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Our Own Ikebana

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Last week, Morikami staff and volunteers sat down to a display of flower stems, bright green stalks and a puzzling diagram of shapes and dashes – a blueprint for ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement.  Cheiko Mihori, Founder and Director of the Florida Branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, would guide us in making our own. Ikebana is all about angles, we learned.  The three main elements of the arrangement stand at three different angles from a straight imaginary line down the middle.  But of course, we’re dealing with three dimensions; …

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Jeff Shore on Living Zen

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Jeff Shore summed up a famous Chinese proverb and said, “after being Zennistic, let me turn to Disneyworld.” And just like that, he moved on to a trip with his elderly Zen teacher (Fukushima Roshi, whose work is featured in Zenmi – A Taste of Zen) whom many a tourist mistook for part of Epcot’s Japan Pavilion.  Jeff Shore, Professor of Zen in the Modern World at Hanazono University, Kyoto, Japan came to Morikami last Friday to discuss what it means to be “Living Zen.” The Disneyworld bit first seemed like a …

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Yamato: More Than Just a Colony

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by Reiko Nishioka, Director of Education Have you ever thought about how towns or roads are named? When you travel across the country from Florida to Maine, you must find many unusual names. Yamato Road is one of them. I was thrilled and very moved to find a Japanese word when I moved to Florida. Because I knew what Yamato meant being Japanese, and living far from own country, I got emotional. Why? Yamato was originally the area around Nara Prefecture, Japan. When I was in elementary school, I lived …

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Japanese Children’s Day = Mother’s Day?

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNeLgJePx2w] by Reiko Nishioka, Director of Education When you are young, you don’t pay attention to the meaning of holidays; you are just happy to have the day off from school. On May 5th, the Japanese celebrate a national holiday called Children’s Day.  I do not remember what we did for the celebration because May 5th is Tango no settku translated as Boy’s Day.  If you are in Japan, you will see colorful koinobori (carp kites) hoisted outdoors of the homes of families who have male children. I have …

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Sign of Spring: Harutsugegusa

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Sign of Spring: Harutsugegusa The Morikami Museum’s annual spring festival “Hatsume” has become well known in Florida. This year the two day celebration will be March 19th and 20th. There is no Hatsume festival in Japan; however, if you know the meaning of the word, you would certainly appreciate and understand the naming of this celebration. Some readers who studied Japanese will figure out that “Hatsume” is the spring festival. The character of “hatsu” means the first or new, and “me” means a bud. Certainly, Floridians are enjoying soft warm spring …

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