It means castle on the hill. We are a samurai family, and our crest is the katabami: a tiny three-leafed flower that grows wherever it’s given a chance, between stones and at the edge of a path.

Samurai families chose the katabami for its quiet strength. It looks delicate, but it’s almost impossible to uproot. Pull it up and it comes back, again and again, from the smallest root. It became a symbol of resilience, and of a family that keeps flourishing.

I grew up in Hawaiʻi making art, then spent more than a decade in Tokyo building a corporate career I was very good at. But it slowly took the color out of everything. Somewhere along the way, I stopped noticing the tiny flowers, and the tiny rituals that once made a day feel like mine.

So I did what the katabami does. I came home, and I grew back.

I found my way through the quiet joy of craft, and OKAGI was born from it: small objects for the small rituals that bring us back to ourselves.

A stick of palo santo, lit in the first light of morning, its smoke curling through the sun. A pot of tea, brewed slowly and poured into a cup shaped like a flower. A single stem cut from the garden and set by the window, where it catches the afternoon light.

Delicate, but strong. Like the katabami. Like the people who make time for these moments.

For anyone who’s been too busy to notice.