Dragon Boat Festival and Waxing Crescent Moon

The Dragon Boat Festival is an ancient Chinese celebration that always falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese calendar - that's five days after the new Dragon moon of May or June. It’s the third largest festival in the Chinese calendar, and it’s considered to be the start of summer.

On this day everyone watches the spectacular dragon boat races, with the paddlers moving their oars in one fluid motion while the drummer thumps out a rhythm. The races might have begun as a symbolic way to encourage the dragons to fight in heaven and bring rain, so farmers would have good crops. Today, the races are held everywhere from Rome to Seattle, and if you are near enough to see them - how wonderful!

The Chinese call this the Duan Wu Jie (pronounced Dwan woo-oo Jee-eh) or Highest Meridian Festival. A meridian is a high point, as in the sun at the solstice. The Chinese celebrate the solstice today, according to a lunar calendar, so it varies every year. Traditionally this day is dangerous and unhealthy because it’s so strongly yang, putting the forces of ying and yang out of balance.

Now the moon is waxing - getting gradually larger - until it's full again. During the waxing moon, energy remains high. In these first days of the waxing crescent moon, I will give attention to my growing energy, take first steps towards my intentions, and find my motivation to follow through with persistent action.

2018 xiangbao sachets

Agenda:

1. A Chinese chant

2. Plan first steps

3. Set more intentions

4. Mindfulness

5. Make a xiangbao sachet
6. Make zongzi (dumplings)

7. Throw zongzi in the water

1. A Chinese chant:

The Chinese word for the sun is tai-yang, which means “great yang”. Winter is a time of yin energy (shadows), and summer is a time of yang energy (sun).

Some Chinese people greet the sunrise with this chant:

Tai-yang, tai-yang! (tie-yawng)  = Sun or “great yang” 

Chu yin, (chew in)                     = Go away shadows

xian yang. (shin yawng)            = Now is (the time for) sun

 

2. Plan first steps:

Today, at the waxing crescent, I give attention to my level of energy, and prepare to act on my priorities.

What are my top priorities for action this week? Are these priorities truly leading me on the right path?

Is my energy really growing? Where do I feel resistance to action? What information or help might I need to ease the way?

What are my first steps? Do I have supplies to gather or calls to make?

How can I give full effort? 

From my journal: I ended last week off with a bang - a full day of service and community, and an evening of embarrassed humility as I tried to solve a big problem I created with my cavalier attitude about money and numbers. I worked through a solution with the help of friends, and now I will need to let go of guilt and shame and move on. BUT it's time for me to give attention to my disdain for numbers and have greater integrity with money talk.

3. Set more intentions for action:

I'm writing a few more intentions today. Remember, intentions are a proposal for the present that remind me of who I am now, and my deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for living. I write my intentions in present tense, and I use this model: action + deepest reason.

I intend to focus on the abundance in my life by remembering my blessings and getting clearer about my finances, because having greater awareness and integrity with my money will help me to be a force for equity.

I intend to grow plenty of food (plant beans, harvest peas and kale) for ourselves and to share, because home-grown food is a blessing for my family and a balm to the planet.

4. Mindfulness:

The first step towards giving full effort to my priorities is attention; I want to remember my deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for acting on my intentions, every day, and hold my intentions with gentle awareness all day long. I review my intentions first thing in the morning, turning my essential reasons into shorthand mantras. For example, three intentions I have for today are:

Godly friendship; build relationship.

Sew a landscape; express earth love.

Plant beans; feed the world.

Remembering my intentions throughout the day is a mindfulness practice; it creates energy and excitement for my priorities, but I have to take care to hold my intentions gently, not obsessively. If I begin to worry about completing my intentions, or think about them in an aggressive way, I try to back off a little. Even though I fully intend to take these actions, life sometimes shifts under my feet; and it is not my intention to feel self-loathing or anxiety.

5. Make a xiangbao:

The Chinese have many customs to protect against the excessive yang energy generated by the sun and moist heat at this time of year. My favorite is the xiangbao (pronounced shang-bow). 

Georgia made a snail.

Mothers tie these pretty sachets around the necks of children, to keep illness and bad spirits away. Xiangbao are usually silk, and they come in any imaginable shape and size, from a simple pouch, butterflies, hearts, animals- and they often have an embroidered design and a long red tassel. 

I made a butterfly xiangbao one year that I’m quite happy with, and my friend Georgia made a snail.



Supplies: Paper, pencil, scissors, silk scraps, fabric pencil, embroidery floss, needle, hoop, iron-on interfacing, potpourri, cord

1- Draw a pattern for the shape of your sachet. What could be a symbol of summer luck? a sun, butterfly, cat... It can be quite small: Mine is 3-inches across.

Also draw the embroidery design you want to decorate the shape with.


2- Iron a piece of silk. Cut out the paper pattern, and trace your shape and design onto the silk with a fabric pencil. Put silk into a hoop. 

3- Decorate your sachet with embroidery stitches. (See pictures of Chinese embroidery to get an idea of the kinds of stitches to use.)

4- Cut well outside the lines of your shape, and cut a piece of interfacing a little smaller (so it doesn't stick to your iron).



Iron the two together according to the interfacing directions.

5- Also cut a piece of silk for the back side of your sachet, and iron on interfacing for that piece too.

6- Cut the two shapes out. 

7- Whip stitch the two pieces together with embroidery floss, leaving a small hole at the top.

8- Fill with potpourri. 

9- Insert the ends of a long loop of cord, and close the hole.

5. Make zongzi (dumplings):
Everyone eats at least one zongzi rice dumpling today to bring good luck. Originally zongzi (pronounced zong-za) might have been an offering to the dragons who brought the summer rain.

Zongzi are filled with many different things- I used sweet red bean paste. 

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 c. sticky (glutinous) rice
• 6 large bamboo leaves (sold in Asian food stores)
• 1 c. sweet red bean paste
• 6 pieces of string

The recipe is here.

7. Throw zongzi in the water: 
Another tradition (that seems to tie things together in my mind) is to throw zongzi into the river, as an offering to the Dragon King, the divine ruler of the ocean. The Dragon King lives in an underwater crystal palace, and can manipulate the weather and bring rainfall.

I will take one zongzi to the creek to offer the Dragon King (and probably the ducks as well).