Record-breaking delay for autumn foliage

How will record temperature in September and sustained warmth through October

into November affect autumn foliage?

This post is what it was like in the past three weeks.

The pond scape shows a little progressed season with yellowish shades of green 

and brown seeds in the late October.

Muhlenbergia capillaries planted in mass create dramatic dusky pink cloud in autumn. 

Cosmos, written as 秋桜 (autumn cherry blossoms),  is one of the most loved autumn flowers.
They have withered much earlier due to the long scorching weather.

Cosmos atrosanguineus, or Chocolate cosmos, has velvety deep crimson flowers.

Leaves have been changing colors very slow.

Leaves survived the extreme heat of summer.

On the 3rd of November, my daughter's family and I walked along the loop trail

running through the Kasuga-yama Primeval Forest.

The forest has remained virtually untouched as hunting and logging has been prohibited 

since the Kasuga Mountain was revered as a divine mountain since the ancient time.

 The forest was off-limits to the public until after WWII.

 

The contrast of light and shadow

Japanese Maples were still all green

It's relaxing to walk in the forest hearing the sound of river.

This trail leads to the top of the Mt. Wakakusa. We turned back halfway.

Another part of the loop trail is Takisaka-path, which I reported in Takisaka-no-michi Path.

M's Shichi-go-san celebration & hiking in the forest 

Currently Sakura (Cherry tree) leaves are beautiful. 

I love autumn leaves of Sakura, which are as attractive as it's spring blossoms.

Now we are in the first cold spell of the season but it will get very warm next week.

I have mixed emotion to think about the fact that there is this warmth

behind the more and more violent weather events.

Linked to Mosaic Monday

Cosmos flower viewing in and around Nara City

Autumn has crept in through gradual cooling and changing.

After various subtle signs of autumn since late August.

 full blooming cosmos flowers here and there tell me, "It's autumn at last!"

Cosmos is written 秋桜 meaning "autumn sakura/cherry blossoms".

The waving shades of cherry pink in the breeze means full arrival of autumn to me.

Yagyu Village

In the morning of one hot summer-like day in mid-October, my husband parked our car

at the roadside along the cosmos fields in Yagyu Village, the outskirt of Nara City.

I think we were there 10 years ago, too, though the scale was much smaller this year.

 Autumn walk through cosmoses.

We stopped by Hannya-ji Temple on our way back from Yagyu.

Hannna-ji Temple is called "Cosmos Temple" for its autumn cosmoses

and many other flowers attract people from season to season.

It was so hot and the mid-day sunlight was dazzling different from 

the crisp air and blue autumnal skies of the time when I visited in 2017,

Cosmos, autumn sky, rain, and a celebration

Hannya-ji Temple

There were artistic display of cosmos flowers like that of hydrangeas and 

summer cosmoses in June this year. 

Hannya-ji Temple in early summer

I like bokeh in photography. Especially light bokeh is fantastic!

Have you known that the etymology of bokeh is Japanese word 

"惚け/boke (noun)" meaning "being blur or senile"?

I'd like to think clearly and take care of myself as long as possible.

I wonder how I can "bokeru (verb)" gracefully without causing troubles.

In one late afternoon, I was at the cosmos fields around the Hoki-ji Temple, Ikaruga.

It was mostly overcast, not with the colorful sunset like Cosmos fields before sunset

or like the blessing of blue skies like Earth laughs in cosmos flowers at Ikaruga.

Three-storied Pagoda (National Treasure) and the cosmos flowers in the fallow paddies surrounding it.

Regardless of the weather, the wispy flowers always look dreamy.

The next day, temperature dropped by 10 degrees 

terminating the persistent abnormal heat of October.

Autumn has accelerated to progress toward the final blaze of lives of leaves.

Linked to Mosaic Monday

Hannya-ji Temple in early summer

July, 2020

Hannay-ji Temple is a charming little temple in the northern part of Nara City, famous for lovely flowers.

Although  it is called "Cosmos Temple" for the autumn flowering cosmoses, Yamabuki (yellow roses) in spring,

Hydrangeas in summer and Narcisuses in winter are are all so lovely.

