind of permanence, is the white radiance of eternity.

Sen Soshitsu, the Grand Tea Master of the Urasenke tradition, which I studied, explains the function of the roji as creating a special space where one can leave the cares of the world behind. He says: “The first thing the host and guests should do in the roji is too purify themselves, using the water in the basin, they should rinse off the dust of the world.”

The dewy garden, then, is really a path leading one out of the everyday world of dust into a world where purity is valued above all else:

露地はただ
浮き世のそとの
道なるに
心のちりを
にちらすらん

The roji is simply 
a path leading from
this floating world.
Why bestrew it
with dust from the mind?
Sen Rikyu, Namporoku

My tea teacher once explained the words the famous Edo Period tea devotee, Matsudaira Fumai, who said that “Chanoyu is like a morning dewdrop poised on a seedling of rice”

This is another way of expressing one of the most famous maxims of chanoyu: “This meeting- once in a lifetime” (ichigo ichie, 一期一会), which extols tea practitioners to understand that every tea gathering is a once in a lifetime event, and therefore precious beyond value- very much like the beauty of the morning dew.

All this talk of dewdrops reminds me of a Vietnamese emperor.

Bicycling around Hue twenty years ago on our broken-down Peugeots, we traipsed into the Forbidden Purple City. It was so hot and hungry-- and tired. Sitting out by the small lotus pond behind what was the throne room in the palace, I overheard a guide telling a group of tourists that, "It was here that every morning servants gathered the dew that had collected overnight on the lotus leaves." Why, we wondered, would they collect the dewdrops? Before we could ask, the guide explained, the dewdrops were gathered to make the emperor's morning cup of tea.

My heart skipped a beat-- tea made from the water of dewdrops collected on the leaves of the lotus flowers: now that is something I would very much like to try someday....

++

Photographs by Tracey Parmley Nuki--dewdrops in the garden of the Getty

Translations mine if not otherwise stated. 

Faye Wong's Heart Sutra below

To read: Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart
by Patricia Donegan

Everyday a Good Day: Fifteen Lessons I learned about Happiness from Japanese Tea Culture

East Wind Melts the Ice: A Memoir through the Seasons
by Liza Dalby

Note:  Liza Dalby explains why the dew is called white: "Shiratsuyu" has been a poetic term in Japan ever since the first poetry was written down. Shining like little jewels, "white dew" on the autumn grass is the image par excellence of transient beauty. The "white" does not mean the dew is turning into frost. Early in the morning or after the rain, if you look at leaves with lightly fuzzed surfaces, or with upturned edges, the water vapor balls up into large dewdrops. Reflecting the sunlight, they appear white rather than simply transparent."

The Mid-Autumn Moon 2019

Kazy used to love the mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節!

In Hong Kong, he loved it because they had the best mooncakes. But in Japan, because he loved the way the moon would play hide and seek behind the clouds...

Oh, those Japanese autumn skies !

Every year, I would put pampas grass in a vase and buy some o-dango and we would wait for the moon to come out and play. One year, when he was around four, he grabbed the grasses and started waving them toward the sky, "come out a play, come out and play!" he screamed at the moon. 

And the moon did just that!

Fast forward ten years. 

Would you believe we can have mooncakes DELIVERED from a famous Hong Kong bakery that has a branch of their shop in Pasadena!

As always, I arranged mooncakes and bought sake (This year was plum flavored whiskey!)... But my astronomer, who long ago figured out that the top of my head makes for the perfect tripod, decided to balance his heavy astronomical binoculars on top of my head to try and get an iPhone shot of the moon...

++ 

Moon-viewing with my astronomer

Clear LA skies-

Binoculars propped atop my head

--The moon laughs out loud

 

 

 

haiku-ing: bucks bucking in zion

Bucks bucking heads--clack!
A hundred cars stop to watch
On the road to Zion

++

The crash of their horns colliding reminded me a lot of the sound of bamboo swords meeting their opponent in kendo. 

On the road out of Zion toward Bryce, there are countless bighorn sheep--some with collars, like these juveniles. Like movie stars, they can really stop traffic and bring out the paparazzi~!