LABORS OF LOVE SPREAD THE LOVE NOW

KUROKI

Labors of love begin with love. If you love something or someone enough, you can happily offer almost superhuman effort and strength to achieve the extraordinary.

Mr. Kuroki, an elderly man who lived in Shintomi Town in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, had a very big love for his wife. It gave him the inspiration, the will, and the power to create extraordinary beauty.

The couple had married in 1956 and lived a modest life running a small dairy farm on their little plot of land. They worked hard managing 60 cows and 2 children. They saved a little bit over the years and tagged it for a future trip so they could see the rest of their native country.

When after 30 years of marriage, Mrs. Kuroki went blind, she lost her will to live. She became a recluse. Sad that she could no longer see, Mr. Kuroki spent the next 2 years of his life laboring to create an astonishing massive garden around their home, just so she could smell the flowers.

Mr. Kuroki had discovered that shibazakura, or the moss phlox, a pink-colored flower, had an exceptionally sweet smell. So he chopped down a few trees and cleared the land where the couple’s dairy farm once operated, and he planted hundreds of thousands of these special blooms.

Mrs. Kuroki began to venture outside, lured by the fragrance. Her smile and her joie de vivre returned.

Word began to spread about Mr. Kuroki’s labors of love and the magnificent garden he planted and visitors began to arrive to see it and hear the story directly.

And now, about 7,000 people from all over Japan come to visit the garden every day in springtime, during March and April, to witness Mr. Kuroki’s labor of love and smell the fruits of his labor.

Check out the 朝日新聞社 video of this beautiful place here. And for an even bigger moss flower carpet, see the pink fields that bloom each spring at the base of Mt. Fuji.

Read more about Beautiful Labors of Love in Labors of Love Are Beautiful Now , The Art of the Wild is a Labor of Love Now, The Most Beautiful Wine: Labors of Love Now, Labors of Love to Wear Now, and Big Love Inspires Big Beautiful Labors of Love.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Yoshiyuki Matsumoto. “Mr. Toshiyuki Kuroki.”
2. Image: Courtesy of 朝日新聞社. “Mr. Toshiyuki and Mrs. Yasuko Kuroki.”
3. Image: by Yoshiyuki Matsumoto. “Mr. Toshiyuki and Yasuko Kuroki.”
4. Image: by Shintomi Machiyakuba. “Mr. Toshiyuki Kuroki’s Garden .”
5. Image: by Jennifer Churchman. “Rose Moss Flower.”
6. Image: by Yoshiyuki Matsumoto. “Home of Mr. Toshiyuki and Mrs. Yasuko Kuroki.”
7. Image: Courtesy of Asahi 朝日新聞社. “Mr. Toshiyuki and Mrs. Yasuko Kuroki in Their Garden.”
8. Image: Courtesy of 新富町役場.  “Mr. Toshiyuki and Mrs. Yasuko Kuroki in Their Garden.”
9. Image: by Danny Choo. “Mount Fuji.”
10. Image: by Rkr21Sfmfr. “Mr. Toshiyuki Kuroki’s Garden.”
11. Image: by BN App - Download now!
12. Image: by Yoshiyuki Matsumoto. “Shibazakura (moss phlox).”