In Ancient Japan, people used the 24 solar terms to tell the season mainly for agriculture. The 24 solar terms that mui regularly brings you express the scenery in the mind of our collaborative poet Mizuki Misumi, who wrote about the seasonal scenery of the northern part of Japan. How does your seasonal sensibility sound to you?

The calendars that you use on a daily basis are based on the Gregorian solar calendar. In Japan, the lunisolar calendar, which is based on the periodicity of celestial movements, was the main calendar before it was replaced by this calendar in the Meiji era”. The year is divided into four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter), and each season is further divided into six seasons. They are still used in various situations such as annual events and seasonal greetings, and have become a valuable and rare custom to preserve cultural inheritance and unique regional characteristics.

“mui” aims to be a medium to connect people with nature, and the poet Misumi Mizuki has written a poem about the 24 solar terms to help us feel the seasons.
Each time the seasons change, a new poem will be delivered to the “mui” board.
We will start with “Kanro” (cold dew) on October 8.
It would be wonderful if you could be enlightened by Mizuki’s poem and write a poem about your sense of the season and post it on Instagram.

Please refer to the manual for how-to-use

In my search for a way to design and implement information technology that is not just powerful and accurate, but also one that is close to people’s hearts, I focused on the 24 solar terms, a custom unique to Japan that allows people to appreciate the seasons.
I would like to create an information experience that is not an objective “calendar” experience, but rather an experience in which people know the time by reading and feeling the four seasons, and in which people can communicate with the natural environment and with each other.

What kind of thoughts did you put into the 24 solar terms displayed on the mui board?

What I value most in writing poetry is the beauty of the words and the praise of the environment in which I live. I feel that the environment is the earth where I live and the entire universe. 24 solar terms is a calendar that has been used since the Heian period. Nowadays, there are days when it is extremely hot and humid, and the time to feel autumn is short. In Sapporo, where I live, we are covered with snow for about half the year. However, if we respect the 24 solar terms that were created for our daily lives, the scenery in our mundane lives becomes even more beautiful. That’s what I wanted to convey in my writing.

What do you feel toward the world these days?

I feel that the world has become smaller, not only for me, but for many people as well. I’m talking about the physical. In the Covid-19, it has become difficult to travel far and wide. I used to be very busy with traveling and business trips, and I still miss traveling. However, I have come to believe that it is okay to have a narrow range of activities as long as you are not indifferent to the world. I hope to feel my inner world both narrowly and deeply.

What is the most important thing in your life these days?

I spend a lot of time at home and try not to miss my own “true voice”. I also feel that I have been living too hastily, so I spend my days doing housework, taking walks around the neighborhood, and discovering new, small things, while keeping my true voice in mind.

Profile of Mizuki Misumi: 
Born in Kagoshima in 1981. Lives in Sapporo. While a student at Tokyo Zokei University, she won the Contemporary Poetry Award and the Chuya Nakahara Award for her first collection of poems. Her second collection of poems won the Minami-Nihon Literary Award and the Rekitei New Talent Award. In addition to writing, she has been actively involved in poetry reading and has been invited to many international poetry festivals, including those in Slovenia, Lithuania, Belgium, and Italy. She was awarded the Sakutaro Hagiwara Prize for her fifth collection of poems, A Room Without a Neighbor, which she wrote during a month-long trip to Europe. Her representative poems have been translated and introduced in Mexico, Australia, France and other countries. Her current poems are currently being serialized in the Minami-Nihon Shimbun, Hokkaido Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, and Komei Shimbun. Her eighth poetry collection, “Cakes Everywhere,” was published in August 2020.