With the wind

A swoosh of wind carries the fallen petals up and away. The end of march is cherry blossom season in Japan, a time when an ancient tradition of hanami (cherry blossom-viewing) takes place. Families gather under the sakura trees not only to witness their magnificent beauty but also to remember their loved ones that passed away and ponder on the inevitability of death.

Sakura, known to us in the west as cherry blossom, is the national flower of Japan. It is vastly popular in their culture, depicted in books, movies, paintings and other forms of art. Although mostly used to represent beauty and new beginnings, some authors give it some darker symbolism.

There is ugliness in perfection. A delicate, pink petal of the cherry blossom has not always been pink. Kajii Motojiro, a famous Japanese writer, has something to say about that. In his short story “Under the Cherry Blossoms”, which you can read here http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/japanese/under-the-cherry-blossoms, he claims that the blossoms gain their colour by sucking the blood from bodies buried beneath them. Who knew trees could be carnivorous.

It is of no surprise that Motojiro decided on attributing such a dark secret to sakura. Japan’s ground is indeed fertilised by blood. For such a small country as Japan, being so savagely rampaged over the centuries must have been devastating. I will not go into the full history of Japan, and in no way I want to diminish the suffering other nations faced, but since honour plays such a big part in the Japanese culture, that they would rather die than lose it, and with a tremendously crippling Would War II, I would like to give you a glimpse into the world Kajii Motojiro was writing in and the way other authors were created by that world.

Jisei, is a concept known as “death poem”, something written right before death. It has a long history, with Buddhist and Taoist monks practicing it for centuries. It has gained popularity amongst the common folk during the Second World War when Japanese suiside pilots would write them before leaving for their last mission. This poetry, mostly short, consisted of one final message, a point that would sum up the wisdom that its author acquired in his lifetime. They were ironic sometimes; to quote one jisei “Death is just death”. Sakura, is a very common image in this type of poetry. The planes rapidly descending to their death are compared to falling sakura petals. Knowing this, it become clear why dead bodies buried under sakura trees aren’t so hard to believe.

Earlier, I was discussing the idea of loss with a friend. Be it loss of a physical possession, of a person, health or something else. “Shō ga nai”, she told me, as the subject got more personal. I did not know what the word meant so I lead the conversation into a different route but as soon as I got the chance, I looked it up online. It translates to something similar to “it cannot be helped”.

Living on an island that has also faced a lot of hardship in its history, I feel like I can understand what Japan must have been through. By resilience, as we in the west call it, is an immensely powerful tool. It shakes the dust of the boots, cleans mud off the face. It builds cities and restores cultures. The Japanese propagate resilience. They just name it differently. American authors were often quick to judge and call the philosophy of Shō ga nai passive, but they did not understand the true depth of it. When a chaotic catastrophe breaks out, such as for instance, the Atomic Bomb tragedies were, there is nothing to be done. One can curse God, blame the politics, debate and argue, find someone to be at fault. One can also accept what has happened and move on. Move on without letting in crush you. Move on, despite everything, no matter how difficult it may be. This is not passiveness, this is strength of mind at its purest. It is the ability to realise that dwelling on the past will not change it, and fearing about the future will not prevent it. It is the conscious, brave decision to embrace the uncertainty of now. Maybe, we westerners, have something to learn from the Japanese. Maybe we haven’t yet truly mastered the art of letting go. Maybe, we just have to watch the sakura petals fall.