Every autumn Japanese people go on a pilgrimage to the mountains to see the maple trees in their full glory. This is known as momiji-gari (紅葉狩/"Maple tree hunting"), or "maple tree viewing" in English. Momiji-gari is not very different from how Americans or Canadians go on an annual fall trip through the mountains to see the beautiful maple trees every year, but for most Japanese, it has much more of a spiritual significance. According to Shinto beliefs, spirits - including spirits who live in the trees and the earth - all call Nature their home. For most Japanese, going to view the maple trees is a form of communion with Nature and the spirits who live in it.

https://dengarden.com/landscaping/japanese-maple-trees#mod_18824900

A stomach ache stays with me from last night until morning and keeps me awake. But I rise early. I want to prepare for my Farm Pond Writer’s Workshop before walking. I know what I want to do: it’s a workshop with the theme of writing about “repair,” inspired by a poem by Chana Bloch, The Joins, and Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending precious pottery with gold. Then, after much more time than expected, I walk, still with my stomach ache, to the river. Deep breathing in fresh air is repair. I keep walking, cross the trestle bridge, enter the meadow. What sky. What sunshine. I am working out a poem revision in my mind. It has troubled my night. Yet, in the meadow, the line, the last line, finally comes, and I know I have found it, or it has found me. More repair. I have run out of time, and must return home for the workshop. In my yard, I pass my beloved Japanese Maple tree. All is warm, fiery sun energy. It is wonderful to see the faces and hear the voices of the Farm Pond Writers and share the prompt, and focus on repair. And then, a walk in the afternoon, a second walk with my daughters, also short, but full of sunshine and gratitude. I am tired and have more Zooming, more meetings, all day, into the evening. An afternoon nap, also, is repair.