M illions of tourists are drawn to Japan every year by the lure of its natural treasures – mountains, volcanoes, hot springs, subtropical beaches and some of the best snow in the world. There are reminders of nature and the seasons at every turn. People don’t just look at nature, they live inside it, name themselves after it, feast on it, wear it and are guided through life by it.

I’m shuffling along in my socks, trailing a Zen monk wearing samue (temple work clothes) and a small cloth cap. This monk from Zuihō-in Temple is a man of deep wisdom and scrolls of stories. I think I’m asking too many questions for such a quiet place, but he’s so fascinating I can’t help myself. I have booked an appointment to sit inside Taian, a replica of Sen no Rikyū’s original tea house, built in honour of the four-hundredth anniversary of his death. We have paused for a moment to admire a simple sand garden from the wooden veranda, when the monk notices two other temple visitors just around the corner.

One is a manicured guy with sharp clothes but tired eyes, carrying a silver-studded tote bag. Transplanted from the bustle and bright lights of Tōkyō by the bullet train in just a few hours to this quiet temple in Kyōto, he looks disoriented. The monk steps forward to talk to him.

‘No, Akasaka,’ blurts the man with the bloodshot eyes, looking to his girlfriend, as if for confirmation. She looks exhausted too.

‘I work in commercial communications,’ the visitor replies, clearly unsure as to why he is having a career conversation with a Zen monk in a sand garden.

‘Umm … yes,’ says the man from Tōkyō, looking down at his stockinged feet uncomfortably.

It’s pretty obvious what the monk thinks of this career choice. It’s less a judgement than a show of pity for this guy, who clearly works late into the night, and probably survives on a diet of energy drinks and midnight rāmen.

‘I think spending time in a temple is going to do you good,’ says the monk. And then to me, ‘Do you mind?’

I had made a solo reservation to view the place, but this felt like a gathering of three weary travellers who could do with some tea-room serenity.

And so the monk takes us all under his wing and flies us into Taian, the smallest tea room I have ever seen. Made solely from individually selected pieces of wood, the tiny building is exquisite. Inside, hazy sunbeams filter through the paper-covered windows and hover in the air, searching in vain for dust motes. The corners are dark, yet the hanging scroll seems to glow in the tokonoma alcove.

In this intimate space, representing hundreds of years of culture and history, I break the silence to ask about wabi sabi.

The monk pauses for a moment, tilts his head and offers this: ‘ Wabi sabi is naturalness; it’s about things in their natural, most authentic state. That’s all.’

The man from Tōkyō nods his head slowly, recognition dawning on his face. ‘ Naruhodo,’ he says. ‘I see.’ And then, ‘How come I had to travel all this way, and wait all these years, and have a foreigner ask that question, before I could know the answer?’

The monk’s thoughts notwithstanding, it is unexpectedly challenging to explain the connection between wabi sabi and nature. It’s like trying to see something under a microscope, but getting up so close that it’s actually blurry. A wabi sabi world view is one predicated on the fundamental truths of nature and the cycle of life. Wabi sabi is borne of a people whose traditional view of nature is that they are part of, not separate from it. And yet because wabi sabi and nature are so closely related, we get this blurred view when trying to put words to that connection. To see it more clearly, we have to pull away a little, refocus our microscope and adjust our eyes.

According to the Cambridge English dictionary, nature is ‘all the animals, plants, rocks, etc. in the world and all the features, forces and processes that happen or exist independently of people, such as the weather, the sea, mountains, the production of young animals, or plants, and growth’ and ‘the force that is responsible for physical life and that is sometimes spoken of as a person’.¹ The main definition given in Kōjien , the Japanese equivalent of this dictionary, simply states: ‘Things as they are.’²

At its essence, the experience of wabi sabi is an intuitive response to beauty which reflects the true nature of things as they are. That is, a beauty which reminds us that everything is impermanent, imperfect and incomplete. This experience of wabi sabi is often felt in the presence of natural materials, which is why spending time in nature can be such a powerful experience. It reminds us that we are part of something miraculous. By momentarily lifting us out of the fog of to-do lists, chores and admin overwhelm, wabi sabi holds up a mirror to life’s magnificence – and in that mirror, we get a glimpse of ourselves.

