Tis the season

Yes, the cherry blossoms are with us again. And not only is it the season for cherry blossoms, it’s the season for admiring cherry blossoms, organising picnics under/near cherry blossoms, talking heaps about cherry blossoms, and making lofty speeches incorporating analogies to cherry blossoms. Maybe it’s just because of all the school ceremonies we’ve had recently, but over the last few weeks I’ve already been treated to a bewildering succession of Cherry Blossom Maxims, and I’d like to share some of them with you now:

• A single cherry blossom is not beautiful by itself; you have to have lots of them all together to get a beautiful display. (Moral: In order to achieve something great you all have to work together.)

• The beauty of the cherry blossoms signals the onset of spring, but first the trees have to make it through the harsh winter. (Moral: In order to experience joy you have to suffer hardship first.)

• The first cherry blossom to bloom waits until all the others have fallen before it too drops from the tree. (Moral: Be considerate and look out for others. Don’t just go dropping off the tree as the mood takes you.)

It seems that the cherry blossom season is a key source of philosophical inspiration for many. Or it could be that most people see the CB season as nothing more than an excuse to organise publicly sanctioned outdoor drinking marathons, and drunkeness of course brings out the inner philosopher in us all.

I have to say that this year I was feeling a bit underwhelmed by the cherry blossoms. Possibly this is because the CB trees near our place are not of the brilliant white variety (grasshopper didn’t realise that there are many different species of cherry blossom) but a sort of subdued pinky grey, and therefore not quite as beautiful as they potentially could be. In my humble opinion. The self-seeded ones that you see dotted around on the mountain, meanwhile, are even less striking, little more than dirty pink smudges in amongst the green.

However all this changed on Saturday, when my friend Mr Nishihara took us up Mt Ryuo (the one that I climbed at six o’clock one morning; read about it here) for a picnic under the CB trees.

And I have to report, it was absolutely stunning. There we were on top of the world on a glorious spring day, admiring the contrast of the sheer white blossoms against the shimmering azure of the sea far below… so good that it went straight into the Top Five of Nature Views. With a bullet. Yes, I’m a convert, a born-again Cherry Blossom believer, I’ve seen the light, and I’m right now I’m working on some home-spun cherry blossom philosophy of my own, so watch this space for an enlightening Cherry Blossom Maxim.

Just to drive the point home, I’m going to leave you with a select few of my favourite cherry blossom photos from Saturday: