The first weekend in May! We decided to go up to Umegashima, to the Hakkorei trail, to see how the yashio were doing.

They were doing great!

I think we knew, 15 kilometers away, when we passed the Umegashima plum orchard, that the yashio were going to be lovely.

When we passed the waterfall, still three or four kilometers away from the trail, and saw the shimmering green and blue there too, we knew—down to the bone—how lovely the yashio would be.

And then there they were—so lovely.

It was hard to believe, but Vam-I-Am was there, too. He seemed befuddled by how much joy the yashio were giving us. His brow was wrinkled and his head was tilted to the side—and we realized he was wondering if there could be any situation in which the yashio did not give us joy. (Of course, we we were wondering if he didn’t have something else better to do.)

And Vam-I-Am said to us, “You like them when the sun is bright, but would you like them in the night?”

We nodded.

“Of course, we like them when it’s bright, but they’re also nice in dreams at night.”

“But,” Vam-I-am said, “Would you like them while you lunch? Would you like them in a bunch?”

“Why, yes,” we replied. “We especially like to see them in a bunch–especially while we munch our lunch.”

“Would you like them with purple flowers near? Then would they seem to you so dear?”

Again we nodded.

“Yes, we’d like like them still with purple near—even with the grey they’re dear.”

“If Fuji couldn’t find his hat? Could you like them on a day like that?”

“Lost his hat? What do you mean by that?  She’s merely thrilled to see aglow the bright and lovely yashio!”

“What if you stubbed your toe, would you like them then? Would you like them if there were only ten?”

“Especially if we stubbed our toe–we’re never going to answer no. Ten or five or two or one! Why one would give us so much fun!”

“What if they burned your hand? Upon your soul made some demand?”

“Oh, Vam-I-am, what’s wrong with you? Can’t you see when things are true?”

That exasperated him, let me tell you. He threw his hands up in despair, then pressed them to his sides, flopped down on his belly, and slithered back down the mountain.

We Hearty Hikers shrugged our shoulder and turned our attention back to the yashio.

Then we heard another voice. The purple mountain azaleas were talking.

“Yashio, yashio!” they moaned. “What about us?”

“You’re lovely, too,” we replied.

Early May. At the bottom of Kenashi Mountain—and most of the way up—the leaves are out and parading about, twirling their way round and round and into the light.

From Shizuoka City, drive to Fujinomiya, then head for the hills for forty minutes or so, and you’ll come to the Kenashi trailhead, at around 800 meters.

In May, on a clear day, you’ll feel a lot sugar being manufactured in the canopy above. Something from the manufacturing process seems to spill over into the hiker, as  can be seen in the picture above. What’s actually at work physiologically, well, feel free to consult your own scientific authority.

The top of the mountain is 1964 meters. There’s a bit of flat walking at the bottom of the trail and at the top (once you hit the ridge), but more or less, you climb 1000 meters while walking 2000 meters—which means . . .

. . . you’re going up at a 45 degree angle for the vast majority of the climb. Eat your Wheaties before you leave home. It took us a little under three hours to reach the top.

Along the way, with the leaves not yet fully out, you can sneak views of Fuji here and there, but . . .

. . . you don’t get a clear view until you’re almost at the ridge, at the “Tenbodai,” the first “official” Fuji-viewing point. It’s nice. There are no other mountains between the Kenashi range and Mt. Fuji, so the view includes all the green fields at the foot of Fuji.

Hit the ridge and turn right and you’ll soon see a tall rock, from which, if you scamper up it, you get a nice view of the Northern Alps. The view is much better than the picture. With your eyes, you can see way up into the Humboldt-blue sky.

A few minutes later, you’ll come to the top of the mountain, and to another clear view of Fuji.

You can go back the way you came, or you can walk farther back along the ridge, past where you came up, and descend via the Jizo Pass.

It’s a slightly longer route, but the last hour or so will be along the Kanayama River with all its waterfalls and green pools. Recommended.

You might discover the iwakagami “rock mirror” flowers along your way.

You can imagine what the ants make of them. You can even experience some dangerous and agonizing rock-climbing (note expression on Hearty Hiker’s face).

But mainly just enjoy the springy spring.

Tea-picking!

The last weekend in April.

Ryoshin-ji, a Zen temple . . . 

. . . with all the little folks that make me feel so happy.

All the little folks that want to be outside in nature.

Just as the temple building itself wants to be outside in nature.

Actually, there’s nothing between the inside of the building and the nature that surrounds it. They are one thing.

What a lovely day at such a lovely place! Forty or so folks (in the main, a collection of locals and students from Shizuoka University) had gathered, and I was lucky enough to get to pluck tea leaves with them.

So much to enjoy.

The maples.

The sunshine in the maples.

 The stars in the maples.

The dance in the maples.

The altar inside is beautiful, but also seems quite humble, quite aware of all that’s outside the walls of the main hall.

Yes, yes, everyone wants to be outside. If they can’t pick tea, sunbathing and just plain old looking up into the blue sky will do just fine.

Plum leaves new and newer bathe in the sun.