When I visited last July, mostly Hydrangeas in the deep greenery.

In early June this year,  summer cosmoses were with hydrangeas.

I heard it's difficult to make cosmoses into bloom at this time but the temple staff did it nicely.

June, 2021

 I focused on flowers on the water on this visit.

Cosmos flowers were floating in the water-filled "tsukubai", or water-basin.

To pour water over "Mizukake-Jizo", or Watered Jizo,  is a custom.

The believers throw water full of ladle over the statue of diety and watch it dripping down,

wishing their soul be purified and their wish be fullfilled. 

Tsukubai is not used for that purpose during the pandemic.

Flowers in a bowl.

Hydrangeas in glass cubes.

This Jizo statue was found  in the mountain on the eastside.

According to the engraved epitaph, a cotton maker of Nara Machi had it sculpted for 

his ancestors' soul in 1754.

The rectangular tsukubai basin made of granite was  contributed to the temple between 

1673 and 1680.

"絵馬 Ema", or votive tablet, on which people's wishes are written, is another "charm" of this temple.

It is "pleasant and attractive" to see and have "magic power" to make people's wishes come true.

I love various different designs according to time and occasion.

The tablet of ox with sun-rise and auspicious pine tree and Plunus mume blossoms is for the New Year 2021

and the one with Sakura (flowering-cherry) is for the success of entrance examination.

The start of academic year is Sakura-blooming April in Japan.

"Ema" literary means "picture of a horse."

In the ancient times, it was believed that gods travelled to human realm on horseback.

People donated horses to temples or shrines with their earnest wishes but horses are too expensive.

People started to use a horse figure made of wood, clay, or paper,  and then a wooden plaque

with a horse picture on it.

 The history of ema is  here.

Hydrangeas in front of the old earthen walls give me retrospective feeling 

that this temple has been through the raging waves of long history since its foundation.

The exact foundation time is unclear, but the roof tiles excavated in the precinct was made in 

Nara Period (710-784) and the name Hannyaji appears in the Documents of Shosoin (742).

A brief history of the temple is written at the end of this post, Hannya-ji Temple in Yamabuki color.

The rest of my posts related to Hannyaj;

Cosmos, autumn sky, rain, and a celebration

Pastel-colored dancers in the autumn breeze

Warmth and joy in the coldest month in half a century

The simple but refreshingly impressive show of  summer flowers is reported to be

 the idea of the vice-head priest of this temple to make people's visit more enjoyable.

Linked to Mosaic Monday

Cosmos fields before sunset

The three-storied pagoda of Hoki-ji, National Treasure

Cosmoses are fairly representative of autumn flowers in Japan.

They are written 秋桜 meaning “autumn sakura/cherry blossoms.” 

In autumn, they dye the fields of the country shades of pink.

They are easy to grow even on non-fertile soil as long as they are in lots of sunshine.

 I have taken photos of cosmoses swaying under the blue skies many times.

On a sunny late afternoon with floating clouds last week, I suddenly wanted to photograph

 dancing cosmoses in the gradual darkening right before sunset. 

The place is one of my favorite cosmos spots, the fallow paddy field around Hoki-ji Temple 

less than half an hour by car from my home.

The flowers are not only graceful but also as hardy as weeds.

Unfortunately the sky was not so dramatic as I had expected before departure,

 but the flowers did do their best job. 

Airy cosmoses are floating in the falling darkness, looking at the Cosmos.

My grandson Y, who almost always draws dinosaurs or vehicles, 

got inspired to make a sketch of some cosmoses in a white vase;

pink to magenta flowers, yellow discs, and distinctively feathery, fern-like leaves.

The flowers seem to have made him add butterflies.

What were you inspired by recently?

There are eight posts about cosmos flowers including this one, here.

Linked to Mosaic Monday

Cosmos, autumn sky, rain, and a celebration

“The day becomes more solemn and serene

         When noon is past; there is a harmony

         In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which through the summer is not heard or seen,

As if it could not be, as if it had not been! “

 -Percy Bysshe Shelley-

Cool, crisp air of autumn makes up for the exhausting humidity and heat of summer.

