Full Squirrel Moon and Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

The squirrels are creating great entertainment these days for my dog Sadie!

Tonight is the full moon, called the Squirrel Moon because now the squirrels are busily gathering nuts for the winter. 

This is a good time for me to gather my forces inward.

Today is also the start of Chung Ch’iu, the 3-day Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. It's a happy and beautiful Asian family celebration that comes each year at the time of the full moon in September or October; in China it's celebrated as a harvest festival and also the moon’s birthday.

Agenda for today:
1. Update my altar
2. Journal queries
3. Work at my theme
4. Make moon cakes
5. Make floating lanterns
6. Have a moon-viewing party

1. Update my altar:

It's time to discern what to put on my altar for the next month. (For my thoughts on altars see About Altars). I generally keep it simple and choose only things that speak to me and feed me, and reveal what I believe in. I ask, what quality of the Spirit do I want to invoke?

Today I cleared my altar except for:

• dried corn- for the harvest
• God's eyes- to watch over us
• my straw doll- for abundance, luck and protection

~ Rabindranath Tagore 

and added-

• a blue candle- for stillness, thought, and study
• a quote by Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel prize winning writer from India

2. Journal queries:
The full moon is my monthly time for action and release: I look again at the “seeds of intention” I planted 2 weeks  at the new moon and decide on my next steps to take, I take those steps, then I release my expectations in order to clear space for new ideas and new intentions.

The squirrel moon is a good time to gather my forces inward, and contemplate how I will grow during this next season.

What topics of study are of interest to me now?
What are some current events or issues I wonder about? 
What new skills might be useful?

3. Practice at my theme:

My theme this month is stillness. When I leave time in my daily routine for study, writing, meditation, and prayer, I honor the full rhythm of life; the yin time of "being" balances my yang times of action and doing. In the stillness, my ego disappears for a bit. I can then turn back to the outside world, seeing myself as a part of the whole rather than as an isolated individual.

This week I started with these topics of study:

• Effectiveness and creativity (how to get things done)

• Discernment (what things to do)

• Abstract painting

• The Art of Tidying

• Current events

4. Make moon cakes:

Normally on this blog I would give you an authentic Chinese recipe, but this simplified recipe has sentimental tradition in our family.

When my children were young, the city library hosted a Moon Festival event every fall, with telescopes, Asian writing and crafts, hot tea, and all the moon cakes you could eat. We went every year. The bakery that made the moon cakes gave us this recipe, an Americanized version, and that's the recipe my family has made and loved for 25 years.

For a similar but more complex and traditional recipe see Food52.

Ingredients:

• sweet red bean paste
• 1 c. flour
• 1/2 c. butter
• 1/4 c. sour cream
• egg yolk
• red food color (optional)

Makes 8 cakes-
1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. 


Make 8 large marbles of bean paste, and put them in the freezer to chill. (You might need flour on your hands.)

2. Mix together the flour and butter until crumbly. Mix in the sour cream; stir until dough forms into a ball.

3. Knead the dough a few times then divide into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball then pat to flatten into thick 5-inch circles.

4. Put a marble of sweet red bean paste in the center of each circle, fold the edges up over the filling, and seal. Shape each into a fat round moon. If you have a mold, you can press it in now, but it's not necessary.

5. Place moon cakes on an un-greased pan. Whisk an egg yolk with a little water until smooth and spoon a little over each moon cake. Dot the center with a chopstick dipped in red food coloring (for good luck). Bake for 15 minutes at 350ºF.

6. Remove the moon cakes from the oven and let cool for about 5 minutes.

5. Make floating lanterns:

Lanterns are another key part of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Some families make handmade lanterns, including small lanterns to float, like these waterlily lanterns.

Supplies:

• small white paper plates
• green foam sheet
• pencil
• scissors
• aqua crayons or paint
• black permanent pen
• hot glue gun
• tea light

1- Draw and cut 2 small paper plates into flowers, leaving a circle in the center just big enough for a votive candle.

2- Color or paint the edges of the flowers, on the front and back side of the plate. We used aqua crayons to reduce the mess, and blended them with a damp brush.








3- Curl the petals.

4- Cut a leaf out of foam, and draw lines with a permanent marker. 

5-Hot glue the layers together, with a tea light in the center. 

6. Have a Moon Viewing Party:
In China, the big event is a picnic outside to admire the moon, with tea, moon cakes and round fruits (a symbol of family unity). 

The festival continues for three days with games and fun. During this time it is believed that flowers fall from the moon and anyone sharp-eyed enough to see them will have very good fortune.

After moon viewing, we sometimes write poetry to show our appreciation of the moon.