Ikenobo Sen'o remarked on another occasion (this too is in his Sayings) that 'the mountains and strands should appear in their own forms'. Bringing a new spirit into his school of flower arranging, therefore, he found 'flowers' in broken vessels and withered branches, and in them too the enlightenment that comes from flowers. 'The ancients arranged flowers and pursued enlightenment.' Here we see awakening to the heart of the Japanese spirit, under the influence of Zen. And in it too, perhaps, is the heart of a man living in the devastation of long civil wars.

Among flower vases, the ware that is given the highest rank is old Iga, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it commands the highest price. When o…

Wistaria sprays, as they trail in the breeze, suggest softness, gentleness, reticence. Disappearing and then appearing again in the early summer greenery, they…

The single flower contains more brightness than a hundred flowers. The great sixteenth-century master of the tea ceremony and flower arranging, Rikyu, taught t…

Beauty from order springs.

Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not ab…

Halfway up the slope, guarded by a group of tall, slim, cypress-trees, nestled a small strawberry-pink villa, like some exotic fruit lying in the greenery. The…