The forest does not care what your hair looks like. The mountains don’t move for any job title. The rivers keep running, regardless of your social-media following, your salary or your popularity. The flowers keep on blooming, whether or not you make mistakes. Nature just is, and welcomes you, just as you are.

Our capacity to experience wabi sabi reconnects us to these truths, which allow us to feel, in the moment, unconditionally accepted.

When I consulted with a Japanese professor on the translation of ‘living with nature’ they suggested shizen o mederu (

), which actually means ‘loving nature’.

This endemic love of nature, which has ancient roots in religion, has heavily influenced the arts and literature over the centuries. Still today, nature influences the rhythms and rituals of daily life, and particular attention is paid to the changing seasons in Japan.

As a teenager, I had a haiku poem by Matsuo Bashō pinned on my bedroom wall. It read: ‘The first Winter rains. From now on my name shall be Traveller.’³ In just a few words, the gifted poet captured all my ideas about adventure and discovery out in the big, wide and wild world outside my bedroom door, while simultaneously transporting me to a cold wet day in seventeenth-century Japan.

The Tale of Genji , the world’s first novel, written a millennium ago by Murasaki Shikibu, is filled with references to nature and the changing seasons. Likewise, The Pillow Book , written at a similar time by Sei Shōnagon, opened with the classic line ‘Haru wa akebono ’ (‘ In spring, the dawn’).⁴ The whole opening section of this famous Heian-period court journal goes into detail about the writer’s favourite parts of each season. There are many more nature references throughout The Pillow Book, which remains a classic ten centuries later.

The Japanese have been writing about nature and the seasons for as long as they have been writing.

Japanese nature writing does not just emphasise a sense of place but also, crucially, a sense of time. This is evoked by seasonal references or implications, and through observations of impermanence. This impermanence is expressed in two ways – through the absence of something that was but is no longer, and through the notion of transience, in the sense of something that is but will soon no longer be.

One of Japan’s most influential poets, Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), often wrote about the seasons in this way, weaving together nature and literature with heavy vines of emotion. From the woodblock prints of Hokusai to the contemporary films of Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, nature is everywhere in Japanese art too.

Japanese architecture is also heavily influenced by nature, as discussed in Chapter 2 . Cultivated nature plays an important role too, central as it is to many traditional aspects of Japanese culture – in ikebana (flower arranging), the nurturing of bonsai , the tea ceremony and so on. One of the country’s native instruments, the shakuhachi , is a flute made from bamboo. In the hands of a skilled player, it can replicate many sounds of nature, from rushing water and eerie winds to honking geese and pouring rain.

Nature-related words are frequently used in both people’s and place names. A quick scan of a map of Japan will reveal the likes of Akita (Autumn Rice Paddy), Chiba (One Thousand Leaves) and Kagawa (Fragrant River).

Some of the most popular boys’ names in recent years include Asahi (

Morning Sun) and Haru (

Fine Weather), while popular girls’ names include Aoi (

Hollyhock), An (

Apricot) and Mio (

Beautiful Cherry Blossom).⁵ And it’s not just first names. In the top ten most popular family names in Japan we find Kobayashi (

Small Forest) and Yamamoto (

Mountain Origin).⁶

There are beautiful words for particular happenings in nature, such as komorebi (

), which describes sunlight filtering through the trees, dappling the earth below. Kogarashi (

) expresses a particular kind of winter wind. And there are at least fifty ways to describe rain in the Japanese language. Onomatopoeia is used extensively, including to convey sounds related to nature. Zāzā describes rain pouring down heavily, kopokopo suggests the gentle bubbling of water and hyūhyū is the sound of a whooshing wind.

