So interesting to learn about the wind names! I wonder how the fish into sparrow came about, or what's behind the imagery... I remember the jacaranda trees so much that now it's symbolic of late spring/early summer in LA in my mind.
Thank you so much, Yui! I think both of those are from ancient Chinese sources. One of my almanacs traces the very rare changes that were made to the old calendar. Only the 72ko were altered. The 24 sekki have been unchanged… the few changes to the 72ko in Japan were mainly bird-related. Bird terms were changed to plant and flower terms… One thing that I’ve been so interested in is the way in the ancient Chinese calendar they believe there were times of the year when one thing was transformed into another. It’s incredible to think about!
I’m actually really interested in this topic as well. I haven’t been able to find a lot of information I wrote a little bit about it in my rainbow post https://dreaminginjapanese.substack.com/p/rainbows-and-lightening there’s not enough information I can get my hands on from Pasadena. But I have a few books from Japan and they kind of talk about it in terms of a Chinese sensibility related to Daoism. I always loved it that the Japanese sensibility changed a lot of the birds to plants and flowers because in Japan they love flowers so much!
So interesting to learn about the wind names! I wonder how the fish into sparrow came about, or what's behind the imagery... I remember the jacaranda trees so much that now it's symbolic of late spring/early summer in LA in my mind.
Thank you so much, Yui! I think both of those are from ancient Chinese sources. One of my almanacs traces the very rare changes that were made to the old calendar. Only the 72ko were altered. The 24 sekki have been unchanged… the few changes to the 72ko in Japan were mainly bird-related. Bird terms were changed to plant and flower terms… One thing that I’ve been so interested in is the way in the ancient Chinese calendar they believe there were times of the year when one thing was transformed into another. It’s incredible to think about!
That's really fascinating — I'd love to read more about that, especially the transformations :)
I’m actually really interested in this topic as well. I haven’t been able to find a lot of information I wrote a little bit about it in my rainbow post https://dreaminginjapanese.substack.com/p/rainbows-and-lightening there’s not enough information I can get my hands on from Pasadena. But I have a few books from Japan and they kind of talk about it in terms of a Chinese sensibility related to Daoism. I always loved it that the Japanese sensibility changed a lot of the birds to plants and flowers because in Japan they love flowers so much!
Such a lush world -- more than pictures or image -- closer to a realm of heaven countenanced by Hagoromo! Wow!
Thank you so much for these beautiful words!