This is my entry for this month’s IndieWeb Carnival, hosted by Alex Sirac, on the topic of “Cycles and fluctuations”.
The life of a journalist is governed by schedules, but i’m not a journalist anymore. I’ve always prided myself on knowing the exact time instinctively, but now that i don’t have a work routine anymore, i barely know the day of the week1. And yet, i’ve become keenly aware of the subtle changes around me as autumn shifts into winter.
It made me think of the taiyō reki, the traditional Japanese calendar that divides the year into 24 nijūshi sekki, “small seasons” that last around two weeks. Each sekki is further divided into three kō, “micro seasons” of around five days that are each associated with a haiku written in 1685 by the court astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai. I’ve seen them described as “a poetic journey through the Japanese year”, but i love how prosaic they are.
We’re leaving sōkō, the time of the first frosts, to enter rittō, the beginning of winter. Maple leaves are turning red (momiji tsuta kibamu) and camellias are blooming (tsubaki hajimete hiraku). Or they would if climate change hadn’t messed everything up — it’s 18 °C outside as i’m writing this, and i feel like we’re two or three sekki behind schedule.
That’s the thing: i’m feeling it. The days might blur together, but i notice the change of “micro seasons” like never before. The wind from the south has been picking up, my lemon trees are beginning to bloom, the solitary bees are nesting, the pavement is covered with leaves, and my solar panel’s efficiency is dropping fast. I don’t need a clock or a calendar to tell me what i know in my bones.
Even in the city, it’s easy to pay attention to these fluctuations. You might not know when bears start hibernating in their caves (kuma ana ni komoru), but you know when your neighbours start closing their windows and lighting candles. Sekki might just be the antidote we need to the dreary monotony of the passing days and the growing inadequacy of our four seasons.
- At least my weeknotes make me aware of Sundays. ↩︎