Under the high, clear blue sky with fluffy autumn clouds, I strolled around Hannyaji Temple.

Cosmos flowers were playing around the Stone Buddhist Statues

or Thirteen-storied Stone Pagoda,
having the time of their life.

Refreshing breeze floated in the precinct caressing flower to flower.

My heart was filled with hope and love.

It rained the next day as was forecasted by the cirrocumulous mackerel sky

 in the photo below.

The rain brought record hot October like summer for more than a week.

The next to the summer-like week was sudden drop in temperatures

and consecutive dismal cold days with steadily falling rain.

Weather has gotten abnormal. 

Not defeated by the rain, my eldest granddaughter F’s “Shichi-Go-San” 
was celebrated the other day.

Dressed in formal “kimono”, she had a rite at a local shrine accompanied by the families.

 In the heavy rain, she walked holding an umbrella with one hand 

and tucking up the kimono with the other

to protect kimono from rainwater and dirt.

With F's younger sister Y

The rain was not so bad after all

as I could see 6-year-old’s (soon to be 7)  patience and grace at the shrine

and the miraculous show of light and pouring rain-water on my way back to Nara.

Now that a typhoon passed through, blue sky appeared today.

More about Hannya-ji Temple and cosmos; Pastel colored dancers in the autumn breeze (2015)

Linked to Mosaic Monday

Earth laughs in cosmos flowers at Ikaruga

The Three-Storied Pagoda (National Treasure), the only original remaining structure of Hoki-ji, from the 8th century

About twenty minutes’ drive from my home takes me to Hoki-ji Temple in Ikaruga.

Ikaruga has been a focal point of Japanese Buddhism since its entry to Japan in the 6th century.

On a sunny, crisp mid-October last year, I went to see cosmos flowers in mass 
around the Three-Storied Pagoda of Hoki-ji Temple. 

Farmers have utilized their fallow fields for cosmos for the tourists

 who stroll around the town of Ikaruga.

I borrowed the popular quote “Earth laughs in flowers.” by Ralph Waldo Emerson to this post.

 When I learned the full lines of the poem later, the message sounded serious
and different from the simply happy, peaceful image of the one-sentence-quote.
(Hamatreya)

Japanese word '自然 (shizen, or jinen in ancient times)' is translated to 'Nature' in English, 

but the connotation  is different in a strict sense.

 "The basic, etymological meaning of the Japanese 'shizen/jinen' is
 'the power of  spontaneous self-development and what results from the power'. 

It is rather a mode of being than a natural order. "
We humans are not opposed or superior to the nature but part of it.

We enjoyed being there immersed in cosmoses in all the directions.

This year at the end of October, I went there again with the same family members .

 Shades of pink cosmos were swaying in breeze like last year 

though it was a hot day with summer clouds unlike last year. 

The little boy has grown to be more confident and independent physically and emotionally.

The lovely pink or red cosmos flower reminds me of a little girl dressed in kimono
 for Shichi-Go-San, which literally means "Seven-Five-Three." 

It is a traditional ritual and celebration of passage of life in Japan 
for three and seven-year-old girls and three and five-year-old boys.

It is held annually on November 15. 
As it is not a national holiday, it is generally observed on the near weekend.

My son celebrated her second daughter Y in late October 
before the winter chills of November.

It’s a hard and busy day for the little children to get dressed in kimono, dress, or suits and tie, 
be photographed, walk to the shrine to have a rite, and have dinner at the restaurant. 

The photo below was taken at my son’s favorite photo studio,
where five-year-old F accompanied her younger sister.
I’m amazed with the cameraman who always capture the moment
when all people are smiling naturally no matter how many the people are.

The three-year-old boy Y also had his Shichi-Go-San commemorative photos taken already
and will visit shrine soon in November.  

Recently the studios that capture natural expression of children have gotten popular. 

Unposed expressions and gestures are captured in many different combinations.

Children are not only ours but also Earth's.
Children will grow to bloom nurtured by Earth.
Wish all the children of the world their healthy growth and bright future.

Linked to Friday Photo Journal