the autumn moon お月様の仁徳

 

 

名月を取ってくれろと泣く子かな　一茶
Grab it, cried the child, pointing up at the full moon- Issa

On Sunday night, a substantial portion of the world's population will in waves collectively turn their eyes up toward the moon. Yes, the Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節 is upon us again.

The appreciation of the mid-autumn moon is a custom dating back at least to Han dynasty China-- probably even earlier.Indeed, for at least 2000 years now, it has been the full moon of the Eighth Month (approximately present-day September) which has been considered the most beautiful moon of the year.

In Japan, the custom of moon-viewing was adopted from China during the early Heian times and fantastic moon-viewing parties were a celebrated part of court life from these early times, where aristocrats would drink plenty of rice wine-- and floating lazily on their dragon boats, would drift around man-made ponds gazing at the moon (some perhaps composing poetry and snacking on mooncakes).

K-sensei-- who also loves this time of year-- sent me an essay he had written the other day for a local newspaper in which he writes,

秋の長夜、お月さまを仰ぐたび、日本人に生まれてよかったと思う。稲田をわたる秋風を淋しくて、どうにも身にしみるが、コオロギが競って鳴くころのお月さまなんとも味わいがある。
"On long autumn nights, gazing up in awe at the moon, I feel glad to have been born Japanese. On those nights, as the sad, lonely autumn wind blows across the rice fields and the sound of the singing crickets seems to penetrate me, I feel something deeply meaningful as I look at the moon."

He tells me that many Japanese people feel something along the lines of aesthetic and spiritual awe when they gaze at the moon. K-sensei, in the grand tradition of nihonjin-ron, then goes on to compare the Japanese experience of moon-viewing with that of the West. 

In the West, he explains, the full moon has long been associated with insomnia and insanity. The night of the full moon was a night to ward oneself against evil or lunacy. We see this aspect of the Western tradition perhaps in our word "lunatic," which, of course, comes from "luna." Indeed, the full moon has long been associated we are told with everything from vampires to excessive dog bites. (Cat Power and the Moon)

In contrast,

東洋人の心の中に月は、あくまでやさしさと純粋さを映し出すもの、人間の良心を引き出してくれるあいじょうのようなものを持つ。西瓜畑の泥棒がお月さんがじっと見ているので、恥入って西瓜を盗むことなく退散した話がある。
"The moon that lives in the hearts of those in the East, if anything, possesses a kindness and purity which has the ability of bringing out the best in humans. There is a story of a thief in a watermelon field. The moon shining down on the thief made him feel so ashamed about what he was about to commit that he left the field unable to touch even one watermelon."

The moon, then, is like a brilliant mirror reflecting back the purist and most beautiful parts of our hearts. It is another instance of the Japanese belief in the power of beauty.

Finally, K-sensei writes,

また中国では、お月さまを玉兎とも形容した。そこから、兎が住み餅をうくというコミカルな発想に結びつく。そうしたイマジュネーションは、東洋人のつきに対する思いの表れであり私たちの心をどんな平和にしてくれることか。
"The Chinese believe that a jade hare  (玉兎) is pounding mochi rice cakes (In China, medicine to help the sick) up on the moon. This comical story of a rabbit pounding rice cakes has long been associated with moon viewing, and this type of imaginative story-telling about the moon is an expression of the way in which the moon lives in the hearts of the people of the East. Images such as this, unfold within our hearts a feeling of peacefulness and happiness." 

**

One of my favorite anecdotes about the moon is one everyone has probably heard before --- when the great Natsume Soseki, who was still in English teacher at the time, was advising one of his pupils on the translation of "I love you" firmly declared that, "I love you" should be translated into Japanese not as 我君ヲ愛ス but as, "Isn't the moon beautiful?"  「月が綺麗ですね」といいなさい。Yes...

illustration from here 

 

Comments

[Laura@Silkroadgourmet]

Hi Peony:

Beautiful post! I like the explanation of the moon in the East ande what it still means to modern people. I would say, however, there is a dual symbolism in the West. In addition to the negative connotations that moon symbolism conjures, we also have, "Claire de Lune", the ocean, female life cycle etc.

Laura

[Peony]

Hi Laura, It was so funny--the next night we went to hear Anne Akiko Meyers perform with the New West Symphony here in town and it was the night before the full moon (29th)... as the Kid and I were staring at the moon, my mom's boyfriend said to me, "Be careful not to stare too long at the moon, you might go crazy or turn into a werewolf!" It was so funny because having spent really all those adult years in Japan, te difference between east and west was not all that clearly felt... I think the image of "lunacy" is seen too in the unpredicatbility of the Sea and of women... maybe? I was talking to a Chinese friend the next night and told her what happened and she said, Now that is something no one would say in China..." I am not sure I can think of anything where the moon is seen as this source of great virtue in European thought... I did look up the poem Debussy was inspired by and copied it below..Mesopotamium pie sounded DIVINE!!!!!!!! xoxo

Claire de Lune
by Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896)

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masked and costumed figures go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

All sing in a minor key
Of all-conquering love and careless fortune
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight.

The still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
Which gives the birds to dream in the trees
And makes the fountain sprays sob in ecstasy,
The tall, slender fountain sprays among the marble statues

[Laura@Silkroadgourmet]

Wow! I never knew about the poem!

I used to play the piece when I was young and liked it, particularly the wild middle bits with the calm at both ends. Thanks. . . (See the duality in Verlaine's imagery?)

[Peony]

It is a really beautiful poem, isn't it? I would never have found it is you hadn't reminded me of Debussy's music!!! Ting-Jen just emailed this one.. also first time for me to read (but wanted to share it with you)

The Moon
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky east,
A white and shapeless mass.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

[Peony]

One more emailed from Athena--for Laura:

" the moon has important connections with highly positive imagery.
The moon was considered to be the source of dew ~~ an agent of healing grace
and identical with the aqua permanens.
Luna secretes the dew or sap of life.
This Luna is the sap of the water of life,
which is hidden in Mercurius.
Greek alchemists supposed there was a principle in the moon which Christianos calls
'The Ichor of the Philosopher.'
The aqua permanens 'is a sign of divine intervention', it is the moisture that heralds
the return of the soul.'
As Jung tells us, the alchemists thought that the Opus demanded not only laboratory work,
the reading of books, meditation,
and PATIENCE,
BUT ALSO LOVE."
[page 74-75 Edward Edinger text]

[Laura@Silkroadgourmet]

Beautiful all! Especially fond of the info sent by Athena - thanks!

[Jan Walls]

and then, there is Archibald MacLeash's almost Zen-like vision:

...A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind --

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs...

[R]

Funny. I ran across this post while I was searching for Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.