There are entire almanacs of seasonal words to use in poetry, and guides to writing letters and emails with season-specific greetings. A recent missive from a male Japanese friend began:

The most beautiful thing about notes that open in this way is their power to reveal a momentary window into the writer’s life, through the details of the seasons they are experiencing at the time. In a few lines, they can transport you to the warmth of a patch of sunlight beneath a plum tree, or legs tucked under a kotatsu (heated table) eating mikan (satsumas), while the snow falls softly outside.

Creating our own seasonal traditions can be a wonderful way to honour the rhythms of nature, and notice the passage of time in our own lives.

One of my favourite memories of life in rural Japan was the time my elderly neighbour, Sakamoto-banchan (‘Grandmother Sakamoto’ in the local dialect), a delightful lady in her late eighties, corralled me into helping her make hoshi-gaki (dried persimmons). She taught me that after peeling the firm fruits, you tie the stalks together with a long piece of string and hang them over a bamboo pole. Then you leave them to dry. For the first week, you don’t touch them, but then you give them regular gentle massages over the next three weeks or so. This draws the fructose to the surface, so they end up looking like they have been dipped in sugar. Tasting note: hoshi-gaki are delicious with green tea.

Ever since she was a little girl, every year for eight decades Sakamoto-banchan had carried out this ritual of food preparation. To her, hoshi-gaki were autumn.

So how does all this connect to wabi sabi ? In a subtle, beautiful, komorebi -sunshine-filtering-through-the-leaves-kind-of-way.

Each ray of natural inspiration is a reminder to notice and appreciate what is here now, in all its ephemeral beauty. If you visit Japan you will soon realise how the four main seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter⁷ are woven into the fabric of everyday life: spring brings cherry blossom and hanami (flower-viewing) parties, summer offers festivals and kimono -clad strolls along the river in search of fireflies; autumn welcomes moon viewing and momiji (maple) leaves, especially memorable when lit up at night; and winter ushers in the quiet beauty of snow. There is evidence of the seasons in the tiniest of details, from food to decoration, from clothing to festivals.

I suspect that the importance of these observances, the rituals and traditions and the thousands of tiny reminders in daily life, are the reason that wabi sabi is so deeply embedded in the hearts of Japanese people.

Japanese people have paid close attention to the seasons since ancient times. According to the classical Japanese calendar, there are in fact twenty-four small seasons known as sekki (

), each lasting around fifteen days, and seventy-two microseasons known as kō (

), each lasting around five days.⁸ The calendar was originally adopted from China in AD 862 and eventually reformed to suit the local climate (particularly around Kyōto) by court astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai in 1684.⁹ Each of these sub-seasons and microseasons has a name, which paints an evocative picture of what is going on in the natural world at that particular time.

A quick tour of the year with some of my favourite microseason names would include: ‘East wind melts the ice’, ‘Nightingales sing’, ‘Mist starts to hover’, ‘Cherry blossoms open’, ’Silkworms hatch’, ‘Grain ripens’, ‘Hot winds arrive’, ‘Earth is steaming wet’, ‘Blanket fog descends’, ‘Rice ripens’, ‘Swallows leave’, ’First frost’ and ‘North wind rattles the leaves’.¹⁰

The seasons are a kind of wabi sabi metronome, a steady call back to the present, to noticing, savouring and treasuring.

QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU TUNE IN TO NATURE

Whatever time of year, wherever in the world you are, you can use the prompts below to help you notice more about what is going on in your immediate surroundings. Try to use all your senses, and look for the details. If you return to this over the course of a year, you’ll discover how tracking the seasons can change the way you see the world.

