Komorebi - a meditation on sun dappled forest floors
I used to be a collector of words and then life happened and I became less avid in my pursuit of interesting words. A couple of weeks ago, I came across the word “komorebi” - what a beautiful word.
The Japanese language contributes so many evocative words for concepts that require a lot more elaboration in English. I say this fully aware that the rest of the world has sometimes turned Japanese words into some esoteric philosophy, to the consternation of the Japanese. A few years ago you could not escape “ikigai” - it was everywhere. The average Japanese person was a little nonplussed at all the fuss (see a bit of context below).
Yet few in Japan give much thought to the idea. When TED, a conference, staged several talks on the concept, a tweet by a baffled Japanese observer went viral: "Apparently, there's an ancient Japanese philosophy called ' ikigai' …huh? What's that?". Native speakers seldom use the term. If they do, it is in the context of small joys, such as spending time with family or enjoying hobbies, says Kanda Nobuhiko, a psychologist at Bunkyo University near Tokyo. "If I decide to sneak out of a lecture to have a beer, that counts as my ikigai."
Ikigai thus joins a long list of Japanese words that have been repurposed to lend an aura of ancient wisdom--and exoticism--to banal ideas. Kakeibo has been peddled as the "Japanese art of saving money" (in practice, keeping a notebook to track finances). Shinrin-yoku, or the Japanese art of "forest bathing", is really just going for a nice stroll in nature. Wabi-sabi describes an interior design trend that embraces minimalist decor and natural materials. In Japan, it refers to an aesthetic philosophy of appreciating imperfection. (Hygge, a Danish word meaning something like "cosiness", has suffered a similar fate.)
I hope komorebi does not meet that fate, but it is something without quite an equivalent in English (or Malayalam or Hindi as far as I can tell). I suspect that because of the felicity with which Japanese and German compound words take life, certain concepts imprint themselves deeper into the culture because they capture a particular feeling - like komorebi in Japanese, waldeinsamkeit in German. I believe language shapes culture and that unique concepts captured in some words entrench further in the psyche like sisu in Finnish, hygge in Danish, or hijr in Urdu, reinforcing the culture and transmitting that spirit down the generations. We shape the words and then words shape us.
So, what is “komorebi”? The literal translation appears to be “sunlight leaking through trees” - a bit like this:
You have to admit that there is something mesmerizing in watching the sunlight play on the forest floor. Depending on movement - of the trees, you, the wind, a passing cloud - the scene in front of you changes. Never repeating. It calms you down. if you have ever tried to capture it in a photograph you know how futile it is. The canopy above you makes you pay attention to the moss covered tree one second and a little flower the next, you are fully present because the forest before you changes constantly. There is a lateral connection here to how our brain works that I will go into in some future newsletter but komorebi has a way of engaging our attention and make us fully present in the moment. Forests, in and of themselves, have a restorative effect.
I wasn't introduced to Mary Oliver growing up, but discovering her poetry recently felt like finding that same restoration on the page. This poem of hers is as good an invitation as any to let yourself bathe in the komorebi on offer in the forest near you or truly experience waldeinsamkeit and its benefits.
Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my ways of praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
—
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
or as Joni Mitchell says
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Then can I walk beside you?
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog
In something turning
…
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Commenting on my post about Epictetus and the serenity prayer, one of my dear friends thought I was getting too philosophical. She is going to have to forgive me for this week’s post. I did compensate last week with accident statistics and risk perception but I realize I shifted gears towards retirement to pursue komorebi and hygge. Do you have other examples? Please send them my way.
1 If you are a fan of Jimmy Fallon, you might have come across this Christoph Walz episode
2 I desperately looked for something in Malayalam that I could cite. The only one I could come with was pulivaal and I couldn’t find a good link for it. It is a noun which literally translates to tiger’s tail. It conveys the notion of having a tiger by the tail - a difficulty that one is unable to confront and at the same time, avoid - ഒഴിവാക്കാനും പറ്റാത്ത, അതേസമയം നേരിടാനും ബുദ്ധിമുട്ടുള്ള വലിയൊരു പ്രശ്നത്തെ അല്ലെങ്കിൽ കുരുക്കിനെയാണ് 'പുലിവാല്' എന്ന് വിളിക്കുന്നത്. The other Malaylam examples of untranslatable words are more mundane , but interesting , such as ethramathe. English has no interrogative word to ask for the ordinal position in a list.