I read this thing about microseasons in The Guardian the other day– do I ever read about anything anywhere else? – and I’ve been gripped by the concept ever since. Adapted from ancient Chinese sources by a court astronomer in the nineteenth century, this Japanese calendar splits each year into 24 parts called sekki, with each part divided further into three smaller moments called kō. The weekend I read the article, Japan was apparently in the microseason named ‘hibernating insects surface,’ a concise phrase with so much folded in.
By my observations, that microseason began this week in West Oxfordshire. Strolling down the lane leading into my village on Wednesday lunchtime, I passed a tree humming to itself, filled with hoverflies. In the wall of a nearby house, wasps had made a nest and were carving golden lines in the air. I wandered back through my garden and noticed troops of midge-like flies dancing around pools of patio rainwater.
We’re now, excitingly, heading into the sekki of the spring equinox, when ‘sparrows start to nest’ and the ‘first cherry blossoms’ appear. In other parts of the year, Japanese kō make less sense for those of us living in the UK. Our agriculture is different, so autumn is not marked by the point when ‘rice ripens,’ and we tend not to have to think about bears ‘hibernating in their dens’ come December. According to this calendar, ‘light rains sometimes fall’ for a rough five-day period in October and ‘rain moistens the soil’ briefly in February. A version for my part of the world would need to explore the poetics of downpours, drizzle, and mud much more extensively.
But I’ve been enjoying noticing the tiny shifts in the season this week, and it’s been fun coming up with local kō on my daily walks. Today, ‘nettle shoots appear tender’, ‘the wren returns to its nest’, ‘minature snails gather’, and ‘first lambs are barn-born’. There are more domestic signs of the beginning of spring too – ‘washing may dry in mild air’ and ‘cats meow before dawn’ – and I note these down in my almanac too.
Build your own microseason calendar:
Take note of the subtle changes occurring around you this week, and write a phrase each day to represent the transformations. Keep your phrases short, representing a single action or observation.
If, like me, you take pictures while you’re out and about, it can be interesting to browse photos from these days in previous years to see what has caught your eye before. I discovered that March 22 has been a hot spot for magnolia trees in my personal archive.
Play with putting your phrases together. Perhaps you can create some basic microseason haiku:
First lambs are barn-born
The wren returns to its nest
Cats meow before dawn
I love this, Alison. This kind of mindful attention with an attitude of curiosity brings a sense of richness and peace…definitely awareness of the present moment. Thank you for the reminder to practice.
I'm looking forward to a special kō towards the end of July - 'the ground teems with flying ants'