【Author said】
Phenology has rhythms, and it is glamorous
—— Beauty and quality in "Twenty-Four Solar Terms in Jiangnan"
Yuan Jin (Associate Professor, School of Cultural Communication and Cultural Creativity, Hangzhou Normal University)
"Flowers and trees know the seasons, and birdsong announces four o'clock." In nature, the animal's sleep, resurrection, first song, reproduction, migration, plant budding, long leaves, flowering, fruiting, withering, as well as the condensation and ablation of frost, etc. all move with the seasons, and the cycle begins, so they themselves become the symbol of the rotation of seasons, known as "phenology".
In the long primitive society, the method of phenological determination of time was widely used in fishing and hunting and early agricultural production. The ancients incorporated their long-term experience of observing plants, birds, animals, insects, and weather phenomena into the twenty-four solar terms system to supplement the phenological signs that mark solar terms. Each solar term has obvious phenological marker characteristics, which are subdivided into "three weathers" and seventy-two "waiting". The twenty-four solar terms and the seventy-two weather should be the hallmarks of the seasonal climate change period, and the time of its beginning and end establishes precise nodes in this set of time-based cognitive sequences.
Fangfei on earth is the most seasonal
Phenology is the language of nature, solar terms phenology will be complex climate change, linear concept of time into a vivid and perceptible phenomenon of life, so that the solar terms present a unique natural beauty and spiritual temperament.
For example, the sting came, the earth warmed up, the thunder started, awakening the insects that were dormant in the soil, and the natural vitality broke through the earth. The three stings are "one wait for the peach to start the flower, the second wait for the partridge to sing, and the third wait for the eagle to turn into a dove". Not only did the insects and ants wake up and the yellow warblers chirped, but they also opened the peach blossoms. The peach is the messenger of spring, and the verse "Peach of the Peach, Burning its Glory" in the Book of Poetry and National Wind has been chanted for thousands of years, and the love legend of "Peach Blossom with Human Face" is still talked about today. By the spring equinox, greenery filled the fields of the countryside on the outskirts, and all kinds of wild vegetables sprouted up, one by one, tender and bright green, attracting people who were stepping on the green could not help but take a pocket. At this time, in nature, the steps are light and the heart is comfortable.
During the Qing Dynasty, there was also a "Spring Character Song" in the Jiangnan area, which was popular and kind, catchy, and the lyrics were: "Spring spring wind moves, spring river spring water flows." Spring people drink spring wine, and spring officials whip spring cattle. Eight consecutive "spring" words, between the flow of rhymes, quite a spring of agility.
"Twenty-four solar terms in Jiangnan" by Yuan Jin xiao fang, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House
Fangfei in the world is the most seasonal, so there is a saying of "twenty-four flower trade winds". A wind blows open the flowers in season, and people choose the most accurate one of the flowering periods as a representative of this festival, called "flower trade winds", which means to bring the message of blossoms. The ancients took five days as a whole and three times as a festival. Every year from the small cold to the end of the rain in the valley in the next year, the eight solar terms are the "twenty-four flower trade winds". Plum blossoms are the first, neem flowers are the end, and the seasons are colorful and different colors. Among them, the small cold flowers are plum blossoms, camellia and daffodils, plum blossoms with swirling branches and high posture; camellia leaves are green and vibrant; daffodils are fragrant and graceful. On the cold day of March 9, the wind came and the flowers had faith, adding color to Xiao Suo's heaven and earth.
The purpose of life is gradually being reborn
The twenty-four solar terms are a unique set of time systems established by ancient ancestors in observing astronomy and phenology, perceiving their own changes, and recording agricultural production and social life, and are a comprehensive knowledge system for the symbiosis and integration of astronomy, phenology and personnel activities. In traditional farming societies, it is seen as a time frame that can be relied upon, and the appearance of certain characteristic floral plants, changes in the weather, and the migration of insects, fish, birds, and animals are considered to be the "natural" occurrence of the corresponding solar terms. As a result, the connection between phenology and people's life and production has become increasingly close, and has become a meaningful form of existence, which is endowed with the beauty of life in the rhythm of social operation.
This aesthetic experience of life is the taste and emotional identity contained in the life customs formed in history, and it is the vitality nurtured within the living world. People get resources from nature, but also integrate delicate emotions, simple life expectations and visions.
Every year around the beginning of autumn, farmers are busy "drying autumn", choosing an open space in front of and behind the house and on the roof platform, and successively drying the vegetables and grains harvested in the field. At that time, red peppers, golden imperial chrysanthemums, yellow corn, sauce-colored dried vegetables, green oil tea fruits, etc., were spread in the sun, dried in the sun, stretched out from every household, like oil paintings, the colors were so rich that they could not be dissolved, and the joy of good years of adulthood rippled like waves. At the same time, on the basis of the beauty of grass and trees, the interest of life has gradually grown.
