Great cold, the last solar term of the lunar year. At this point, some unforgiving meaning of years has been born in the chest. Time is like a white colt passing through the gap, in the gap of the whiskers, we see the changes of the year: scenery, customs, and risks of storms...
The Tang Dynasty poet Lu Zhaolin was not worried about the past year, and he said with great anticipation: "I wish to grow like this, and every year the phenology is new." ”
Because the rotation of the four seasons has always been the most beautiful change in the world. It means that whatever it was, it will pass, and as long as we walk along the river of time, we will enter the spring again.
This is the romance of the Great Cold, which should be the end, all are new.
origin
The cold is extremely cold
Every year on January 20 or 21, the sun reaches 300° ecliptic longitude and enters the cold season.
What is Great Cold? The ancients had a different view.
"Freezing three feet is not a cold day." Yes, it takes nearly 90 days of cold to accumulate a large clump. The great cold is a manifestation of the extreme expansion of the cold.
Figure 2| Cool Ground - Jie Xuan ©
However, there is another record in the "Time-granting Examination": "The reverse pole of the cold is called the great cold." "When this leather ball swelled to the point of no return, on the day of the great cold, a long breath of air, all the cold was completely revealed, and it became a huge snowy ground, which made people shiver.
When it was cold and miserable, the ancients had another idea. It was the heavens and the earth that unreservedly expressed their cold breath that everything came to a critical point. The critical point of winter is spring, the critical of cold is warm, and the old critical is new.
The greatness of the great cold is a grand coming.
Phenological
Winter and spring are clashing
In the cold, the ice of Beijing's Shichahai sea froze to the center. The "Supplementary Notes of Ji Sheng in the Age of Emperor Jing" records: "Shichahai and the moat on the ice are all practitioners of the people. ”
People with their wives and children, go out of the house, to the ice lake to participate in ice and snow sports, called "ice play". This entertainment continues to this modern day, but on a sunny day, parents and children, or two grandchildren, or alone, come to the lake and ride an ice bike to the middle of the lake.
However, the ice is very short- and as long as people hear the sound of "ice roar" one night, that is, the frozen ice cubes in the middle of the lake suddenly expand and emit a dull low sound. The ice cracks and hydrolyzes and can no longer be played.
The ice roar was called by the old Beijingers as the sound of spring deep underground. This is the phenology of the Great Cold. They are subversive because they hide the clash of spring and winter.
Big Cold | Three waits
Wait for the chicken to start milk | The hens at home sensed the spring in advance and began to lay eggs to hatch the chicks and give birth to new births.
The second migratory bird | Birds of prey refer to birds that fly far away, such as birds of prey such as the falcon. In the cold, because it is too frozen, most animals dare not easily haunt, hungry falcons, can only violently circle the air in search of prey.
Mizusawa belly is strong | The upper and lower parts of the lake have been frozen, indicating that there is already solid ice in the depths of the lake.
Big Cold | Flower trade winds
In recent years, the flower market is prosperous. Especially in the south, such as a few days before the Spring Festival in a normal year in Guangzhou, all districts have opened flower markets, and an old Guang said that he is most looking forward to it: "The whole road is sealed, and you can really walk in the center with a big swing, pick and choose, and then carry it home." ”
Oranges, yellow chrysanthemums, red palms, snow willows, daffodils, peach blossoms... These are called The New Year Flowers. The fuller and more vivid the color, the more popular it is. By the time Nian Hua went to every household, the year was near.
Figure 1| Qingke ©
In nature, some flowers that are not widely invited into the house are also quietly blooming in the cold. However, the three flowers of the big cold flower trade wind, except for the orchid, the other two are not often heard in our time.
And their flowers are small, the leaves are long, the color is light, compared with the common bright flowers, it is not easy to attract people's attention. However, the incense is strong, and it opens at the end of the new year, and it is called the fragrance of Xiangrui. Their bloom also heralds the arrival of the new spring.
A wait for Ruixiang | Ruixiang, recorded in the Song Dynasty "Qing Yilu". A bhikkhu slept on a stone in the middle of the day, and was awakened by the fragrance of flowers in his dream, and when he woke up, he found several small clusters of flowers, hidden in the depths of green leaves, and the incense attacked people, thinking that it was the auspicious rui in the flowers, it was called "Ruixiang".
Orchids | Lan, one of the four friends in the snow. One or two flowers, three or five leaves, with a quiet aroma, are the favorite things offered by the literati in the early years.
Sanhou Mountain Alum | Alum is a small wildflower with small flowers, but white as snow, often blooming with snow.
husbandry
And happy little reunion on earth
Different from other festivals, in just ten days of the Great Cold, there are many traditional festivals, such as tail teeth, small year, Chinese New Year's Eve, Spring Festival and so on. This has to do with the ancients' romantic view of time.
