The autumn festivals are upon us.  The red spider lilies have shed their wispy petals.  The nights are growing longer, and I have harvested the baseball sized pomegranates from my own patio garden’s tree.

I have been fascinated by the burgundy arils since I was a child.  It was the fruit that was an absolute mission to get at those tiny bursts of goodness.  They always made such a mess, but it never bothered me.

Perhaps my interest in this fruit goes back to my DNA.  My ancestors would split them open, cook with them, and take them on long journeys.

This year I was able to raise some of my own.  Previous years I had been left with one or two golf ball sized fruits.  This year it was closer to about 10 and half of them were the size of a baseball.  I left them on the tree until they split open.  Not sure if this is the way to do it, but it just seemed like the way to go.

They were pretty sour to my tastebuds with only hints of the pomegranate fragrance.  They just burst bursted in there sweet and sour goodness.

I am thankful that I could play my little part in helping to bring some colorful goodness into the world.

We are in the beginning of beautiful seasonal change to autumn.  The air has dried out except for the occasional typhoon that rolls in from the pacific.

I can still get away with wearing a short sleeved shirt during the day, but last night I had to pull on a light jacket.  I love it.  Autumn and spring are my two favorite times of year.  The light becomes incredible as the days grow shorter and shorter after the equinox.

I had never noticed the Red Lily Spider flower until after the March 11th disasters, when I my soul searched out nature where ever I could find it.  My eye were beginning to sync with the seasons when I first spotted these popping out of the ground in a little temple garden in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan.

I called them spiders, because honestly that is what they looked like only they were a stunningly hue of red.  The are called Higanbana or Manjushage in Japanese meaning “never to meet again, lost memory, abandonment”  which is quite fitting because the bulbs are highly poisonous.

Autumn is here because the moon and the higanabana have told me so.

May you all have a peaceful day of rest, and enjoy the changing seasons.

The day couldn’t have been a lovelier autumn day.  A day, on the sabbath, was a perfect spending out in the fresh air, strong sunshine, and blasting breeze.  I am fortunate to live right on the edge of Tokyo bay and within walking and biking distance of Kasai Rinkai Park (葛西臨海公園).  A lovely park run by the Tokyo city  government.  It is a great hidden secret and smack in my backyard.

Today the air was so clear I could sit on the edge of the bay and to my right see the snow capped Mt. Fuji, Straight ahead I could imagine seeing all the way to California and to my left to the very tip of the Chiba Peninsula.  I quickly shed my layers of clothing as the sun continued to warm my entire being.

The sunshine penetrated down to my soul.  I could refresh and be one with the Creator’s wonderland.  The park where the sea, greenery and people meet was the perfect to be able to meditate on just being myself.  A reconnecting with the natural world on the edge of the ever growing concrete jungles to my back.

The park was filled with its citizens doing a park cleanup.  Young old families walked the park with metal tongs in one hand and a garbage bag in the other.  It was a beautiful day no mater what you were doing to be out in the park.

They say, it is always they, isn’t it?  That tomorrow and Monday will be damp, cold and rainy, I feel as if I’ve been able to soak up the rays as much as I could before the weather hits.

Sit in the sun, let the sunshine warm the soul, look out to the horizon and wonder.

Being in tune with the natural surroundings makes the coming of the seasons so pleasurable.  It is one thing that Japanese culture is in sync with, nature.  It may not seem it, but if you could ease drop in on a conversation in a tea house one of the appropriate subjects for this time of year would be the blooming of the  金木犀 キンモクセイ(kinmokusei), Orange Osmanthus, also known as fragrant orange.

This tree is not beautiful.  It looks the epitome of completely ordinary.  Through out the seasons it is just a tree, with branches, leaves and roots.  One would walk by it and not even give it a first thought.  It is a tree that is just there.

This is when the magic really happens.  For about a week to 10 days the minuscule blossoms of the fragrant orange osmanthus open and release their scent into the world.  I always smell the fragrance before my eye spots the tree.  The sweet orange scent with hints of cooking butter waif through the breeze.  I like to search for the tree once the aroma hits my brain.  I love to let it fill my nostrils in the cool dry air of autumn.

This little unassuming tree becomes extraordinary, if for only a few days.  It is well worth the effort to track them drown and let your mind drift on the buttered orange waves of autumn.

Today is the Autumn Equinox which is a national holiday in Japan.  Even though this holiday falls on a Saturday, buses are running on a holiday schedule and many shops have closed up for the day.

It was the second day in a row that I awoke to some slightly cooler weather.  I was surprised when I stepped out onto my patio that the breeze was cool.  Compared with two days ago when the high reached 34 (93) today it is forecasted for the mercury to go no higher than 26 (78).  I am just loving this change.

