Japan

Little has been done in Europe with ash glazes, but in Japan the ash glaze has been a predominant feature of pottery since its use was first discovered in the Nara period. The desire for a nonuniform surface that can catch, in the glaze of each pot, the irregularities of nature hails back to the Japanese love of things that are imperfect and

We grew up on the third floor of a little apartment building near the ocean. Just two rooms, one more cramped than the other, no wall or anything between them. Izakaya on the ground floor.

If you stay just like this, experience enables you to respond properly to events as they occur, while guessing the results of one’s actions. You could say it’s like driving your old, familiar car. It might rattle a bit, but one can take that into account and maneuver easily. On the other hand, if one chooses a new lifestyle, no one can predict what

The Japanese are masters of shinrin-yoku. Shinrin means “forest” in Japanese and yoku means “bath.” Forest bathing via a walk or mountain bike ride in the woods has many advantages, including the reduction of the stress hormone cortisol,

She would have liked a lotus, or China asters or the Japanese Iris, or meadow lilies—yes, she would have liked meadow lilies, because the very word meadow made her breathe more deeply, and either fling her arms or want to fling her arms, depending on who was by, rapturously up to whatever was watching in the sky. But dandelions were what she