1. What is the weather like? Consider water, wind, sun and any conditions specific to where you are.

2. What is the light like?

3. What is the night sky like?

4. What plants and flowers are emerging? Blooming? Fading? Hiding?

5. What animals have you noticed recently?

6. What ingredients are in season right now?

7. What have you been wearing when you go outdoors lately?

8. What seasonal colours have you noticed lately?

9. What seasonal sounds have you noticed lately?

10. What seasonal smells have you noticed lately?

11. What seasonal textures have you noticed lately?

12. How do you feel? What is your mood?

13. How is your health? How are your energy levels?

14. What self-care do you need to be practising right now? How could you yield to the season?

15. What traditions or observances have you celebrated recently?

16. Dig into memory. What nature-related or seasonal traditions did you grow up with, either in your own home or in your community? How could you bring an element of those traditions into your life now?

17. How could you mark this particular season in some gentle way?

The Japanese expression ichiyō ochite tenka no aki o shiru (

), tells us that ‘With the fall of a single leaf we know that autumn is here’. As a proverb, it is used in the context of recognising imminent change. The Japanese see the seasons as signposts, visible reminders of our own natural rhythms.

In modern life, these often get disrupted, as we extend our days with strong artificial light, interrupt our sensitive biorhythms with blue lights from our electronic devices and push ourselves to be highly productive just because it’s another weekday. We push on, regardless of whether our body is trying to tell us it’s time to hibernate, or get outside for some summer sunshine – and then we wonder why we get sick.

The seasons are a regular reminder that we don’t need to push all the time. Every push needs a pull. Every expansion needs a contraction. Every effort needs a rest. There are times for creating and times for seeking inspiration. Times for noise and times for silence. Times to focus and times to dream. Ebb and flow. Wax and wane. There are those contrasts again. Wabi sabi invites you to tune into your natural rhythm, in this season of your life, in this season of the year, in this moment of your day.

Normally, the tiny village of Kurama in the north of Kyōto is a peaceful place where visitors relax in the natural hot spring, or follow the shrine trail far on up the mountain. But today is different. Today is the annual Hi-Matsuri (fire festival) and the stories of blazing torches and glowing skies have lured others too. Lots of others. The streets are alive as dusk falls and the darkness creeps in.

The chanting has begun. Stamping follows. Men clothed in little more than G-strings and leafy miniskirts start pacing the streets, slowly at first, getting accustomed to the weight of the 15-foot torch on their shoulders. Small children clutch their own burning brands, following in their fathers’ footsteps, proud smiles revealed by the dancing flames of two hundred and fifty pine torches.

The soft chant increases in volume and intensity until the words become a war cry filling the raw night air. Through the streets they march, past the crowds and up the front steps of the Shintō shrine Yuki-jinja, on a mission intended to guide the kami (spirits) on their way.

Festivals like this have been celebrated since ancient times, and still take place all year round across Japan. Many have strong religious connections. Others relate to agriculture, the seasons, or the marking of different stages of life. Virtually all of them are tied to nature or the cycle of life in some way.

We have mentioned the influence of Buddhism, but we must also consider the influence of Shintō, Japan’s indigenous religious tradition. Meaning ‘The Way of the Kami ’, Shintō is ‘intimately connected with the agricultural cycle and a sense of sacredness of the natural world’,¹¹ and centres around the worship of kami (spirits or gods). Kami can be found in both animate and inanimate objects, from mountains and streams to animals and rocks.

In the words of now retired Shintō Grand Master Motohisa Yamakage: ‘As part of their everyday lives, and without recourse to complex philosophy, the Japanese people have loved and revered nature as a gift from Kami since ancient times.’¹²

I have long been fascinated by the Yamabushi, mountain-based ascetic hermits who make their home in the Dewa Sanzan (three sacred mountains) area of Yamagata Prefecture, where I used to live. When out hiking on Mount Haguro, I would occasionally catch a glimpse of them heading off silently on a mountain retreat, in their white robes, carrying horagai conch trumpets. The religion of the Yamabushi is called Shugendō , often described as an integration of aspects of Buddhism, Shintō and Taoism.

