Full moon again.
It is the day of the Moon Festival. The moon is the brightest in a year.
Moon cakes, moon viewing, and family reunion. People celebrate the fullness of happiness and the year's harvest on this day.
"When the moon rises over the sea, we share this moment even though we are far apart." (海上升明月，天涯共此时。) Poet Zhang, Jiuling wrote in the Tang Dynasty.
The moon hangs silently in the sky; it rises at night and sets at dawn. It changes from the crescent to the full moon, then from the full moon to the waning moon. It is not as hot and bright as the sun, but the moon embodies not only the various feelings of people but also the thing that everybody stares at and contemplates at times.
In ancient times, people would write and recite their poems while viewing the moon pretty. While poem writing is no longer popular activity, we can still enjoy famous poems. For example, here are two poems that many Chinese people would remember on the Moon Festival Day.
Raising the wine cup,
Asking how long the crisp moon would last?
What year is it in heaven?
I want to go there but fear it would be too cold up high.
Looking at my shadow while dancing,
I think it is not as warm as the secular life.
The moon moving over the high building,
Hanging at the curved window of the house,
Shining on the sleepless person.
I do not want to complain,
But why the moon still being full while separating from my loved one?
People have sad and happy moments,
The moon is sometimes full, sometimes not.
It could never be perfect.
I only hope we are both well and our love lasts.
(明月几时有？把酒问青天。不知天上宫阙，今夕是何年。我欲乘风归去，又恐琼楼玉宇，高处不胜寒。起舞弄清影，何似在人间？
转朱阁，低绮户，照无眠。不应有恨，何事长向别时圆？人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全。但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。Su Shi, Song Dynasty)
When the moon rises over the sea,
we share this moment even though we are far apart.
Lovers hate the long nights,
Longing the loved ones on sleepless nights.
I blow off the candle to enjoy the moonlights filling the room,
Getting up, pacing around the room,
The late-night chillness is getting through my clothes.
Cannot hold your hands in the moonlight,
I only hope to see you in my dreams.
(海上生明月，天涯共此时。情人怨遥夜，竟夕起相思。
灭烛怜光满，披衣觉露滋。不堪盈手赠，还寝梦佳期。Zhang, Jiuling, Tang Dynasty)
The two poems are recited by people over and over again during the moon festival every year.
Throughout the ages, there have been countless good poems about the moon. For example:
"The moon comes from the east sea, as big as a silver plate. (月从海东来，径尺熔银盘。Lu, You， Song Dynasty)" The full moon rises from the sea, as big as a silver plate. It describes the beautiful moon stunningly and simply.
"On a cloudless night, the chillness fills in the moon, looking like a silver plate, moving slowly in the Milky Way." (暮云收尽溢清寒，银汉无声转玉盘。Su, Shi, Song Dynasty). Su Shi also describes the moon with the silver plate, but his moon is cold, desert, and lonely.
"God washes the world with the moonlight. The hot summer is receding; the sky is clear. Everything is beautiful during the fall time. (天将今夜月，一遍洗寰瀛。暑退九霄净，秋澄万景清。Liu, Yuxi, Tang Dynasty). Liu, Yuxi's moon is clear and bright, making people feel relaxed and happy.
Throughout history, people have applied many symbolic meanings to the moon, but the symbolic meanings vary from culture to culture. Today is China's Mid-Autumn Festival; let us start with the symbolic meanings of the moon in the culture of China.
In Chinese culture, the moon symbolizes beauty and love. The moon also represents purity and chastity. For example, people may use "moon goodness" when praising when a lady's beauty.
The full moon symbolizes perfect happiness, so the fifteenth day of the first lunar month (Lantern Festival Day) and the full moon night of the eighth lunar month (Moon Festival Day) are also the reunion days of family and lovers. People express their love and kind wishes to each other these days. It is considered unlucky if a person cannot reunite with his/her family and loved ones. What poet Li, Bai in Tang Dynasty wrote in "Contemplating at the Quiet Ning （《静夜思》） is expressing the feelings of such sadness "The bright moonlight shinning in front of the bed looks like the frost on the ground. Raising my head, I see the bright moon up high. Lowing my head, I miss my hometown such bad."
The crescent moon can symbolize hope or lacking/imperfection depending on the situation. The cycle of the moon symbolizes the eternity and cycle of time.
