Blossom for japan

Spring is the air, you can smell it, you can feel it, you can see it!
It makes me always happy spring, it's a never ending event of new life. Everything in nature starts again, and that's a proof of power.
The positive energies which comes along with the spring gives this feeling of hope and encouragements.

Japan is famous for its cherry blossoms, sakura, The delicate and subtle beauty of these small blossoms appears in the spring.
For the Japanese, the beautiful period of its flowering and then the all too soon fading and subsequent scattering of petals on the wind, symbolizes life itself - but not life in some abstract and distant sense. The fragility of the cherry blossom is the fragility of human existence; its brief period of life, like our own; its implacable movement toward death, indifferent to the good things of this world, is the ideal death for a samurai warrior; and finally, its individual and perfect beauty is also ours. Poignant for some but hopeful for others.

The Japanese cherry blossom meaning includes 'transient of life'. This is because the cherry blossom tree has short blooming periods and are very fragile. There is an old story attached to cherry blossoms that values sacrifice. It is said, that there is an Jiu-roku-zakura (the Cherry tree of the Sixteenth day), in the Iyo district. This tree grew on the lands of a Samurai for over a hundred years. When the Samurai became old, the tree began to die. The Samurai was very sad looking at his cherished tree die. He was a brave and honorable man. Thus, he thought up of a way to save the tree's life. He sat under the tree and committed the ritual suicide under the tree. This act gave the essence of the Samurai's life to the tree. The tree within one hour of the Samurai's death, on the 16th day of the month, began to blossom flowers and continues to live even today.

A fallen cherry blossom flower meaning also holds many emotional connections within the minds of Japanese. A fallen cherry blossom is a symbolical representation of a fallen Samurai. Each fallen cherry blossom is a representative of a Samurai who lost his life in battle. Kamikaze pilots used cherry blossoms as a symbol of their missions. These Japanese pilots would paint the sides of their planes with a cherry blossom. The cherry blossom meaning in their words was was ephemerality of life. This was in association with the falling petals of the flowers. It represented the sacrifice of life a young Japanese made for his country. People also believed the cherry blossoms were the souls of the warriors who lost their lives in battle.

I thought that today every fallen cherry blossom should represented a person lost in the earthquake and tsunami because,
even today,
in a moment of contrast between two emotions, joy and beauty, pain and disappointment for Japan,
Nothing will stop the beautiful cherry trees to bloom, to show their beauty and fragility.

It is said that the cherry blossom showers a person with love and happiness, indicating good luck...this are my wishes for each single person in Japan who is struggling with pain and sorrow.
Suzanne


"If I were asked to define the spirit of Japan, I would call it the blossom of the mountain cherry, scattering its scent in the morning sun. "
Motoori Norinaga 18 th-century