The Chill of Early Winter
by Marybeth Welch
Marybeth Welch has studied tea at the Urasenke Cha no Yu center for over 40 years. She received her Chamei (tea name) in 1995. She teaches there as well.
This natsume perfectly exemplifies the Japanese concept of “yūgen” (mystery and depth). In the stark image of barren winter trees under a cold crescent moon, it is almost possible to feel the chill in the wind as it penetrates this melancholy scene.
To some perhaps there is no beauty in leafless trees. To others the desolate silence projected exudes an intangible elegance not found in other seasons.
The term “yūgen” has a long history reaching back to early Chinese Taoist thought. Kamō no Chōmei in his “Hōjōki” (Record of My Hut, 1212) “wrote that the meaning of this mysterious term gave rise to considerable confusion in his own day, and rather than attempt to define it, he chose instead to provide an illustration: “On an autumn evening, for example, there is no color in the sky, and although we cannot give a definite reason for it, we are somehow moved to tears. A person lacking in sensitivity finds nothing peculiar in such a site; he just admires the cherry blossoms and scarlet autumn leaves that he can see with his own eyes.”
In other words, beneath the surface of phenomenal reality, the illusion that the colorful
things of the world are themselves “real”, one finds an otherwise invisible, more profound reality. This reality is sensed in what he called yojō, the “reverberations of poetry that are not stated in words, an atmosphere not revealed by the formal aspects of a poem.”
Photo @ Marybeth Welch
Reference:
pg 82-83 The Fracture of Meaning by David Pollac