MID-AUTUMN MOON FESTIVAL

MID-AUTUMN MOON FESTIVAL
Rick Waugh,

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, exactly in the middle of Autumn, (that being the seventh, eighth, and ninth lunar months.) It is a family festival, an outdoor festival, a harvest festival. It is beautiful and elegant.

Originally, the festival celebrated the harvest. With all of the produce gathered up, stored, or sold, families would get together to eat, drink and be merry. Round foods predominated: melons, pomegranates, and especially small cakes called "Moon Cakes", that were imprinted with various signs of the moon. The moon itself, as fully and heavy as it gets all year, denotes the family, as does anything round, a symbol of harmony.

The moon is the subject of many myths. Most famous is the story of Chang'e. Her husband, Hou Yi, was a master archer. He shot nine of the ten suns from the sky, as they were causing all the land to burn up. As a reward, the Queen Mother of the West gave him the elixir of eternal life. A cruel acquaintance convinced Hou Yi that Chang'e was being unfaithful; the archer so berated his wife that she ran away, found the elixir, and drank it, believing it to be poison. She rose up to the moon, to live there forever, tended by the Jade Rabbit. Full of remorse, Hou Yi rose up to the sun. Ever since, the couple sees each other only once a year, on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. This is the conjunction of Yin and Yang, when the full moon shines at its most brilliant.

What to do on this night? Go outside, offer your moon cakes and other round goodies up to the moon. Drink tea in the moonlight, and wait until the reflection of the moon makes a perfect disk in your cup. Then eat your goodies, and finish your tea. For the children, this is also called the Lantern festival, and brightly colored lanterns in many different shapes should be made, displayed, and dragged around.

Despair is not Hopeless!​