For many years, it has been something of a rite of passage for city dwellers to undergo intense training and a sacred pilgrimage with the Yamabushi, which includes meditating beneath an ice-cold waterfall. Recently, this training has been opened up to non-Japanese people.¹⁴

Master Hoshino, the thirteenth Generation Yamabushi who leads the programme, told me, ‘ People always ask me the meaning of Yamabushi training. It’s the philosophy of putting yourself in nature and thinking about what you feel. First, we experience. Then we reflect. There are things that can’t be learned without being directly experienced. On the mountain, the mountain is the teacher.’

The core philosophy of Yamabushi training is the single word uketamō (

), which means ‘I humbly accept’. It is a powerful invitation to openness and mindfulness. This is a wonderful mantra for any time spent in nature, when we want to invite nature to be our teacher.

It’s not often I find myself lying face-up on a snow-covered forest floor, tracking bird flight while listening for the distant sound of water. Above me, the trees are silhouetted against a sky the colour of stonewashed jeans, the tips of the smaller branches silvered by the late-winter sun.

I am in Takashima, a small town on the edge of Lake Biwa, treating myself to the grounding experience of shinrin-yoku ( forest bathing) – a term coined in 1982 by the Director General of Japan’s Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Agency, Tomohide Akiyama. A relatively new therapy, originating in Japan, it has now been scientifically proven to confirm something we have always known in our bones: trees can make us well.

As our lives become increasingly fast-paced and sanitised, many of us are feeling disconnected from nature and from ourselves, as if something important is missing. People have long understood that spending time in nature, and specifically among trees in a forest, has a calming effect, but it is only in the past decade or so that consistent peer-reviewed scientific results have added weight to the idea of it as a preventative medicine. This has subsequently led to use of the term ‘forest therapy’. Results point to increased mental wellness, boosted immune systems and reduced stress levels, heart rate and blood pressure.¹⁵

These effects are not only due to the calm atmosphere and gentle exercise, but also to actual interactions with the trees. One piece of research found that after a forest-bathing trip, subjects had significantly higher numbers of so-called natural killer (NK) cells, a type of lymphocyte that boosts the immune system’s defences against viruses and cancers – an effect that lasted for seven days after the experience. Further studies have suggested that the immune boost was, at least in part, a result of exposure to phytoncides, a substance emitted by plants and trees.¹⁶

Back in the forest, home to deer, monkeys, wild boar and bears, March has arrived but the cold season lingers; the trees are still dark and bare. Birds’ nests are easier to see when there is no leaf coverage. I watch a couple of feathered friends, nuthatches perhaps, hop from branch to branch in playful chase, and delight in having nowhere else to be.

Our guide, Mr Shimizu, is an energetic retiree with fantastic knowledge of the local flora and fauna. Head to toe in red, with a bottle of green tea hanging from his belt, he carries a stethoscope around his neck, for listening to water, of course. He is one of hundreds of certified Forest Therapy Guides working at official sites across Japan.

Shimizu -san has seen this particular trail in every season, and knows its secrets intimately. ‘Come and look at this moss,’ he calls, offering a magnifying glass. ‘And here, see how the snow has melted around the trunks of these beech trees? That’s their energy at work.’ He invites us to go slowly, use all our senses and notice the details of the world alive all around us.

Our therapy session had begun a couple of hours earlier. First, we washed our hands in a small stream, feeling the coolness of the water and listening to the gurgle as it fell over a low waterfall. A gentle hike took us to the base of a gulley, from where a 180-degree turn offered a view of distant fields and mountains. There, we stopped for water and roasted almonds, before our first silent exercise. We each had to pick a direction, and look first to the far distance, then the middle distance, then up close, to see how the same view changed, depending on what we focused on.

In other forest-therapy sessions, you might hear flute music, spend time in a hammock to soak in the healing power of the trees, meditate or go barefoot to sense different surfaces beneath your feet. It depends on the location, the guide and the season.

