Micro-season 32 of 72 · Jun 11 – Jun 15

Decaying grass becomes fireflies.

Kusaretaru kusa hotaru to naru

Damp grass glows with fireflies at dusk, as summer humidity settles into the lowlands.

The rice paddies have filled with water, and in the blue hour between day and night, the first fireflies rise from the wet grass like scattered embers. The air is thick now, carrying the green scent of standing water and decaying vegetation — that particular sweetness of early summer decomposition. Somewhere between dusk and true dark, the boundary between earth and sky softens, and light appears where no light should be.

Nature notes

Genji fireflies begin their mating flights along streams and irrigation channels, their slow yellow-green pulses synchronized in mysterious rhythms. Frogs have reached full chorus in the paddies, their calls layered and overlapping through the night. The hydrangea have opened fully, their colors deepening with the acidity of the rain-soaked soil, while the first summer grasses grow rank and tall in untended corners.

In season

Fruits

Vegetables

Fish

At the table

01

Pike conger sliced paper-thin and blanched, its flesh unfurling like white flowers — the quintessential Kyoto dish as summer humidity arrives.

02

Live sweetfish served in ice water with vinegar and miso, the fish still swimming — a fleeting delicacy of early summer river culture.

03

Grilled eggplant glazed with sweet miso, the first tender nasu of the season yielding completely under the broiler's heat.

04

Whole green plums simmered slowly in sugar syrup until translucent, capturing the season's brief window for preserving.

Cultural note

This is the heart of hotaru-gari — firefly viewing — when families gather at streams and temple gardens to watch the ephemeral display. The ancient belief that fireflies are born from rotting grass speaks to a worldview where death and light, decay and beauty, are not opposites but continuous transformations. At Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto, the annual Hotaru-nō performance illuminates this threshold moment between seen and unseen worlds.

草むらに灯のともりたる蛍かな

kusamura ni / hi no tomotaritaru / hotaru kana

in the tall grasses / a lamp has been lit — / firefly

The children stay out past bedtime, cupping brief light in their hands, learning that some things exist only in the moment of letting go.