As September wanes, I find myself reflecting on the deep seasonality that shapes both Colorado and Japan. Here in the Rockies, the air has shifted; mornings carry a crisp edge, and golden aspen leaves shimmer like firelight across the mountainsides. In Japan, this same season is marked by the tsukimi (moon-viewing) festivals, when families gather to admire the harvest moon and offer rice dumplings in gratitude for the year’s abundance.

This bonseki piece, “Waterfall Under a Crescent Moon” was inspired by the meeting of those two seasonal rhythms. The waterfall embodies the constancy of nature’s flow, even as the days shorten and the light grows more fragile. The crescent moon above suggests both a beginning and a fading, an in-between moment when we sense time’s turning.

Like all bonseki, the work is ephemeral: sand and stone are composed for a brief time, then disintegrated once more. But that very impermanence is part of its message. To sit before a crescent moon and a flowing waterfall, whether in the Colorado high country or under Japan’s autumn skies, is to remember that beauty is always passing, and always returning.