The young plums begin to turn red.

The carp swim through the breeze.

Sunlight and tea.

Tombstones and tea.

Tsunde, tsunde, tsunde, tsunde, tsunde, tsunde! Tsunde, tsunde, Cha no happa tsunde! (Shizuoka Duo)

(Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck! Tea leaves, pluck, pluck, pluck them!)

The most elegant and delicious lunch I’ve had since who knows when. Tea-flavored rice balls, rice balls with bamboo sprouts from the mountain behind the temple (or rather from the mountain back-side of the temple), rice-balls with home-grown green peas, and TEA!

When you can taste the ground you’re walking on and the air you’re breathing, you know you are right where you are supposed to be. Don’t move. Let your spirit rejoice. Be grateful. Be healthy. Get ready to work harder.

Back to the fields. Pluck, pluck, pluck. Bucketful after bucketful after bucketful.

Chat up the folks plucking from the other side of the row.

Back starts to ache? Well, stretch, silly. Encourage everyone else to stretch, too.

“Whole lotta love. Whole lotta love. Whole lotta leaves.”

Good job!

Every day on Ryuso beautiful. Every day the beauty’s different.

Above, tea fields along the road up to the trailhead.

Yamabuki, near the trailhead.

The accent on the mountain this mid-April day  was the lavender azaleas. It’s a beauty that a camera has difficulty capturing.

Most of the time, you gaze upon the blossoms through the leaves of other trees, which is stunningly beautiful to the human eye—but gives an ordinary camera fits. It never knows what to focus on.

Some may prefer the azaleas on a blue-sky day, but I think they look rather elegant in the grey.

And the grey.

The grey, misty woods are a perfect place for solitude. Ask a Hearty Hiker. . . . If you can catch up with her!

Cherry blossoms and grey skies block our usual view of Mt. Fuji.

A few days earlier. In my neighborhood. Negibozu (“Buzz-cut onion heads”), with Ryuso in the background.

The joys of bicycle commuting.

You’ve saved fifteen minutes, not being in an automobile—and now, when you spot the tiny dab of color in the rice field (look close, that square bit of green is the fallow rice field and somewhere there’s something that looks like a tiny black spot)–you’ve got time for a game of hide-and-seek.

This time you might even win!

There, there! Let’s go. Off the bike.  Around the field filled with brush. He’ll never know.

And don’t stare in at him. He will know that if you do.

And then you’ll have lost again.

Wait. Where’d he go? And where’d she go? Man, she was quick. No time, for even an out-of-focus shot!

Oh, there—there he is!

Your Team A teammates . . .

. . . are right there with you. All concentration.

And then, he’s popped right out of the field and walks right in front of you.

Okay, okay, fifty meters off. But that’s the clearest view he’s given you in a long time.

Go ahead. Declare victory!

“Victory!”

Yambushi. March 10th. The unpredictable spring.

The forecast was for sunshine all day, but about halfway through the drive up to Umegashima, I realized (just waking up, apparently) that it was clouds from here to forever, and rain was falling.

So I got myself in the mood for a “grey day.” That’s not hard to do. Colors are brighter in the forest on grey days.

Once I was on the trail, though, walking along the river, I realized that it was really going to be a “water day.” We’ve had several days of heavy rain, and the river was rushing down the mountain about twice it’s normal size. Waterfalls, never seen before (okay, never seen by me before), had popped out here and there and were pouring water everywhere.

Water-falls. Water always follows its own nature. It likes to go down, and as it only does what it likes to do, it does a mighty fine job of it.

Well, obviously, it was going to be a day when you thought to yourself that the only way you’d ever be happy would be to  if you found the thing you liked to do as much as the water likes falling, found what comes natural to you . . . could only be happy if, at the least, got yourself headed in the right direction and proceeded at your own pace.

Once the trail turned away from the river, though, and I was in the wet woods, I began to feel maybe it was going to be a “spring day.” Things were brightening up, greening up.

You could feel the water in the ground. You could almost hear the roots sucking it in. You could almost see the tissue in the leaves swell.

And then . . .

I went around a bend . . .

. . . and walked into a winter wonderland. It really went from green, green, green to white, white, white in a heartbeat.

It was about 3 degrees centigrade when I started, and of course it gets cooler as you head into the forest and up along the river, so it was not so odd for the light drizzle to have turned to snow, but still it caught me off guard. The contrast was stark.

For a second, I really felt as if I had entered a magical kingdom, a Disney world.

But a feeling that you’ve entered into a magical world is . . . . . . assuming that you actually are in the real world, and not in a Disney movie or an S-F novel . . .

A feeling that you’ve entered into a magical world is actually . . . 

. . . a recognition that you still have a lot of undiscovered land inside yourself.

You will always have a lot of undiscovered land inside yourself.

This is a great thing. Invigorating and calming all at once.

Enjoy it when you can.

At the top of Yambushi, a tiny sliver of the sky went blue for about thirty seconds.

There was lovely light.

2014 meters up from sea level. From my car, about two hours and forty-five minutes.

Me and one other guy were up there to see the summit and the sky above it.