‘It is clear that our bodies still recognise nature as our home, which is important to consider as increasing numbers of people are living in cities and urban environments,’ says Professor Yoshifumi Miyazaki, Deputy Director of the Centre for Environment Health and Field Sciences at Chiba University, who proposed the term ‘forest therapy’ to describe shinrin-yoku supported by scientific evidence.¹⁷

His research has measured the direct benefits of forest therapy, which include an increase in those NK cells, known to fight tumours and infection, increased relaxation and reduced stress, reduction in blood pressure after just fifteen minutes and a general sense of wellbeing.

‘It is not just forests that can have a beneficial effect on our wellbeing,’ Professor Miyazaki says. ‘Other natural stimuli, such as parks, flowers, bonsai and even pieces of wood have been shown to reduce stress, making these effects attainable for all of us, even city-dwellers.’¹⁸

In the end, I was glad I had forced myself out from my cosy futon when the moon was still high in the sky, to catch an early train out to the forest. I left relaxed and rejuvenated, and slept like a baby that night.

Writing in The Anatomy of Self , a classic book looking into the Japanese character, psychiatrist Takeo Doi made the fascinating observation that Japanese people likely feel so fond of nature because when they are in it, they don’t have to subscribe to any of society’s rules: ‘They become one with nature so to speak … From their viewpoint therefore they feel more human with nature than with humans.’¹⁹ I am pretty sure many non-Japanese people feel this way too.

There is great value in the scientific evidence which reassures sceptics of the benefits of spending time in forests, and official shinrin-yoku has encouraged large numbers of people into the woods, which is to be celebrated.

However, we should not be mistaken in thinking that you have to be on an official trail, with an official guide, to enjoy the healing power of the trees. I think we have a huge opportunity to take the principles of evidence-based forest therapy and let them loose in wilder areas. Walking. Hiking. Doing yoga among the trees. Climbing the trees. Embracing them. Talking to them. Sitting with our backs to the trees writing in our journals.

There is a lovely phrase in Japanese, kachō fūgetsu (

). It literally means flower-bird-wind-moon. It refers to contemplating the beauty of nature. This kind of contemplation can prompt reflection on our own inner nature and remind us of our role as part of a magnificent whole, which puts everything in perspective.

My hope for forest bathing is that it becomes like yoga – a practice that is worth learning from a trained teacher, but can also be done alone or in a small group, away from too much structure and equipment and rules. Just you and the trees – or maybe you, the trees and your yoga mat – finding your own rhythm and deepening your connection with nature.

The medicine of the forest is far more than a contemporary wellness trend. People have lived in forests since ancient times. Nature is in our blood. It’s in our bones. It’s in our very human spirit. It is the haunting call of the mountains and the swirling pull of the sea; the whispering of the wind and the secrets in the trees.

To me, forest bathing is not about doing something new; it’s about something we know deep down, but that many of us have forgotten. When you spend time in a gentle forest and experience moments of mindfulness among the trees, you feel held, supported, transported. It’s like coming back to an old friend, who will pull you in close and whisper secrets in your ear if only you’ll show up at their door.

In the modern world, we spend so much of our time shut up in sanitised boxes – in our homes, our cars, our offices. Taking time to step out of those boxes and get close to the wild outdoors sharpens our senses and reminds us of the preciousness of life. We sometimes need everything to be stripped away to reveal the true beauty. We need the simplicity to remind us that life isn’t all about accumulating stuff. And we need the birdsong and big skies to remind us that we are part of nature. Wildness is a part of who we are.

Here are some tips for forest bathing among trees near you. Why not take a copy of this list with you next time you go for a woodland adventure:

• Use all your senses to explore your environment. Notice the feel of the ground under your feet, the taste of the air, the wind in the trees, the light and the shadows. Look up, down and all around.

• Cup your hands behind your ears to capture more sounds of the forest. What can you hear? Where is the sound coming from? Is it low down or high up? Is it near or far?

• Notice where things are in their life cycle. What is emerging? What is growing? What is fading?

• Watch the sky. Look for movement. Count colours. How many shades of one colour can you see? Stay watching long enough to notice changes.

