Fivearts.org
General discussions => Members Lounge => Topic started by: Rhizome on December 21, 2018, 08:02:12 AM
-
Wishing everyone a wonderful celebration with your family and loved ones. :) :)
May you end the year with a heartwarming gathering and reconnect with those closest to your hearts. :-*
Catch y'all later...
Cheers
Rhiz
-
Happy Winter Solstice (冬至 Dong Zhi)! ;D
To be a bit more exact, it's on Dec 22 at 6:20 am (GMT+8)
Any special things happening with you guys as this is a significant change of Qi?
-
Winter Solstice Festival
The Winter Solstice Festival (Dongzhi) is celebrated when the sunlight is at its weakest and the days are the shortest. Therefore,it is deeply tied to the observation of yin and yang: yin is at its greatest, and yet people know that yin must recede as yang becomes ascendant with each subsequent day. Like all the other festivals, the Winter Solstice is a time to gather as a family, and naturally,
food and visits to one’s ancestral temple are involved.
One central custom, especially for southern and overseas Chinese, is the making and eating of tangyuan (soup with spherical dumplings). Tangyuan are balls of glutinous rice flour. Their diameters vary according to the tradition of the maker. Some make the balls up to a few inches in diameter and serve them with smaller sizes, while others make the balls the same size and about an inch in
diameter. The balls can be plain or stuffed, and the dish can be sweet or savory. The entire family is expected to gather— tangyuan sounds like tuanyuan, which means family reunion.
Some people make a dish of glutinous rice and red beans in the belief that this will drive away evil spirits. According to one story, Gong Gongshi had an evil son who died on this day, but came back as a malignant spirit who made people ill. Knowing that his son was afraid of red beans, Gong taught everyone how to cook this dish to repel his evil son.
The white spheres symbolize the completeness of cycles, that there is returning, and that all will be smooth. In the north, dumplings rather than tangyuan are eaten. This practice is tied to the Han dynasty physician, Zhang Zhongjing (150–219). Seeing poor people suffering from chilblains on their ears, he ordered his apprentices to make mutton dumplings to distribute to the poor. The dumplings themselves were shaped like ears, and he named the soup “Expelling-Cold Tender-Ear Soup” (quhan jiao’er tang).
Another northern Chinese custom is to eat a dumpling soup called huntun. During the Han dynasty, the Huns, led by two leaders, Hun and Tun, invaded China. The huntun dumplings became a way to show anger for the enemy. Some people believe there’s a connection between the huntun and the wonton dumpling soup popular today, but this is difficult to establish with certainty.
In the old days, those clans that still maintained family temples had reunions of all members at the ancestral shrines for ceremonies and sacrifice, followed by lavish meals.
The Winter Solstice Festival is the time to reunite with our families, enjoy good food that will aid in renewal, and to contemplate the truth of the seasons. Whenever we are oppressed by darkness, light is sure to return.
The Darkest Day
Every year has its darkest day;
each dark day is followed by light.
Who among us goes through three hundred days without any misfortune or trouble?
All of us experience trials.
Trouble can often drive us to madness and leave us staring bewildered through our windows at the dark.
For all of us, then, winter solstice is a reminder that darkness comes to its greatest extreme—for exactly one day.
On this day, as on all the others, there is a dynamic and precise proportion between dark and light.
It is measurable, it is complete. It is, for one day, immutable.
The darkness of the solstice cannot be avoided—but human beings can outlast it and live to see the next day.
The people of the past have left us many hints about what to do:
families come back together, nourish themselves, give thanks to their ancestors, and, in looking at the round balls of glutinous rice in their round bowls sitting at round tables, reaffirm that all of life is a smooth cycle.
Taoists observe the day precisely, aligning themselves with the greater cosmic cycles of sunrise and sunset and the turning of the earth.
They also celebrate the Three Pure Ones, worshipping and turning to faith at a time when the sky is dark and the cycles of life so profoundly change.
The lunar calendar is calibrated by the winter solstice, so this day is the reference point for the year to come.
At any time of your life, you may find yourself in a winter, and you may feel that you are in the darkest of times.
Think back to this day then and do what has been done for thousands of years: unite with your family, nourish yourself and others, fix your mind on the truth of cycles, and take refuge in reverence for the holy.
Each dark day is followed by light—remember that if you want a happy future.
• The Winter Solstice Festival
• Festival day for the Three Pure Ones
Visiting the Temple of Auspicious Omen Alone on Winter Solstice
Su Shi goes to the temple with no other visitors present.
The weather is cold and rainy, and it isn’t the season for the lovely flowers that attract people at other times of the year.
Perhaps musing to himself, he asks who else would go to the temple on such a frigid and rainy day.
Wan sunlight cannot warm the well’s bottom, and cold, sighing rain soaks the withered roots.
Is there anyone more like Mr. Su?
This is not the season for flowers and still I come alone.
Exercise 22 from / twenty-four solar terms
WINTER SOLSTICE
This is the shortest day and the longest night. From this point on, the days will gradually lengthen again, although the weather will still be cold for weeks to come.
(http://fivearts.org/fileserver/images/2018/12/21/22-solarterm.png)
This exercise is best practiced during the period of 11:00 P.M.–3:00 A.M.
1. Begin by sitting with your legs stretched out straight before you. Grasp your knees. The thumb squeezes the side of the knee; the index and second fingers push into the indentation on either side of the lower leg, just below the patella.
2. Squeeze your knees and press the points. Exhale as you clench, hold momentarily, then inhale as you relax. Repeat fifteen times.
3. Sit cross-legged and face forward. Click your teeth together thirty-six times. Roll your tongue between your teeth nine times in each direction. Form saliva in your mouth by pushing your cheeks in and out. When your mouth is filled with saliva, divide the liquid into three portions.
4. Inhale; then exhale, imagining your breath traveling to the dantian and then swallow one-third of the saliva, imagining that it travels to the dantian.
5. Repeat two more times until you’ve swallowed all three portions.
6. Sit comfortably as long as you like.
Through this exercise, ancient Taoists sought to prevent or treat cold and dampness in the hands; loss of sensation or excessive heat in the feet; pain in the lower ribs, between the shoulders, in the navel, or in the middle thighs; pain in the torso and limbs; diarrhea; and excessive longing.
Deng Ming-Dao