The moon symbolizes femininity/Yin, while the sun symbolizes masculinity/Yang. "Book of Rites (《礼记》）" says: "The sun was born in the east, and the moon was born in the west. This distinction between Yin and Yang decides the positions of wife and husband."
There are several symbolic meanings in Zhang, Ruoxu (Tang Dynasty) 's poem "A Night of Flower and Moon by the River (《春江花月夜》）". ( I try to translate it below.)
The tide of the Spring River is as high as the sea level, and the bright moon arises, looking like it comes with the tide.
The moonlight shines on the thousand's mile long river, and it is bright everywhere.
The river flows along the flowery bushes, twists and turns, the moonlight shining on the flowers like frosts.
Looking like the frost as it is; so people are unaware of the real frost.
The white sand of the beach mixes with the moonlight.
The river and sky are the same colour and are so clear.
Only the bright moon hangs in the sky.
Who was the first person who saw the moon? And when did the moon shine on the river the first time?
Generation by generation, it is endless,
And the moon above the moon is always the same.
I don't know what the moon is waiting for. I can only see the river moving the water constantly forward.
He left like the white cloud flowing away; only the woman left behind sadly stood at the green bush.
Who is rowing the boat on the water?
Who is longing for her loved one in the house full of moonlight?
The moonlight lingered on the house, shining on the dressing table of the left one.
The moonlight does not want to leave the curtain of the longing woman,
She cannot wipe the moonlight from her washing stone.
They both look at the moon at the time and hope is the light that can shine on the other part.
The swans are flying but are unable to fly out of the moonlight,
The fishes are jumping out of the water under the moon.
I dreamt the flowing fell into the water,
The half spring is already over, but I cannot go home.
The river will bring the spring away, and the moon over the water sets on the west again.
The moon sets into the sea slowly, and we have separated far away.
I don't know how many people can go home in the moonlight,
Only see the setting moon shaking the tree of the forest over there.
（春江潮水连海平，海上明月共潮生。
滟滟随波千万里，何处春江无月明！
江流宛转绕芳甸，月照花林皆似霰。
空里流霜不觉飞，汀上白沙看不见。
江天一色无纤尘，皎皎空中孤月轮。
江畔何人初见月？江月何年初照人？
人生代代无穷已，江月年年望相似。
不知江月待何人，但见长江送流水。
白云一片去悠悠，青枫浦上不胜愁。
谁家今夜扁舟子？何处相思明月楼？
可怜楼上月裴回，应照离人妆镜台。
玉户帘中卷不去，捣衣砧上拂还来。
此时相望不相闻，愿逐月华流照君。
鸿雁长飞光不度，鱼龙潜跃水成文。
昨夜闲潭梦落花，可怜春半不还家。
江水流春去欲尽，江潭落月复西斜。
斜月沉沉藏海雾，碣石潇湘无限路。
不知乘月几人归，落月摇情满江树。Zhang, Ruoxu, Tang Dynasty)
The first part describes the beautiful scenery under the bright moonlight.
The second part is the poet's feeling of time eternalness. As time goes by, the moon remains the same year after year, but the people looking at the moon are constantly changing with time. The river is the same, and the moon is the same, too. But people die. Have the ones who waited and longed lived long enough to see their loved ones?
The third part describes the longing in more detail. The longing is everywhere, in the room, on the balcony, on the washing stone, the curtain, and the dressing table, everything reflects the lacking.
The symbolic meaning can be reflected best in the mythologies of a culture. The most famous god related to the moon in Chinese mythology is Chang'e. "Chang'e Flying to the Moon" is a well-known story in China. Chang'e symbolizes the beauty and love of women, but her love is related to betrayal and punishment, which is also ironic. She flew to the moon because she stole her husband's elixir, which her husband prepared for both of them, and became an immortal god. However, the Moon Palace is lonely and desolate. There are two other creatures in Moon Palace, one is Wu Gang, and the other is awhitet rabbit called Jade Rabbit. As of some wrongdoing, Wu Gang was punished by the Jade Emperor by going to the moon to cut down an osmanthus tree that could never be cut down because the tree has a self-healing ability, and it will recover when the axe is pulled out, so Wu Gang keeps cutting it day after day. It symbolizes a person who will be punished forever for making mistakes. The Jade Rabbit is Chang'e's pet/accompany. It was initially the medicine attendant beside the Queen Mother, so it still maintains the posture of pounding medicine in a mortar. It could also be a symbol of sex. Jade Rabbit is also a god, a kind of medicine god.
