72 Seasons: Japanese Calendar

In old Japan, a year was not four seasons — it was seventy-two. Every five days or so, the world turns a page: "East wind melts the ice." "Mist starts to linger." "Silkworms wake and eat mulberry." These are the shichijūniko, Japan's 72 micro-seasons — a calendar written not in numbers but in the small movements of wind, birds, plants and light. Above them sit the 24 sekki, the solar terms that mark the deeper rhythm of the year: Risshun, the first spring; Geshi, the summer solstice; Tōji, the