I adore the changing of the seasons.  The slowly shortening days.  The way in which the light begins to change each day.  Before we know it the leaves will be reacting and putting on their autumn colors.

I am tied between spring and fall.  Spring gives us the rebirth of the world, whereas autumn readies us for winter.  In many ways they are the opposite of each other, as much as they are the same as each other.

After a long summer, I am ready for some cooler winds to prevail.  I hope that this autumn’s colors rain down on us.

Even though it is winter here in Tokyo, the autumn leaves are still coming. It seems that they arrived so late that the gingko leaves are carpeting the ground in their warm yellow hues.  The leaves are splattering over the land and bringing some much needed color to the often dreary grays of the urban life.

It is rather simple, isn’t it?

Leaves change and in do time they fall from their branches and drift down to the earth.  They will blow this way or that way for a while before some one comes along and sweeps them all into a plastic garbage bag.  But I have chosen to see them in their glory.  As they stick closely to the ground.  They cover, changes, and become part of my urban landscape, intermingled with those yellow hues that only the gingko tree can bring.

The autumn colors have been super late arriving this year in and around where I live.  I has very happy to have found that the Japanese Maple trees around are finally displaying their explosive colors.  These five-pointed leaves are alive rich hues that bound from the deep wine burgundies to multicolored mix and matched colors of yellows and reds.  The hues awaken my senses and I am always amazed at how vibrant these colors can be.

I found these all at a little temple complex on top of a small hill in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan.  There were all amazing hues that teased my Ricoh GR IV out of my pocket and into my hand.  I searched out those hues that pulled me like a magnet towards them.   I wasn’t the only one wandering around this small complex looking at the autumn leaves.  There were several groups of mainly older Japanese looking at the trees.

Just another reason to be thankful.  I am thankful to the Creator for splashing my cold gray day with the explosions of color from the Mimoji trees.

This little one, actually, very little one was dancing in color sound vibrations.  All around him the browns, yellows, and earthen reds abound.  This little one was just shinning.  The purple hairs on the small buds that are about to open, to the flaming violet reds that color its petals.

Living and loving the colors that never cease to surprise my soul.  In the midst of all these earthen tones, I stumble upon these colors that light up my soul.

Sit back and let the meditative vibrant colors of this little on wash over your soul.  Let them soothe your troubled spirits, and see the light at the end of that tunnel.

It has been a long wait this autumn season, but the beautiful yellow of the ginkgo trees has arrived.  So many trees were damaged in the typhoon that came through in October, that many trees just went to brown rather than change to their gorgeous autumn shades.

The tall gingko trees were shining in the late afternoon sun.  Their paper backlit as the sun started to dip down behind the building for the day.  I got out and walked around for a bit.  The trees were rather large as their upper branches reached up to the skies.

Yellow, yellow, yellow, has arrived at last.

This getting back to normal has been exhausting for me.  My normal walk back to the station left me wanting to pass out on the train ride back home.  I can’t really complain. I mean, at least I am getitng back to myself, and feeling something other than the mattress beneath my body is a good feeling.

Had to bundle up a bit today after being able to wear a t-shirt yesterday.  I thought best to be proactive and keep those cold bugs at bay.  As the nippy air made me zip up my Jacket I came across a rather large green pumpkin just sitting on an air conditioner.  It was just there.  It wasn’t really doing anything but hanging out on top of this A/C in front of a small bar.  Somehow, in my hazed mind it made me laugh.  A green pumpkin, even though that is their usual color in Japan, waiting.  I don’t know, maybe it is just me.

The light was perfect today as it was yesterday.  The temperature has begun to dig down a bit and the air had really started to dry out.  This image was taken yesterday in the yellowish afternoon light.  The clear unobstructed light provided a great proving ground for my new Ricoh GRIV.  It has so far risen to the challenge and is exceeding my expectations in being able to capture the world that I am presently trodding through.

The angel’s trumpet flowers have returned.  They were in full bloom 2 months ago.  This one was so full of the tubular yellow bells that I just had to cross the street to photograph it.  Is it heralding the return of the messiah?  Only the Creator knows the answer to that.  In the meantime, I will continue to walk this beautiful earth and reacting to that world through the creative process.  I hope to be as strong as this tree that is thriving between a wall and a fence.  In that little bit of room it has made its home and is radiating beauty out into the community.

