Mount Wakakusa

There's this really cool Japanese tradition called the Yamayaki tradition, and it's an ancient practice that literally means mountain burning, and it's referring to a controlled grassland fire in Japan.

And it serves as both an ecological management practice to prevent forests from taking over grasslands, hmm, sounds familiar to everything else we've seen around the world, and also as, serves as a cultural festival, most famously celebrated at Mount Wakakusa in Nara province on the fourth Saturday of January.

So the ecological purpose, as you can imagine, is to support nat- semi-natural, I like that, semi-natural, right? 'Cause it's not really natural or wild.

It's cultivated by humans, but it's also not caged and domesticated either.

So when left alone, these grasslands naturally revert to forests within a decade or two.

Yamayaki, or mountain burning, festival clears away withered dead vegetation, suppresses pests, and returns essential nutrients to the soil, paving the way for fresh, healthy spring growth.

Hmm, that all sounds very familiar, doesn't it? So the Mount Wakakusa Festival is sort of a really cool, horn is blown, there's massive fireworks, and then they light the fires.

There's another one in the Shizu- Shizuoka, Sh- oh, sorry, Shizuoka prefecture at Mount Omuro, where that occurs in late winter and the entire dormant volcano is set ablaze in a breathtaking 15-minute burn ushering in the spring season.

Number seven, by Abe no Nakamaro, Nakamaro Abe.

While gazing up into the sky My thoughts have wandered far, Methinks I see the rising moon Above Mount Mikasa At far-off Kasuga.

Number eight, by Kizen Hoshi, the priest Kizen.

My home is near the capital, My humble cottage bare Lies south-east on Mount Uji, So The people all declare My life's a hill of care.