I love the fact that 🇯🇵 has 72 #microseasons.

I was born during 朔風払葉 which is “north wind blows the leaves from the trees.”

Tons of #insect-themed microseasons too!

蟄虫啓戸 hibernating insects🐞 surface

菜虫化蝶 caterpillars 🐛 become butterflies 🦋

蚕起食桑 silkworms 👔 start feasting on mulberry leaves 🍃

蟷螂生 praying mantises hatch 🐣

腐草為螢 rotten grass becomes fireflies 🔥

寒蝉鳴 evening cicadas sing 🎶

蟄虫坏戸 insects hole up underground 😴

蟋蟀在戸 crickets 🦗 chirp around the door

https://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00124/

“I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars."

-Wisława Szymborska, “Possibilities” trans. Stanislaw Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

(my poet crush has the last word in the season of awakening insects)
#everynightapoem #驚蟄 #microseasons #poetry #translation #insects #szymborska

“I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars."

-Wisława Szymborska, “Possibilities” trans. Stanislaw Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

(my poet crush has the last word in the season of awakening insects)
#everynightapoem #驚蟄 #microseasons #poetry #translation #insects #szymborska

Recalling the Taoist parable
莊周夢蝶 “Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly” — and the tradition’s fascination with ephemerality of life, often expressed by the life cycle of insects: “To be born with the morning and gone by dusk.” 「朝生暮死」

From Ch 2 of the Zhuang Zi:
#驚蟄 #microseasons #spring #translation #Zhuangzi #insects

March 6-10: we enter into the early spring season of #驚蟄 or “Awakening the Insects.”

Or in Japanese micro-seasons, “Hibernating insects surface.”

驚蟄：初候，桃始華；陽和發生，自此漸盛。二候，倉庚鳴；黃鸝也。三候，鷹化為鳩。鷹，鷙鳥也。此時鷹化為鳩，至秋則鳩復化為鷹。

#microseasons #seasons #spring #Japanese #Chinese #calendar #節氣 #insects

Today marks the beginning of the 23rd micro-season “Lesser Cold” 小寒 - entering the chilliest period of the year - so I started the day with a steaming bowl of broth 🍜
(the recommended goji berry lamb stew seemed a bit much for breakfast )

#二十四節氣 #雁北鄉 #小寒 #seasons
#microseasons #Chinese #food #lunarcalendar