Grief, Beauty, and Other Things That Bloom

Welcoming the lotus flowers

I’ve been feeling sadness over the recent passing of poet and author

Andrea Gibson

. Their words and writing were so moving, and learning about their death has been hard. So many in the (online) community felt their presence and loss in an intimate, personal way.

Reading Andrea’s words made me feel. It made me feel like writing could be an antidote to sorrow and difficult emotions. There is so much to mourn, so many lives lost long before it feels “fair”, so many global tragedies that fill me with such deep grief. But Andrea’s life is a reminder that writing can help make sense of what’s hard, while also illuminating the beautiful, simple things. When I read their poem A List of Things I Love, I saw a person who was so deeply in love with life.

A List of Things I Love

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to move through the world with an open heart. I want to mirror Andrea’s vulnerability and courage to notice beauty and write about it. To be unabashed in loving.

I keep returning to the idea that noticing beauty, especially in small things, is a form of healing. So when I saw that the current microseason is called Lotus Flowers Bloom, it was an invitation to notice and write.

Lotus Flowers Bloom

There are 72 microseasons in a single year in Japan. It’s these small, subtle shifts that show us that change is all around us. The budding of a plant, the call of a bird, and the taste of a vegetable in season are all markers of time.

I’m grateful that I can follow the 72 microseasons in the countryside. The microseasons are a compass to time’s passing, not linearly, but fluid and cyclical. Recently, we entered the microseason Lotus Flowers Bloom (蓮始開 / はすはじめてひらく), which is a beautiful time (yet again) to stop and stare at flowers.

Many people have heard the story of the lotus flower and how it grows in muddy waters. Across much of Asia, especially in Buddhism and Hinduism, it’s a symbol of transformation, resilience, and compassion. It’s often used as a metaphor, a reminder that even in difficulty, beauty can bloom.

When I moved to Kamikatsu, it was my first time being so close to lotus flowers. I’ve also helped farmers in their lotus fields and I’ve come to understand, quite literally, what it means to wade through muddy water. They grow in many places around the village, and their pink colour illuminates like a light bulb in a sea of green. Their presence is synonymous with the hottest period of summer.

Spending more time among the paddies where they grow, I’ve come to appreciate not only the flowers but also the leaves. Many farmers harvest them for traditional Japanese cuisine, where they’re used to plate food or wrap delicate summer sweets.

People rarely mention how beautiful the leaves are, but their vibrant green feels like a summer colour of their own. I’m not sure I’d paint my room ‘lotus leaf green’, but I’d certainly wear a dress in the colour. Broad, round, and water-repellent, they seem like the kind of thing a toad might use as an umbrella (if a toad ever needed one). When you drop water onto their surface, each droplet beads up and swirls around without soaking in — their waxy coat acting as a repellent, which makes it an ideal plate. Many parts of the plant can be eaten as well, including the rhizome roots known as renkon.

Recently, I visited a farmer who told me something I didn’t know about the lotus flower. She shared how the flowers open and close in cycles for several days, opening in the morning with the first light and folding shut with the most intense period of sun around noon.

On the second and third days, the flower’s scent is strongest — a fragrance that’s earthy, slightly herbaceous (fun word!!), with hints of melon or cucumber.

This daily rhythm of the lotus flowers opening and closing is a circadian rhythm-based movement, known as nyctinasty, in response to light and dark. The tightly closed buds begin to loosen just before sunrise, opening with a soft, almost audible pop. Even the stems bend slightly into the water at night, then rise again with daybreak. Around the fourth day, the flower remains open, and by night, its petals begin to fall.

When I learned this, I felt something like a hairline crack in my heart — a sliver of an opening to feel. Maybe the lotus is not only a metaphor for a flower born from muddy waters, but also a reminder of how to move through the world. The way it opens and closes in cycles is a solace for accepting how our emotions ebb and flow, and for the coming and going of our joy and grief. We don’t just bloom once. We respond: soften, open, tighten, close, and wait until the timing is right to open again.

I keep finding tiny frogs everywhere!

Have a beautiful week ahead — may you greet each day with gentleness, and carry kindness for yourself and the world around you.

With lots of love,
Kana