It is said there is also a toad on the moon, so the Moon Palace is also called Toad Palace. It is in an earlier version of the myth. The early version of the myth also said that the toad and the jade rabbit refer to the same thing because the toad is also called the toad dodder. Dodder" and "rabbit" are homophones (both are pronounced as "tu" in Pinyin). So it is a possibility that the toad is called "tu" (sounds like the rabbit), and became the Jade Rabbit or toad rabbit later on. Therefore, the Moon Palace is also called the Toad Palace. There is another version of the myth saying that Chang'e and toad are interchangeable forms; they are the same thing that exists in different forms. Probably because the association of the beautiful Chang'e with the ugly toad causes aversion feelings on people, gradually, people only remember the beautiful Chang'e who is good at dancing and the lovely jade rabbit. It is a more desirable image.
Throughout the history of myths and legends, many myths and legends are constantly changing in the development process and have become more in line with people's psychological needs.
Many cultures have moon gods, and most are female images, except the moon gods of Egypt and Japan. The most representative moon goodnesses in western culture methodology are Selene, Artemis, and Diana. In Greek mythology, Selene (called Luna in Roman mythology) was the original moon goddess, the daughter of Titan and Theia. She drives her beautiful carriage through the sky every night (corresponding to her brother Helios who passes the sky during the day). Selene had several lovers; one of them was a young shepherd. Because she was in love with the beautiful Sheppard's sleeping looking, she begged Zeus to let the beautiful shepherd stay in the sleep state forever, and Zeus finally satisfied her wish. Therefore, the moon goddess Selene is related to love and sleep (I think her love is too overbearing, isn't it?).
Another goddess associated with the moon is Artemis. In Greek mythology, she is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, the goddess of the moon, and her identical twin brother Apollo is the god of the sun. She is young and beautiful, skilled in the artery, and is the chastest goddess. She is also the Goddess of Hunt, Wilderness, Nature, Childbirth, and Chaste. Although Artemis is the goddess most often associated with the moon in Western contexts, the original moon goddess is Selene. In the myth narration, Artemis combined many of Selene's characteristics to become the goddess of the moon.
When it comes to the goddess of the moon, Diana is also a name that is frequently mentioned. She is the moon goddess in Roman mythology, which corresponds to the role of Artemis in Greek mythology. Like Artemis, she is also the goddess of hunting, wild/wildlife, and fertility.
From the myths of moon-related goddesses, we can see that the moon in Western culture is also related to beauty, chastity, fertility, Etc. These are similar to the metaphor of the moon in Chinese culture. However, the moon in Chinese culture endows more poetic meanings and imagination and entrusts ordinary people's joys, sorrows and sorrows.
In Egyptian mythology, the moon god is a male figure. He wears a hat with a full moon on the top, symbolizing the eternity of time, which coincides with the metaphor of the Chinese moon. Take a few sentences from Zhang Ruoxu's poem above as an example:
"Who was the first person who saw the moon? And when did the moon shine on the river the first time?
Generation by generation, it is endless,
And the moon above the moon is always the same.
I don't know what the moon is waiting for. I can only see the river moving the water constantly forward."
In the river of time, the moon never changes, but people -- physically and emotionally/psychologically -- change as time passes.
In addition, I always feel that the moon in the west is metaphorically associated with darkness and gloom more than the moon in Chinese culture. For example, in western culture, it is not the beautiful Chang'e who flew to the moon but a witch riding a broom. The witch flying picture is also often decorated with a haunted house, a few black bats, or a desolated branch.
Another example is the painting Jan van Eyck's Crucifixion, in which the moon in the background is in the shape of a skull, which seems to give the moon an evil metaphor.
Another example is the painting of van Gogh's "Starry Night" (Starry Night). In the painting, the golden crescent moon is trapped in a hole; it seems like a soul imprisoned in a small space, screaming and struggling in vain.
