The March masterclass tour is finished, the remarkably high level of the students I encountered at all the venues, Lahti Finland, Bolzano Italy, Amsterdam, Detmold Germany, and Zurich were inspirational and I’m going home fresh and invigorated. Now in Lausanne, Switzerland I happily start my countdown for a new school year at the Musashino Academy of Music in Tokyo and the Tokyo spring, a stimulating pink world of hormones and cherry blossoms.
Spring is a formidable time everywhere in the world and its effect on us is perhaps more powerful than most of us realize. We are, whether we like to admit it or not, just one of many beasts on this planet and spring is the time that most species move to continue their life cycles of our species too; it’s the rites of spring for the birds, bees, flowers and trees and even with the politics, economics, technologies and intellectual pursuits; we are still only just another of the many animals on this planet and we are certainly profoundly effected by springs power.
I will get home just in time for a hanami, (viewing of the cherry blossoms). I’ll go with friends and enjoy the sakura (cherry blossoms), enjoy watching the people and I will be aware that hanami is a much larger thing than just a beautiful Japanese tradition. The flowers will be beautiful and the Japanese girls will be beautiful, but it’s also part of the nature of spring, it’s part of the rites of spring. Japan is an amazing place to enjoy this human condition. We are lucky to be able to view the spring both from the standpoint of our basic viscerality and from our more sophisticated human culture.
Wherever you are, however you celebrate your hanami, your rites of spring, I hope you enjoy it; it’s a good life.
Lausanne, Switzerland, April 5, 2009
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