72 Seasons: Shichijūniko

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 m…