The Impermanence Of Things
It’s as if I’ve woken up as a child again, bright eyes setting on the very first snowfall of a winter season, every branch coated by white magic. Only now, under a Japanese springtime sky, every branch bursts with pink-stained blooms. I’m awe-struck standing beneath, what seems to be, a million cherry blossoms; flurries of rose-colored petals snowing down on my face, and I’m right back to being that giddy child again.
Ordinarily, a cattle of tourists armed with selfie sticks would be grazing through Kyoto capturing rare sightings of such budding beauty. Ordinarily, widespread picnic gatherings and flower viewing parties, a rooted custom in Japan called hanami, would be found feasting under every flowering canopy. Ordinarily, the City of Flowers would portray a nightscape of cherry blossom-engulfed streets, flood lights bouncing off each limb and a thousand faces slanted upwards underneath them. Clearly, 2020 has proven to unveil itself unlike any ordinary year.
Disruption can be powerful, and without it, only stagnation keeps on keeping on. Nature never stays stagnant; movement is the beat of its lifeblood. A river’s flow never remains the same, a cherry blossom will never stay in bloom.
Cherry blossoms are known in Japan as sakura, peaking fiercely and briefly at the birth of spring; rows of blushing trees there for one moment and gone the next. As each dying petal falls, one at a time, silently burying roads with speckles of flushed snowflakes, the fragility between life and death unfolds.
Mono no aware is a Buddhist-influenced, Japanese-derived belief shedding light on such fragility; acknowledging the transience of life, the impermanence of all things. Mono no aware is perceiving our world and everything that exists within our world with a profound appreciation for its ephemeral essence. Celebrating the fated fade of every season, rather than mourning its brevity. Savoring the reshaping of relationships, rather than suffering from their shifts. Cherishing the cherry blossom’s fleeting nature, rather than grieving its momentary mortality. When we consciously open our eyes to see that everything in existence is temporary, a wave of melancholy may wash over, but the finite presence of our world is exactly what gives it such beauty.
Springtime will once again return, and our brave, new world will eventually find harmony once more, but along the way we may discover unexpected, delicate moments reminding us of life’s fluid presence that will never, ever stay the same.
Jeremy and I continued our stroll, hand-in-hand, along the aptly named “Philosopher’s Path,” with wind whipping through the trees and petals escaping to the earth. I suddenly asked him, “What do you think it’s all about?”
“What?” He said.
“Life.”
Jeremy paused and stood, taking a moment to consider my question, as flowers got caught through our hair. He looked at me, with a calm smile, and answered…
“It’s simple… Don’t over think it. Just enjoy it.”
… and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.
Cheers,
Tera
