LIVING
Daily Life
Knowing the old ways of making,
then choosing again in a shape that fits now.
Know, then choose again
Home›Daily Life
LIVING ／ WEAR, EAT, LIVE IN, SOIL
Take the bath.
A life where you can bathe at home every day
is actually still new.
A great deal of what we take for granted became ordinary only in the last few decades. Just a few decades ago, it was not that way.
Once you see it that way, you can choose. That is what this is about.
How often you wash, what you wash your body with, detergent, dishes, cloth, cooking tools, what you put against your body, how you clean, how you put things away for the season.
You can carry on as you are, or you can change it.
Either way, knowing that another way exists comes first.
Scroll down ↓
What is touching
my skin?
01 ／ WEAR
The ordinary clothes we wear every day.
From morning to night, and while we sleep, something is touching the skin.
What is it that is touching my own skin?
What is this cloth made of?
Cotton, linen, or sheep’s wool? Or thread made from oil?
Does it return to the soil? Or does it not?
What do I wash it with?
When it is washed, what flows away in the water?
With it against the skin all day long, how does the body feel?
What fiber it is made of changes how you handle it. It changes the mood too.
It changes the body.
It changes how you feel.
It changes what is comfortable.
Once you know the material, the same piece can look different.
And then, what you choose changes.
Choosing, buying, is a vote.
What do we want to leave for the children?
What, touching a child’s skin, would mean that child is well?
Wash it, mend it, use it again.
The calendar
moves first
02 ／ EAT ── THE SEASON DECIDES
You put down plums when the plums arrive, and dry persimmons when the persimmons ripen.
Not when it suits you. The season has already decided.
So the work by hand comes back at about the same time each year.
Even what is picked from the same place is different each year, with the weather and the conditions.
Even doing it the same way every year,
some years you are a little better at it than last year, and some years it fails.
It does not feel like returning to the same place, but like returning one turn deeper.
In a year you cannot do it, you cannot. That is all right.
Not something to do every day, but something that comes round again every year ── keeping company with it that way.
What are we
living among?
03 ／ LIVE IN
What is the house I live in made of?
What kind of bedding do I want to sleep in?
The kitchen tools, the furniture ── what are they made of?
There are many parts to living in a home.
Placing
Put it where you can see it, and you use it.
What is it that meets the eye every day? A color you like, a shape you like, something of the season.
Caring for
Washing, wiping, polishing, hanging out to dry. What do I wash with? Where does what was washed away flow to?
Putting in order
Where things are put away, how you clean, the change-over between seasons.
Lighting
Lamps, fire, electricity. How do I live with electricity? How do I spend the morning, and the night?
How things keep is tied to the shape of the home.
The calendar, the season, how you are feeling, the surroundings ── what is around you, what you like. Finding the way that is easiest for you, at that time.
The outermost
layer
04 ／ SOIL ── IT STARTS FROM SOIL
Soybeans, rice, loquat leaves, cotton ── all of it comes out of soil.
Saying that food, skin and daily life are connected is not a figure of speech.
If you trace them back, they arrive at the same place ── that is what it means.
“Mother Earth” is well said.
What is it that does not return to the soil ...
Knowing that matters too.
You do not have to grow all of it yourself.
Most people cannot.
Only ── when you know where it came from, the choosing changes.
Daily life changes. You change.
02 ／ WEAR, EAT, LIVE IN
All three are built on the same question
What is it made of?
Where did it come from?
Why do I choose it?
Tools
Choose things that last, and you buy less often.
Even if it costs a little more, over the long run it can turn out to cost less.
Look at what it is made of.
Think about why you are choosing it. Know the reason.
Tracing
Looking for where a method came from, in old books and in what people tell you.
Where it came from,
why the new thing appeared,
what the thing in front of me is, what the thing I use is. Knowing.
Choosing without knowing, and choosing knowing, are different ── even when the choice is the same.
SOIL
What you eat and what you put on your skin
come from the same place
03 ／ ONE THING TODAY
Read the back of the detergent
you always use
What is in it.
What each thing is in there for.
If there is a name you do not know, look up just one.
Look it up, and if you think it is fine as it is, then it is fine.
Changing it is not the point. Looking, and being able to decide ── that is the point.
