A Beautiful Story of Hope From Fukushima, Japan

Sunflowers melt Fukushima's nuclear "snow"

Sparks from burning strips of paper swirled into the hot summer sky, carrying the names of the dead above a temple in Fukushima where thousands of sunflowers have been planted to help fight the omnipresent radiation.

"It is as if an invisible snow had fallen on Fukushima and continued to fall, covering the area," said Koyu Abe, chief monk at the Buddhist Joenji temple.

"This snow, which doesn't melt, brought a long, long winter to Fukushima."
In an effort to lift the spirits of area residents as well as lighten the impact of the radiation, Abe began growing and distributing sunflowers and other plants.

"We plant sunflowers, field mustard, amaranthus and cockscomb, which are all believed to absorb radiation," said the monk.

"So far we have grown at least 200,000 flowers (at this temple) and distributed many more seeds. At least 8 million sunflowers blooming in Fukushima originated from here."

Some of the 100 volunteers helping him with his project bustled around lighting candles in preparation for Obon, a festival honoring the spirits of the dead.

This is the link for the short story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/19/us-japan-disaster-sunflowers-i...

This is the link for the longer story and the video:
Invisible Snow
http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2011/08/19/invisible-snow/

This story mirrors - on a much larger scale - what I have been trying to do in my own yard. Of course, we don't face the same amount of radiation as do these brave people of Fukushima. I stand in awe of Koyu Abe, chief monk at the Buddhist Joenji temple.

Posted by:
Gardening Gal