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Water of the Sky

A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words

Author Miya Ando
Foreword by Hollis Goodall
Contributions by Joan Halifax
Hardcover
$29.95 US
The MIT Press
6.38"W x 8.25"H x 1.23"D   | 27 oz | 16 per carton
On sale Nov 04, 2025 | 280 Pages | 9780262049863
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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 (bunryūu, 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.
“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
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.
Miya Ando View titles by Miya Ando
Foreword: A Constellation of Frozen Moments: The Language of Rain by Hollis Goodall
Preface
Perceiving Rain by Rōshi Joan Halifax
100 Select Drawings
A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words
Acknowledgments
Notes

Photos

additional book photo
additional book photo
additional book photo

About

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 (bunryūu, 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.

Praise

“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

Author

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.
Miya Ando View titles by Miya Ando

Table of Contents

Foreword: A Constellation of Frozen Moments: The Language of Rain by Hollis Goodall
Preface
Perceiving Rain by Rōshi Joan Halifax
100 Select Drawings
A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words
Acknowledgments
Notes

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