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Prayer Becomes Light Between Moon and Mountain Light Crossing Time Stillness in the Blade Beauty Unfolds The Garden That Binds Time Water Circles the Earth Izumi Shrine Main HallInari ShrineMt. Fuji HillTicket OfficeNoh Stage

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1. 1 Light Crossing Time

   

   From Hosokawa Tadaoki, who lived through the age of warring states, to Tadatoshi, who governed the 540,000-koku domain of Higo Kumamoto, and on to Tsunatoshi, who brought Jojuen Garden to completion. Light travelling across the circular forms traces the path of the Hosokawa family from an age of arms to an age of culture. History is not sealed away in the past; it flows into nameless days and shapes the face of a place. Beyond the light lies the time that reaches the Kumamoto of today.

2. 2 Stillness in the Blade

   

   Tadaoki was a warlord who lived on the battlefield, and a man who faced the stillness of the way of tea just as deeply. LEDs recalling the arc of a blade run in response to the presence of visitors, and their light is passed on to the bamboo lanterns. Is strength only a matter of ferocity? Between the sharpness and the suppleness drawn by a single line of light, the martial and literary spirit the Hosokawa cultivated, and the quiet dignity that remains in Kumamoto, rise into view.

3. 3 Water Circles the Earth

   

   Groundwater from Aso circles the earth and wells up to fill Jojuen Garden. This landscape, drawn together in the time of Tsunatoshi, is rendered in water and ripples that answer the movement of those who walk here. A single drop becomes a current, moistens the land, and nurtures daily life and culture. How distant is the time that the water beneath our feet connects us to? The wavering light widens that question in silence.

4. 4 The Garden That Binds Time

   

   Tadatoshi set a teahouse here, and the garden was completed in the generation of Tsunatoshi. Its name carries the thought of Tao Yuanming: that walking a garden day after day is what gives rise to its charm. Polyhedra of bamboo and Swarovski crystal, and bamboo spheres that change their glow at a touch, are crystals of the beauty of this land, born where nature, people and passing years overlap. Not a garden to look upon, but one whose time you step into.

5. 5 Beauty Unfolds

   

   The way of tea, Noh, waka poetry and calligraphy. The culture the Hosokawa family held dear took root in Kumamoto not only as brilliant achievement, but as a mind that looks deeply into things and sets them in beautiful order. Light spreading from a great bloom at the centre out into the bamboo grove, and bamboo work linked like a mandala, show a single sense of beauty extending its branches across time. Culture blooms anew, again and again, within each person who receives it.

6. 6 Prayer Becomes Light

   

   Izumi Shrine was founded after the Satsuma Rebellion to calm troubled hearts and to wish for the future of Kumamoto. The memories of arms and culture, of water and garden, gathered while walking the grounds are bound here into a single scene. Press your palms together, and light spreads from the hall in answer to your prayer. To honour the past is also to think of what is to come. The final scene is completed by each person who stands here.

7. 7 Between Moon and Mountain

   

   A moon of light floats before the pond. Beyond it, a hill shaped after Mount Fuji stands quietly. Lay moon and mountain over one another across the water, and a depth that belongs to this night alone appears in the familiar scenery of Jojuen Garden. The moon waxes and wanes, the seasons turn, people and eras pass. And still, some views are handed on. The instant you capture in a photograph binds this garden to a time of your own.

Takeakari Bamboo Lanterns

Takeakari: A New Form of Japanese Beauty

Takeakari is made by cutting holes and slits into bamboo — a material long woven into Japanese life and culture — and lighting it from within with candles or LEDs. In recent years, festivals celebrating takeakari have been held across the country, with increasingly elaborate works and staging, and it is taking hold as a new form of Japanese beauty. In Kumamoto, the Kumamoto Kurashibito Matsuri "Mizuakari", first held in 2004, is known nationwide as a large-scale takeakari festival.