wabi-sabi … the beauty within the transition of summer’s fading light to autumn’s slumbering shadows

“We crossed it in a boat, and it is the Province of Sagami. The mountain range called Nishitomi is like folding screens with good pictures. On the left hand we saw a very beautiful beach with long-drawn curves of white waves. There was a place there called Moro-koshi-ga-Hara (Chinese Field) where sands are wonderfully white. Two or three days we journeyed along that shore. A man said: ‘In Summer pale and deep Japanese pinks bloom there and make the field like brocade. As it is Autumn now we cannot see them.’ But I saw some pinks scattered about blooming pitiably. They said: ‘It is funny that Japanese pinks are blooming in the Chinese field.'” *

*Trans: AS Omori and K Doi. The Sarashina Diary, AD 1009-1059 Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

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