• If you can identify what is safe to eat, taste a berry or a leaf slowly, and with gratitude.

• Pick up a fallen gift of the forest and look at it closely. What can you see?

• Spend some time in silence, even if you are in a group. In fact, especially if you are in a group. Try meditating, stretching or just sitting with your back against a tree.

• Lie in a hammock between two trees. Ask the trees’ permission before you set up camp.

• Take off your shoes and feel the earth beneath your feet or dip your toes in a stream.

• Notice how you feel when you are held by the forest. Don’t rush. Linger as long as you can.

• Find a particular spot you are drawn to and spend time there. Name it. Make up a story about it. Come back on another day, in another season, and see what has changed.

• What stories of the land rise up to greet you as you stretch your arms wide and open your heart?

• What secrets might you want to share with the running river or the wise old tree?

• What wishes will you scatter in the woods like fallen leaves, to be carried on the wind to a place you cannot know?

Note: please be sure to take the usual safety precautions when going into the forest. And if you cannot get to a cluster of trees near you right now, try putting cypress or cedar oil in your diffuser, or bring some plants into your home. (See Chapter 2 for other ideas on how to bring nature indoors.)

On a recent hike with some Japanese friends, we came to an outcrop of rock with a fallen log, perfect for a sit-down and some freshly brewed kuromoji-cha (spicewood tea). It was a new flavour for me, a little spicy at first, but then sweet. Delicious. In between sipping our drinks, making a miniature snowman and pointing out tiny buds promising spring, we talked about how and why we love nature.

We also had a tricky conversation about the way so much of Japanese nature has been destroyed so rapidly in the past century or so. Although quintessential images of Japan often include images of nature, such as vast swathes of cherry blossom or the iconic peak of Mount Fuji, it’s no secret that much of Japan’s natural landscape and wildlife have been decimated by the acceleration of industrialisation since the 1868 Meiji Restoration²⁰ and the rise to economic power in the latter half of the twentieth century.

The overriding sense I got from the group was that they do feel part of nature, not separated from it, but they fear that many people have lost some of that sense of connection in the rush for economic progress. The truth is, much of the environment that inspired the likes of Bashō (1644–94) and Hokusai (1760–1849) is either gone, or is hard to photograph these days without a power line or building featuring in the foreground. My friends recognised that the well-documented Japanese love of nature seems incongruent with the vast amounts of concrete in Japan’s urban jungles, and all the cables crisscrossing the sky.

This sense of a weakening connection with nature has been echoed by film director Hayao Miyazaki in many of his famous anime (animated films). His films express the Shintō view that there is continuity between man and nature, and he has used his films to address the issues that arise when humanity separates from nature, whether by trying to control or destroy it.

This major challenge of our times requires us to get back to nature, not move further away from it.

The impermanence of awe

It is a grey January morning, and I am en route to the Bodleian Japanese Library in Oxford to do some research for this book when I look up to see not one, but two rainbows in the sky. I am rooted to the spot, gazing in awe at this gift, the like of which I have never seen. As I watch, I can see it changing, now stronger, now fading. A teenage boy walks in my direction with his head down and almost bumps into me, so invested is he in the phone in his hand. ‘Look,’ I say, tapping his arm and pointing to the sky, unable to contain myself. ‘Wow,’ he says, and turns to stand beside me, two strangers sharing the perfect moment of a double rainbow. Two minutes later it is gone.

Nature is the home of miracles. Complex growth, stories of resilience, ephemeral beauty emerging and evaporating. When we take the time to stop and look, each one of these gifts reminds us to pay attention to the fleeting beauty of our own lives.

• The rhythms of nature remind us to tune into our own natural rhythms, so we know when to surge forth and when to relax.

TRY IT: PONDERING

Spend some time in nature contemplating:

• The transience of life

• The beauty in the light and the darkness

• The tiny details and the vast horizon

• The seasonal clues and gifts

• The sensual experience of the weather

What do you notice? When you really listen, what is it telling you?