Spring Corner and Japanese Inspiration

It is still extremely cold here these days, icy wind stirs up snow, but my heart longs for blossoms and fresh green... Sigh... To beat my lingering sadness I decided to bring spring into our bedroom.

It all started with the inspiring books - I featured one of them in a previous post - of the anthropologist and writer Liza Dalby. She is the first foreigner to study the ancient Japanese art of being a geisha. Liza Dalby's experiences inspired several books on Japanese culture. "The Tale of Murasaki" was the book I read first; a novel on the life of the world's first novelist, a court lady in the 10th century. I had found it by chance on a rummage table of a local bookstore - or should I say the book found me? In any case I couldn't resist the charme of the refined Japanes court culture since then and have read avidly everything I could find.
I admire most the connection between poetry and observation of nature and the beauty that lays in the changing of seasons.
This inspired me to create a spring corner with a runner of vintage kimono silk on a bamboo tea table, matching tulips and some of Liza Dalby's books...

... in the original and some in german translation...

Next came a kimono scroll mural with lovely handpainted blossoms again on vintage kimono silk.



Now I feel much better :-)
In her recent book, "East Wind Melts the Ice" she creates a diary of the seasons divided into the 72 five-day segments of an ancient Chinese almanac. Today belongs to the second section: "dormant creatures start to twitch" (february 10 through14). I try to imagine little animals deep in the earth of my backyard starting to move unter the white snow. And, was it a dream or did I really hear small birds singing when I woke up at dawn?