As I was walking through a buddhist temple on my way back to the train, my eyes drifted to the roof of the temple.  My eyes kept on wandering over the roof until I encountered a sky so blue that I thought that I might be dreaming.  The sky was an amazing shade of blue.  Like those caribbean seas I swam in down in Jamaica.  The sky was painted this hue.  And across that sea of blue were rows of white clouds.  They had been pulled by the wind and stretched into long rows like that of planted garden.  It was an amazing to just be still and look up into the sky.

It was a surreal moment.  Was I really there?  Was it just a fragment of dream that surfaced in my waking hours?  Does it matter if it was?

I do not have the answers.  All I know is that there was truth in that shade of blue.  A truth that touched my soul.

The weather peaked at a high of nearly 25 (77) today.  It actually felt a lot hotter than that.  We are back to having that schizo weather that afflicts Japan in its transitional seasons.  The light from the autumn sun was beautiful and hitting at just the right angle as I was making my way back from the station to my home.  The walk back always gives me some time to reflect on my day.  The walk also gives me a challenge by training my eye to seek out something that I had not seen before.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that I haven’t seen today’s focus on a urban bush before, but it is more in the way that all of the photographic elements of light, composition, color and subject all align themselves and move my spirit to photograph the scene.

The combination of these elements have to speak to me as a human being first and then I must be able to communicate what moved me to those that view the images created.  Today was about how the light were hitting these tiny fruit on urban bushes.  These were plain bushes that had been planted as a hedge to hide some of the industrialness of Kasai Rinkai Station.  But here they were; one blue and one red.  The setting sun was just hitting them with that autumn glow and moved my spirit.

The idea of change began to bubble up in me as I observed these two stages of fruit.  One in it blue hue that has yet to mature into its red cousin on the same bush.  How does it feel to change?  Do we, as humans, change as slowly or quickly as these fruit? Or are they (we) just two sides of the same bush?

This just in!  After much anxiety in my own mind I was pleasantly surprised to come across some of my first true autumn leaves today.  There is a lovely old buddhist temple in Konodai Chiba that is home to a very old weeping cherry blossom tree.  In the spring time it is a favorite spot for photographers and families come and take in the splendor of the waterfall of cherry blossoms.  Now we fast forward from spring to autumn and the same beautiful tree is starting to express itself with a display of earthen oranges and reds.

I was so elated to see the cherry blossom tree teasing me with bringing forth such beautiful colors.  The location of this magnificent tree must have been protected from the punishing typhoon winds of two weeks ago.  In reality, only one part of the tree has started to change its colors.  I look forward next week to see the colors engulf the tree in fiery reds.

I thought back to the unnerving anxiety when I last enjoyed the tree in April.  It was only a few weeks after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami disaster.  Most Tokyo dwellers were quietly observing the cherry blossom. So many Japanese had lost their lives just a few weeks before.  Most people felt it was too soon to celebrate.  However, my feeling was somewhere in the middle.  My heart felt that we needed to mourn those lost, and at the same time we needed to come together as a community and use the beauty of the changing seasons to focus our energies.  We needed to lend a helping hand to each other.  We needed to sit under a tree with our friends and family and engage in some heartfelt communication.

Where are we as a community now?  Has Japan come together to lend those helping hands to each other?  Have those conversations that started in spring continued into autumn?  I do not have the answers to these questions.  I can only offer up my hope and appreciation of the Japanese people to come together and change their country for the better.  I am just a humble outsider who loves his adoptive home.

Let the changing of seasons remind us of those that lost their lives.  Those brave souls that risked their lives to help others.  If we haven’t renewed our own personal commitment to leading a fruitful life it past time to begin.

Take stock in our surroundings.  Notice that leaf that yesterday was green yet today it has begun to shift into red.  Say hello to your neighbors.  Smile at the children on the train.  If we don’t the world will just spin on by.

Sometimes it is about putting in the time.  We make investment in ourselves, family, and societies.  We pour our blood into projects that we care about.  We spend countless hours in the hopes of achieving our goals.  Sometimes we set them too high, others too low.  We take chances, or we play it safe.  In the end we can say at least we tried.

I like to think back on what I learned from Yoda as he was instructing Luke in the ways of the force, “Don’t try! Do!”  It is easy to say.  It just rolls off the lips and out into the world. Again, it takes putting that vibration into practice. Making it routine. Making it part of our lives.  Eventually a tree planted, and cared for will bring forth fruit in its due season.

The heat of summer is fading.  The battered leaves are falling, some are changing colors that survived the typhoon.  The red firecrackers are making their last bloom, and fruit is hanging from some trees.

Put in the work.  Work on your dreams.  Squeeze the obstacles that block your path into juice.  Bring forth that red fruition.