Moon and earth
Fashion conscious readers may pity me for having a gizmo up there top right that is so last year.
In the far east, moon phases are still important. The moon governs the calendar.
In Korea, there is a holiday for the full moon of the 8th month: it is Chuseok, when everyone rushes home to be back with their family and honour their ancestors. People tend graves, and make offerings. Then there's food and games. It's the major holiday of the Korean calendar.
If you're confused by the reference to August in that article, so am I. The Korean Year started later, but it's more complicated than that. Here's a simple explanation of the Korean calendar. I love the names of the solar terms:
Ipchun (Spring Begins)
Usu (Rain Water)
Kyongchip (Startled Hibernators)
Chunbun (Vernal Equinox)
Chongmyong (Clear and Bright)
Kogu (Grain Rain)
Ipha (Summer Begins)
Soman (Filling Out)
Mangjong (Grain in the Ear)
Haji (Midsummer)
Soso (Lesser Heat)
Taeso (Great Heat)
Ipchu (Fall Begins)
Choso (Heat Ceases)
Paengno (White Dew)
Chubun (Autumnal Equinox)
Hallo (Cold Dew)
Sanggang (Frost Descends)
Iptong (Winter Begins)
Sosol (Lesser Snow)
Taesol (Great Snow)
Tongji (Midwinter)
Sohan (Lesser Cold)
Taehan (Great Cold)
Each lasts a fortnight. The dates of these vary from year to year.
Re-reading this prior to posting, it strikes me how neutral I'm trying to be. Chuseok is about harvest and ancestors. It is all so alien. I don't know where any of my grandparents is buried. One grandfather lies somewhere in Australia, another somewhere in the West Midlands. I know where my grandmothers died, but not where they are buried. I could find out, though my parents might think it odd. As children, we were kept away from funerals, and cemeteries were seen as gloomy, sentimental places. It may have had something to do with our peripatetic life. Graves were another thing to let go of, along with homes and friends we had to leave. The grandmother I never knew is most vivid to me in the stories my father and aunt told me. Vivid and deeply unreliable - a story-teller herself, who if believed would link me back to real people and places that may not belong at all.
I can see some virtues in solid ground. I would pull the weeds from her grave, if I knew where it was, and I would feel sentimental, superstitious even, for doing so. As for my own - I will be cremated and scattered.
In the far east, moon phases are still important. The moon governs the calendar.
In Korea, there is a holiday for the full moon of the 8th month: it is Chuseok, when everyone rushes home to be back with their family and honour their ancestors. People tend graves, and make offerings. Then there's food and games. It's the major holiday of the Korean calendar.
If you're confused by the reference to August in that article, so am I. The Korean Year started later, but it's more complicated than that. Here's a simple explanation of the Korean calendar. I love the names of the solar terms:
Ipchun (Spring Begins)
Usu (Rain Water)
Kyongchip (Startled Hibernators)
Chunbun (Vernal Equinox)
Chongmyong (Clear and Bright)
Kogu (Grain Rain)
Ipha (Summer Begins)
Soman (Filling Out)
Mangjong (Grain in the Ear)
Haji (Midsummer)
Soso (Lesser Heat)
Taeso (Great Heat)
Ipchu (Fall Begins)
Choso (Heat Ceases)
Paengno (White Dew)
Chubun (Autumnal Equinox)
Hallo (Cold Dew)
Sanggang (Frost Descends)
Iptong (Winter Begins)
Sosol (Lesser Snow)
Taesol (Great Snow)
Tongji (Midwinter)
Sohan (Lesser Cold)
Taehan (Great Cold)
Each lasts a fortnight. The dates of these vary from year to year.
Re-reading this prior to posting, it strikes me how neutral I'm trying to be. Chuseok is about harvest and ancestors. It is all so alien. I don't know where any of my grandparents is buried. One grandfather lies somewhere in Australia, another somewhere in the West Midlands. I know where my grandmothers died, but not where they are buried. I could find out, though my parents might think it odd. As children, we were kept away from funerals, and cemeteries were seen as gloomy, sentimental places. It may have had something to do with our peripatetic life. Graves were another thing to let go of, along with homes and friends we had to leave. The grandmother I never knew is most vivid to me in the stories my father and aunt told me. Vivid and deeply unreliable - a story-teller herself, who if believed would link me back to real people and places that may not belong at all.
I can see some virtues in solid ground. I would pull the weeds from her grave, if I knew where it was, and I would feel sentimental, superstitious even, for doing so. As for my own - I will be cremated and scattered.
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