Nara, the homeland of Japan, where seasons and lives turn in rich daily activity. Takeshi Dodo, who grew up in Nara and still lives there, photographed the hamlets and landscapes south of Yoshino. In these mountains nature, animals and people mingle, accept things as they are and live together: cherry blossoms in spring, rice planting, summer insects, the Obon festival, autumn rituals and leaves, winter hunting, the new year. All things go on living their daily lives and merge into one, and the climate continues; time and memory are carved into fresh, sometimes humorous scenes. These are all depopulated hamlets whose transformation cannot be avoided, so the book also holds signs of the future and is a substantial record. In the afterword Dodo writes that the nature of the land calms like the sea and storms like the sea, that things seem raw and yet cannot be grasped, that memory in his body slowly awakens, and that the gradation between life and death makes life sprout in the land and gives the world its rich colours.