The Book of Rites records: "It is the month (the twelfth month of the lunar calendar), the day is poorer than the second, the moon is poor in the age, and the stars return to the sky." The number will end, the years will begin. ”
That is to say, in this month, the sun completes the year's journey, the moon completes its last encounter with the sun, and the stars orbit the sky for a week. Time ends from one, that is, completeness; time begins from one, that is, the new year.
Therefore, "The Son of Heaven is to share the national scriptures with the Secretary of State, and to discuss the seasons, so that it is appropriate to wait for the coming years." "The future is entrusted to the Son of Heaven to do, and the people of the people will eat, drink, play and rejoice, and bid farewell to this year."
The "Tail Tooth Festival" is the beginning of the farewell. Doing "tooth" refers to the second and sixteenth day of the first lunar month to worship the land lord, put various offerings on the table, and let the land public "beat the tooth sacrifice". Make the first two teeth in february and eat spring cakes; on the second day of December, make tail teeth and eat white chopped chicken.
There is an anecdote that it is said that who the chicken head is facing means that the boss is going to fire someone the next year. But not so cruel, the boss will take the initiative to turn the chicken head towards himself, let everyone have a good meal together, say goodbye to the past, and treat themselves well.
And every day after that, it will bring the taste of the Year.
"Twenty-three, the priestess; twenty-four, sweep the house; twenty-five, make tofu; twenty-six, go and cut meat; twenty-seven, kill the rooster; twenty-eight, put the noodles; twenty-nine, steamed steamed steamed buns; stay up all night at thirty nights; walk the streets in the first two days of the first month."
The great cold opened the prelude to the year. People don't have the heart to work, just stay for the New Year.
Then, at present, we do not care about the past, and we like a small reunion on earth.
mores
Sweet and sticky for the coming year
Sticky, like a limited delicacy of the year. Ningbo's water mill rice cakes, Sichuan's leaf rakes, Southern Fujian's red peach rice dumplings, and their own variety of rice dumplings, are all "sticky".
Stick to the heart of the wanderer, persuade him to go home quickly; cling to the arrival of the year, may it continue.
【Rice cake】
Playing rice cakes, also known as rice cakes, is the most important thing in the great cold. People take the washed glutinous rice, grind it into a powder, and then steam it, you can smear it on the panel, and the powder ball is compacted one by one with a bar, which is called "playing rice cake". Finally, it is cut into a round, fat strip, and eaten in water or boiled or fried in oil during the New Year, which has the meaning of annual step by step.
【舂糍粑】
Rice is directly poured into the stone spoon of cooked glutinous rice, one person is responsible for beating it with a mallet, and one person is responsible for flipping it. On a cold day, after half a day of exertion, the body is hot, and the rice is still not polished as a powder, so it can only be said to be "scoop". However, the taste of that granule will give people a real and concrete satisfaction.
【Red Peach Kon】
Guangdong Chaoshan people worship "Lao Ye" ("Lao Ye" is the local people's collective name for the gods) for the New Year, and it must be indispensable to red peach kun.
The color is a cute pink, which is cooked with sticky rice flour and cheng powder, mixed well, kneaded, and then stuffed into a mold with the shape of a "shou peach" and "printed kun". Each red peach is printed with a simple "huizi pattern", or a big "Fu" character.
In our time, festivals have many modern flavors or modern habits, but the red peach kon has consistently inherited the flavor of traditional festivals.
worry
After the great cold, another spring
Unconsciously, we have gone from Lichun to Dahan, and the year will end.
In fact, there has been a question as to whether the twenty-four solar terms, which originated and flourished in farming, are still necessary to pay attention to in an era when we no longer rise and rest at sunset.
So we began to search for the answer from Lichun. After experiencing the blowing noodles and the cold willow wind, I knew that the winter cold had completely passed; when I came to Xiaoman, I found that it was the season when the birds were chirping, and people and all things rejoiced; it turned out that only by surviving the sweaty three-volt day could we greet the arrival of a grand harvest in the autumn; finally the snow fell silently, the plum blossoms were darkly fragrant, and the four hours naturally became old.
In the era of rapids, we come with the twenty-four solar terms, and life seems to have four seasons. We drank tea and went out to enjoy the flowers according to the festival, and time seemed to have traces of beauty.
Suddenly I understand that what the twenty-four solar terms contain is the wisdom of dealing with life with a beautiful eye.
More importantly, people worship and celebrate according to the festival. For example, at this moment, cooking smoke slowly rises in the suburbs, waiting for the return of the wanderer. The city street corner gradually sounded the New Year song, urging pedestrians to step. The cold of the snow, because of the Spring League and the New Year paintings, has a green and green.
The twenty-fourth solar terms are not only not far away, but also inherit the warmest memories of Chinese.
Figure | Qingke ©
The change of the festival also gives us deep hope. This day is a big cold, the last festival, but no one is discouraged by this, but instead they are in a good mood.
Because waiting for the old season to pass, it is the New Year that arrives as scheduled.
Because the difference between today and today is that he meets in the spring.
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