Lesson Blog Feb 8th, 2025

Risshun has passed and the plum blossoms have begun to bloom at Shorai-an. Japanese white-eyes are moving from branch to branch in search of nectar.

The scroll on the alcove is a poem by Ietaka Fujiwara, known as a waka poem that expresses the spirit of Rikyu's tea ceremony, "I want to show a grass sprouts growing under the snow, to the people who only wait for blooming flowers. The spring comes already in a mountain village with deep snow."

The flowers are yellow narcissus.

For the sweets, prepared “Koubai dono” (Tsuruya Yoshinobu, Kyoto).