Petal & Pins

I’ve been procrastinating writing about our trip to Japan – where to start? A place of contrasts and beauty couldn’t be contained in one post.

There is intricacy and simplicity.

A riot of colour and then a tonal quietness.

This morning I decide to start with the leaf sweepers at Meiji-jingū, Tokyo’s largest and most famous Shintō shrine. The sprawling forested grounds contain some 120,000 trees collected from all over Japan.

I was facinated by the simplicity and make shift look of the brooms, they reminded me of the ones I’d seen street sweepers using in Venice, Italy.

They obviously do the job they’re designed for well – perhaps a reminder that sometimes we can over complicate things.

Besides they have such charm don’t you think!

Here is a link for making a Japanese broom for sweeping your own cobblestones, gravel path or moss garden.

http://japanesegardening.org/reference/bamboo_broom.html