Country diary: Komorebi is a green world within a green world
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Version 0 of 1. The Marches, Shropshire: So much contained in a single Japanese word – it suggests sunlight through leaves, a cool sanctuary. And yet not all is peaceful here Komorebi is a Japanese noun for sunlight passing through tree leaves. It seems to mean more than the rays of light, the play of dappled shadow; more than the ephemeral quality of a green shade; it’s an aesthetic experience of sunlight interacting with foliage. Today is the hottest day of a heatwave. The air is stifling. Sunlight is burning. Under a canopy of leaves, a small wing lands on the table where I’m writing this in a notebook. How did it get here? The flickering hoverflies drone before they alight on lilies and dahlias in pots. A small fountain dribbles against ferns in the rocks. There is a dense canopy of Japanese maple, plum, fatsia and clematis. Komorebi is a green world within a green world. Its direct translation suggests the sunlight “leaks” or “escapes” from the leaves. All these chloroplasts in leaf cells, turning light into life. For many leaves, this heat must be hotter than their optimum temperature for photosynthesis, and those in the lower layers may benefit from light escaping from above; photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide and increases transpiration (water vapour) to produce cooling. Mine and other lives are grateful for this cool sanctuary. But komorebi is not such a still, peaceful world, as evidenced by this fallen wing. It’s likely that a wasp ambushed a hoverfly in the leaves overhanging the table. Starting with its head, the scimitar blades of the wasp’s jaws would have dismembered the hoverfly, discarding the legs and wings with surgical precision, the wasp returning to the nest to feed the chewed-up, protein-packed hoverfly to the larvae. What they are fed may determine their sex and caste – wasp destiny shaped by the beautifully banded bodies of hoverflies. This tiny wing is all that’s left of the aerial magic trick of motionlessness; it’s like a flake of celluloid film containing the places, lives and times composed of this green light of leaves. More importantly, komorebi is an experience life shares, a mood not described by just what it looks like or what it does. This heatwave is a sign of the coming climate; for komorebi, we need more foliage on all ecological levels. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount |