Returning to Ikebana

This post is about one of my hobbies, ikebana, Japanese floral arrangements.

In August 2024, I resumed learning ikebana at the Ikenobo School, returning after 10 years.

When I was a child, my grandmother hosted ikebana and tea ceremony classes at home. She would invite a teacher and offer our house as the venue. Around ten local people gathered each month to take lessons. On those days, when I came home from school, the house was filled with the sight of flowers, or on other days, the aroma of matcha and sweets. A corner of our home was transformed into a space dedicated to ikebana and the tea ceremony.

The ikebana I remember from the 1980s was slightly different from what I practise today. The arrangements were tall and visually striking. Luxurious vases held generous amounts of flowers, with flamboyant, elaborate displays. At that time, I did not feel particularly drawn to ikebana. My interest only began to blossom when I reached my thirties.

After returning from Switzerland, where I had studied Western floral arrangements, I enrolled in an introductory ikebana course at the Ikenobo School in Tokyo in 2014. I still remember how fascinated I was by new tools: the flower shears, kenzan, and flower bag. My teacher was a young man who demonstrated a different style of ikebana – simple and sophisticated. I was captivated by the beauty of minimalism in his neat and discreet arrangements. Each lesson was divided into two parts: a theoretical lecture, followed by a practical session. Although I do not have photos of the arrangements I made during those classes, I have kept my notebook filled with lecture notes and sketches of my work.

Not long after completing the introductory course, I moved to the UK, and my study of ikebana was paused for nearly a decade from 2015 to 2024.

My current teacher often reminds me that ikebana is a beauty by subtraction – to observe the branches and leaves carefully, to touch and interact with them as living things, to converse with nature, and to create beauty by subtracting. After each lesson, I attempt to recreate the same arrangement at home. It is a quiet conversation between oneself and nature.