On the way down, I heard this woodpecker tap, tap, tapping. My sweet little camera zoomed as much as it could, but we were pretty far off, and thus the picture is blurry. Sorry.

On the way down, I took a route that neither  I nor the other hiker had on the way up. So no footprints.

It’s nice to walk in pristine snow . . . if it’s not too deep . . . and if you can find the trail.

A plum-viewing picnic!

In Fujieda. Thirty or forty minutes from Shizuoka City.

Along the banks of the Seto River. Dozens of plum trees.

Strolling along, singing a song.

White so white.

Lots of folks joining the show.

Thirty or forty mejiro flit by. They seem to have a one tree, one flower policy. As a group, they seem to flow along like a river. Too hard to get a picture. Best just to watch them zig and zag.

The mukudori are pretty energetic, too, but they move at a slightly slower pace.

A glorious day.

“Don’t worry, my dear ones.”

“This is our world. It always has been. Though it’s getting braver by the moment. I’ll be back soon—and what a fine dessert we’ll have to top off our dinner!”

“Yeah, I see you. We had a deal, didn’t we? You asked if you could live amongst us—and we said all right. And you promised to let us be, and when you can, to work with us. So at least here, between the bricks and the concrete, we can enjoy, yes? We’re good?”

A few of these delightful blue berries, you won’t mind, will you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“We do understand each other, don’t we?”“Ah, just one more. “

“All right. Well, I guess you don’t look particularly dangerous—and I believe we are good. Yeah? All right, then. Be seeing you. Have a good day. Best to you and yours.”

Off to work. Bicycle commuting.

Fortunately, we’ve got some yoyu (余裕), that is, spare time, time to go slow and let our brains breathe. . . . So when we spot, a hundred meters or so off our left shoulder, the mountain plums blooming, blooming just in front of the bright spring green bamboo, we can, with no worries, make a little detour.

Yes, we’ve left home a little early, so we can make a detour like this if we want to, and still get to work on time. We’re on our bicycle, so we don’t have to worry about the road getting congested.

The plum tree is up on the mountainside, so let’s be content to take a few pics from below.

Our modest camera can zoom in a bit, but maybe not as much as we’d like–and not with as much precision as we’d like . . .

. . . so when we spot movement in the tree, little birds flitting about, we can’t zoom in enough, and all we can take are  fuzzy grey shots.  We look at a shot we’ve taken on our camera screen and see the vague outline of a bird—but none of it’s natural color.

When we get home, we can use our software and remove most of the dark shadows .Then the colors of the mejiro (the white-eyed) will appear. We can make each shot a little less like a photograph, a little more like a painting, hide the blurry, grainy aspects of the original–pretend that we’d never hoped for a crystal clear shot.

But now we’re still standing under the tree. If we’re going to see the lovely color of the mejiro, well, we’ll just have to imagine it.

Fortunately, that’s not so hard to do.

We’ve got some pretty good software, too.

Sometimes, though, you need a bit of yoyu to remember that.

Back to Aozasa—the “yuki-ga-arukiyasui” mountain. The “easy-to-walk-in-the snow” mountain.

Last week most definitely was arukiyasui. We had another snowfall, though, and this time (Feb. 4), the snow was significantly deeper.  Still arukiyasui for me—but I’m not sure how it might have been for you. Here and there, the boots sunk in pretty deep.

But it was a great day to be out on Aozasa.

The snow was beautiful. The sunshine was beautiful. The blue sky, well, the blue sky was that deep, deep blue just-this-side-of-royal-purple-blue-priest-robe blue—beautiful.

And I’d just read, in the last week, two articles from two major U.S. news outlets, two articles that made me question my own sanity.

One was titled something like, “Why going outside is good for you.”

The other, “Why sunshine is good for you.”

All I can say is I’m so, so, so happy that I—it’s me, I’m talking about, not you!—that I don’t really need to read articles trying to convince me that the sunshine and the outdoors are good for me.

In the Aozasa woods, the sun filters through the cedar trunks, turning the snowy floor into a dazzling display of both glowing light and shadow. Sometimes rays of sunlight shoot through the green boughs, sprays of light, as if they’ve been shot out of a garden hose.

And as I walk along, I feel (as always) that I am no different from the trees. I want to stretch my limbs and touch that light. Yeah, when the light is filtered through a forest canopy, I do stretch for it. Up, up, up, I go.

Others, too, I’m pretty sure, think  that’s true. When they’re up on the ridge, out in the open sun . . .

. . . they enjoy the basking, but when they’re down there beneath the trees, they stre-e–e-e-etch for that light. That’s the better part of the walk, I often hear them say. Moving toward the light.

I believe my “stretching” exercises up  on Aozasa are the most meaningful “stretching” exercises I’ve ever undertaken.

I’ve got lots of books I’m waiting to read. Just don’t have time for the sunshine article.

Nor for the one that suggests it might be a good idea to step outside.

Might be?

Hmmh.

All right, got to go. Need to stand up and see if I can touch my toes.

At the very least, I’m going to glance down and see if they’re still there.