0022 初

初

This is SHO, hajime, in Japanese, chū in Chinese—‘beginning.’ In order to begin, you take the contracted character for clothing and cloth

衤

and cut it with a knife

刀.

Here’s an ancient version:

.

The full, uncontracted character for clothing

衣

represents the sleeves, the upper garment, and the trailing robes.

Soon it will be early autumn, shoshū in Japanese:

初秋,

the time of the year when we burn off the grain stalks left after the harvest in the fields of our neighborhood park.