the movement
honor ancestors, serve descendants, nourish all
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
This year we celebrate Mid -Autumn Festival (also called Lantern Festival) on September 29. Go outside, look up, and feast your eyes on the full moon. If the mood strikes you, feel free to celebrate as long as you like because the heart of the celebration is about bringing people together, delicious food, and lighting your lantern. All of which sound good to me in these weeks we move towards the shifting winds of the fall.
As a young one in Hong Kong, I recall walking along the smaller neighborhood streets and gazing up at the dozens of colorful lanterns dangling around store fronts. The deep red and orange cellophane and colorful paper patterns stretched over bamboo structures shaped as goldfish, giant peaches, butterflies, and rabbits. Back then the lanterns were constructed with a tiny interior platform for a single candle. My parents (wisely) did not let us have open flames. Instead, my dad gave us a heavy military looking flashlight and we took turns shining the bright yellow beam of light through our lanterns. This alternative suited me just fine, I mean how can you run around a park with a lit candle and not get hot wax all over you? Priorities people! There were climbing frames to be ascended!
Earlier this month, I got to make lanterns with my sister and nieces (ages 5 and 9). The best part of the rainy afternoon art project was hearing the girls marvel at how their own “mommy is so artistic!” This simple tradition of crafting paper lanterns got the creative juices moving in us and let the girls see their momma in a new light.
While the Hong Kong I grew up in is a vibrant metropolis, one might imagine a time when there were no skyscrapers, only small fishing villages along the coast. The roots of mid-autumn festival come from a time when the crops harvested during the year were essential for survival. Offerings of thanks were made to the Moon Goddess, who as legend says, would bestow beauty on those who paid their respects. With the gratitude for bountiful crops and hope for beauty, people lit lanterns to ensure the Moon Goddess could see their acts of tribute from the night sky.
This summer we were gifted home-grown produce from family and friends. There was some kind of magic in these fruits and veggies. Just holding them in our hands, we could feel the vibrancy of earth, water, and solar energy. It tasted like there was sunshine and love in every bite of juicy tomato and dark green kale. The nourishment made me feel lightness inside, a desire to grow tall like a corn stalk, be strong like a pumpkin stem, and to be able to bend and twirl like a bean vine.
Photo: A mural on an exterior wall on Grandville Road in Hong Kong, gratitude to the artist Evangeline Chan, also known as Mooncasket for her kooky monster community.
Cultures around the globe salute the phases of the moon, recognize the changes in the seasons, and celebrate the efforts of the harvest. Often these traditions are carried out in community. While the particulars of how we celebrate have been modified over time, the coming together part is held sacred. As I write this, I am thousands of miles from my home and several decades from my childhood. Yet I feel a connection to the people and rituals past, present and future.
I’m not exactly sure where that deep sense of connection comes from. I don’t have to know, but it makes me feel warm within, like the pilot light is on in the stove. Perhaps it is the joy of local community willing to participate in traditions that are new to them. Perhaps it is the blessing of zoom calls with my mom and sisters in various time zones. Perhaps it is the absolute grace that I am free to lift my gaze to the moon and breathe deeply, in awe of the glorious, full lunar love show.
Somehow, just knowing the same moon glows above us all lets each exhale feel like a sweet surrender into the vast sky. Every time we look up the moon is welcoming us home. Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, perhaps we each reflect the light from each other. No matter how far in space or removed in time we are from one another, we are connected. We are home.
The invitation is to move and breathe, to let movement and breath get your creative juices flowing. To let movement nourish you and inspire you to walk taller, grow stronger, and to twirl! The invitation is to lift your gaze to the infinite sky. Breathe deep and let your inner light shine, be the light and reflect all the lights around you.
October 2023