The cherry blossoms are finally blooming in my garden. The blossoms seem to have opened about a week late, although I'm sure it feels like just the right time to the trees. Usually by the first of May, the blossoms here are already falling and blowing about the streets in great silky puffs of pink petals You can almost set your watch to the
flowering trees in this town.I remember one year, on the evening of the first of May, some dear friends and I collected boxfuls of cherry blossoms from the ground, and took them with us to a meadow with a grove of slim trees in it.
We lit candles and hung them in the trees, made crowns of flowers for our hair, and drank some wine in friendship together.
And then we took handfuls of the soft pink blossoms and threw them up in the air, over ourselves and each other, dancing and laughing.
It was one of those uncanny evenings when it seems as if you've stepped into an otherworldly place, and looking back I can still see the beautiful faces of my friends, looking for all the world like forest nymphs through a rain of pale pink flowers.
Do they remember it like that too I wonder?
In any case, whenever the trees blossom over my garden-bench I think back to my favourite Beltane....
I recently read an article in the local newspaper about the Japanese cherry-blossom festival known as Hanami, which means "flower-viewing". It is a lovely custom: families gather in parks to enjoy the amazing spectacle of the blooming cherry-blossom ( Sakura ) trees. They have picnics and the celebration carries on all day and into the evening with eating and drinking and inevitably karaoke.
I can't help but wish for more North American holidays that celebrate the pure enjoyment of flowers (ARE there any?). I'm so glad that garden-tour season is nearly upon us.
Japanese blossom-viewing locations
20 comments:
Happy Beltane! ....ah, happy wine-soaked memories... :)
Very pretty.
That's a great post. I've been feeling a little nostalgic about all the cherry blossoms out now. They're just so pretty! And the Japanese really are onto something there, aren't they?
I'd love to have a little event like you and your friends had sometime. Too bad I always think of it when it's too late. Maybe next year.
I remember that night so well...tea lights in the crooks of trees, a burning fire in the middle of the field...and lovely soft petals filling that dark night.
We sang, too, I think.
Oh yes, every May when I see the wafting drifts of petals everywhere and I can't help but recall the dance.
Happy Beltain my dear dear friend.
J'adore les nuances de ces fleurs !
Your trees and flowers are lovely. I agree with you about the flower appreciation holidays...
I want to go to japan....
I just might get to go there in august. Those cherry trees won't be blossoming though.
Here is a link to a blog about japan. It's in french, disregard the text in you don't get french.
http://www.lejapon.fr/blog/index.php?2006/04/05/233-overdose
Look at those sakuras!
OOOOH!! i loove cherry blossoms!!
I hate poofy celebrations with flowers and sunlight and good friends and all that jazz. Call me when you've got a cold moonlit night, a bottle of whiskey, and a human sacrifice on standby. :p
Mmmm,it sounds so dreamy...
Hi Spider...Happy Beltane!
I guess we will have to start our own North American Flower Celebration...
Did we mention it's going to be held in your Garden...:)
Lovely...
very very nice! Sweet intoxicating fragarances
That sounds lovely all the way around! Those blossoms are so pretty! I've never seen them before - can you believe it?
Your photos made my day!
Just lovely :-)
Oh how lovely! It makes me miss my home (DC) even more. I miss the cherry blossoms around the tidal basin, how gorgeous. Thanks for sharing those beutiful photos. sniffle sniffle.
Beautiful! I've been out to DC twice while they were blooming and I loved it. You have the neatest garden. It is too hot here for them to grow successfully. We get dry thorny short things.
Ahh, beautiful.
And to think that I looked out the window last night to watch a huge windstorm with blowing snow!
Happy Beltane!
I do believe that there are some small flower festivals... in Washington state (for example), there is a tulip festival, and various cities have their own local "blackberry" or "strawberry" festivals and the like.
Then of course there are garden shows and such... but these are all much more regional celebrations.
I love these flowering trees. One year was in Washington, D.C. during the peak cherry blossom time. Words can't describe the beauty.
Wow, Great pictures...
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