Water of the Sky
A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words
Published on 4. November 2025
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-262-04986-3 (ISBN)
Description
A breathtakingly elegant visual dictionary of 2000 Japanese words for rain, with 100 drawings in indigo. In Water of the Sky, artist Miya Ando offers us a beautifully rich, bilingual visual dictionary for rain. Through a collection of 2,000 Japanese words, their English interpretations, and 100 drawings, Ando describes the breadth and diversity of rain s many expressions: when it falls, how it falls, and how its observer might be transformed physically or emotionally by its presence. The words range from prosaic to esoteric, extending from the meteorological (mukaame, or 'very fine rain that falls in spring') to the mystical (bunry?u, or 'rain that splits a dragon's body in half') and from the minute (kisame, or 'raindrops that fall off the leaves and branches of trees') to the vast (takuu, or 'blessed rain that quenches all things in the universe'). Ando s visual interpretations of these terms are not so much illustrations as evocations, attempts to embody or imagine each rain s precise and essential quality. The book presents 100 of these 2,000 drawings of rain accompanied by the full index of 2,000 Japanese words and their approximate English equivalents, presented alphabetically using a hybrid Japanese-English alphabetization rubric.
Reviews / Votes
"Miya Ando's depictions of rain are not just visual-they are experiential. They draw the viewer into a state of stillness, inviting contemplation of the cycles of nature, the softness within strength, and the emotional resonance of water as both a physical and spiritual element. In her hands, rain becomes more than weather-it is memory, presence, and transformation."-Willa Blythe Baker, author of The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom
"This is the book you don't know you need until you open it. After all, the subtitle is "A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words." Miya Ando provides exquisite colored drawings of 100 of the words, including "Rain That Falls on New Leaves and Blades of Grass That Have Sprung Up in Spring," "An Entire Town Is Hit with Rain and Wind," and "Rain in the Moonlight." No need to understand Japanese to marvel at the English translations and to be hopeful that you never get caught in the "Rain That Splits a Dragon's Body in Half." Shake your umbrella in gratitude to the MIT Press for publishing such a gorgeous book."
-AirMail
"Ando's visual dictionary reveals the ever-unfolding altering, inside and outside. The wind swings, the weather moves, the light changes and changes again, in the moving mix of melancholy, euphoria, hum-drummy, all the bliss beauty and ache of a rainy day."
-Nina McLoughlin, New England Literary News Substack
"Blending meteorology, myth and poetry, Ando's visual dictionary of 2,000 Japanese words captures rain's countless forms - from delicate spring drizzles (mukaame, or "very fine rain that falls in spring") to cosmic downpours (takuu, or "blessed rain that quenches all things in the universe"). Ando's evocative art and language reveal rain's physical, emotional and spiritual resonance, celebrating Japanese culture's profound intimacy with weather."
-The Bookseller
"A meditative artistic practice that encourages deep reflection."
-Kirkus Reviews
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Illustrations
100 COLOR ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 208 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
763 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-04986-3 (9780262049863)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Miya Ando is a Japanese and American artist. Her work examines the dialectic coexistence of Eastern and Western cultures through the lens of natural phenomena and is included in many private and public collections, including that of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Content
Foreword: A Constellation of Frozen Moments: The Language of Rain by Hollis Goodall
Preface
Perceiving Rain by Roshi Joan Halifax
100 Select Drawings
A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words
Acknowledgments
Notes
Preface
Perceiving Rain by Roshi Joan Halifax
100 Select Drawings
A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words
Acknowledgments
Notes