When people's understanding of the universe was limited, the moon was a mysterious existence. I remember, as a kid, when my grandma called me for dinner after playing with my friends in the evenings, I would skip and dance home. The moon would "follow me" home. Sometimes, to test whether the moon was really following me. I would stop walking suddenly and look up whether the moon stopped as well. Sometimes, I would run fast in order to get rid of it. I felt it was interesting. Several times, I asked my grandma and grandpa why the moon always followed me? Grandma would laugh and say, "a silly child!" In ancient times, people knew little about the moon and universe like kids. They were curious and puzzled about such a beautiful, mysterious, and sometimes powerful world. But their imagination was as good as modern people's (if not better), so they imagined Chang'e, the Jade Rabbit, and other moon gods. A person grows, and humans' understanding of the world and the universe is constantly evolving. No matter how an individual would establish his relationship with the moon (and other things) during his lifetime. Everyone's relationship with the moon is unique, and everyone's fantasy when looking at the moon is different. Some of the fantasy is not even known to their conscious. I read an article about the Moon Festival on social media two days ago. I was more interested in the messages readers left. The message reflected their inner emotional state and their relationship with the moon at the moment they wrote the message. Here are some excerpts:
"Looking at the moon is the best way to miss a person." ---- This person misses someone in his heart. So when unable to see her/him, looking at the moon and asking, "Are you also looking at the moon this moment, too?"
"It is not because the moon is beautiful, but our together is beautiful."----This is a lucky person. How beautiful it is to be a loved one! It does not matter whether the moon is beautiful or not!
"The pink lotus is withering, and it's fragrance only traces left,
The bamboo mat feels cold in the fall.
Take off the clothes casually and get on the boat alone.
Looking at the white cloud,
Would anyone send the letter to me?
When the goose flies back,
The western room is full of moonlight already."
(This is a part of the poem of a poem that the female poet Li, Qingzhao wrote in Song Dynasty.) ---- This person misses somebody so much, but no words could express how he/she longs for his/her loved one. So recite a poem. Yes, some feelings are unable to express with words.
"The moon shines brightly, and the breeze blows softly. Simply enjoying the quietness and the beautiful moon alone. Give freedom to my soul for a moment." ----This friend has a tranquil mind; enjoys solitude and freedom.
"I miss you so much. Like the full moon getting thinner and thinner night after night." (思君如满月，夜夜减清辉。Zhang, Jiuling, Tang Dynasty)----Just too many thoughts about you!
"Call out the bright moonlight shining on my clear soul. Our goal is grand, like a hundred rivers coming together and running. We cannot drink the amount of the whole sea, but our swards shining in the fall. ( 唤起一天明月，照我满怀冰雪，浩荡百川流。鲸饮未吞海，剑气已横秋。Xin, Qiyi, Song Dynasty) ---- This person seems so energetic and ambitious. He is either a young man/woman who does not know what frustration and failure yet or a person had navigated through life difficulties but is not defeated and becomes even braver.
"The moon over the sea is the moon in the sky, and the person in front of me is my sweetheart" ---- This is also a lucky person.
"Zhang Ailing once said: No matter how estranged we become at the end, my feelings to you were deep. If we could go back to then, I would prefer never to know you. It's not that I regret it, but I cannot face the ending now." (Zhang Ailing is a famous Chinese right during the Republic of China) ----Everything is over, but he/she cannot pretend nothing happened.
The moon is like a mirror, silently reflecting everyone's shadow. When people look at the moon, they see their own shadow, inner world, and memories – the joys, happiness, pain, losses, hopes, and longings. People pace under the moon or toss and turn in bed while staring at the moon outside the window. The moonlight witnesses people's desires and longings and also witnesses people's loneliness, shame, regret, and anger (for others and oneself).
The moon is hanging above, like a mirror, silently looking and mirroring the good and evil, the beautiful and ugly. It just silently reflects, without judgement and advice, let alone denying and criticizing, whatever you project into it, it will accept it, accepting everything silently and calmly. Scream and curse as you please, the moon is there, coming on time when it should come, disappearing when it's time to go. It may be covered or darkened by the clouds, but it will still show up and be bright and clear again when the clouds are scattered.
That is why we love the moon.
On this Moon Festival Day, at this moment, some people are having a good time with their friends and families or lovers. Some people look at the moon on the balcony and meditate; some look up at the moon and feel something; some long for their loved ones; some are trying to remember something or someone. As one person wrote, "The moon sees all the joys and sorrows." The moon sees all but keep silent.
As a silent witness, the moon holds and contains all kinds of things in the world. The moon also reminds me of the various functions of a psychotherapist: holding, containing, and listening without judgment and preoccupation. They are the essential functions of psychotherapists.
(Understand various symbolic and metaphors in cultures to better understand yourself and other people.)
（Francy Wang 王方， September 10, 2022, in Toronto）