Wanyou Tongchun Tu (Partial) Qian Weicheng [Qing] Picture from "Twenty-Four Solar Terms in Jiangnan"
Another example is the "three whites" of Jiangnan - gardenia, white orchid and jasmine. The flowers were delicately placed in baskets by the grandmother who was sold along the street, fragrant and white, like the breath of the grandmother's deep hall. The girls weave small lanterns of inch length out of wheat straw, place jasmine flowers in them, or pretend to be small flower baskets, and hang them in the boudoir, so that the pillows are fragrant and dream. So time is no longer a monotonous number, but a story of time with a plot, helping people to coordinate their relationship with nature, and life is full of joy and purpose.
There is also Qingming, this festival on the fifteenth day after the spring equinox, Yangchun March, the heavens and the earth are clear, people travel to qingqing, run to the wild, go to the grave to worship ancestors, dig spring shoots, pick wild vegetables, fly kites, and all natural things and people sprout vigorous vitality.
The close connection between people and phenology is also concentrated in its crisis early warning function. Farmers traditionally "measure the weather", thinking that phenological abnormalities can be used to warn of some kind of natural disasters in order to do some preventive measures, which has produced many agricultural proverbs. For example, "water drenches the head of the spring bull, and the farmer worries for a hundred days", which means that if it rains during the "whipping spring cow" ceremony on the spring day, a spring drought will occur in this year. There are also "Li Xia Lei singing, early rice pests" and so on. At this time, the solar terms are not only a simple time pass, and the phenology is not just a natural object, but carries the emotional projection of people based on the intuitive feelings of life.
This is where cultural philosophies come
As a phenology of the symbol of the form of solar terms, its connotation is constantly strengthened and expanded in people's cycles of life, and gradually departs from specific natural scenes and becomes a spiritual cultural symbol, which is integrated into various customs, legends, rituals, and entertainment, and passed down from generation to generation.
For example, in the records, Sycamore is regarded as the messenger of autumn. The Ming Dynasty Zhang Dai believes in the "Night Sailing Ship Autumn" that this statement originates from the ancient poem "A sycamore leaves fall, and the world knows autumn". "Sycamore Autumn" used to be a court ritual. Volume IV of the "Record of Dreams" records that at that time, the sycamore trees were planted in the imperial palace of Lin'an in the capital city, and on the autumn day, the Taishi official was dressed in a Chinese costume and holding a wat, and when it was time for the Liqiu Festival, he loudly and loudly played the newspaper "Autumn is coming!" In the concussive sound waves, "at that time, the leaves of the plane flew down one or two pieces", which was very appropriate. The Southern Song Dynasty cloth poet Liu Han lived in Lin'an for a long time and wrote a poem "Li Qiu", which has a sentence cloud: "Sleeping in autumn is nowhere to be found, full of steps in the moon and the moon." "Wutong has spirituality, can "enlighten autumn" and know the seasons.
There is also a game of singing "nine songs" on the winter solstice, which includes various phenological phenomena from midwinter to Yangchun. This kind of game refers to the fact that everywhere enters the coldest period of time from the winter solstice, and from then on, "to nine nine eighty-one days and cold ends", called "counting nine", commonly known as "nine in a row". The "Counting Nine Songs" record mostly the weather that the local people are accustomed to, in order to remember the cold and heat, so the content of the lyrics is not the same in different places. The Qing Jia Lu records a song in Suzhou: "In 1929, Xiang Summoning Fu shot." Thirty-nine twenty-seven, the hedge blows the whip. Forty-nine thirty-six, night sleep like open sleep... Eighty-nine-seventy-two, cats and dogs lie on the ground. Ninety-nine eighty-one, the poor man suffered. Just about to stretch out to sleep, mosquitoes and fleas came out. "Counting Nine Songs" is catchy, kind and natural, "nine" is the number of the yang, with the meaning of "one yang he winter", the song and "nine" are connected, that is, auspicious, it takes this meaning. Between the flow of sound and rhyme, the picture of natural changes from the harsh winter to the yangchun slowly unfolds.
Phenological symbols with folk connotations are also loved by writers, and are an important resource for the creation of traditional poetry and songs and novels. In the process of resonating with the writer's individual creative consciousness and collective emotion, the aesthetic sense of phenology of the festival has been elevated to a new height and has become a highly condensed cultural aesthetic symbol. For example, once the frost falls, the maple leaves of the mountain are like flames that ignite the splendor of late autumn, responding to Du Mu's exclamation of "parking and sitting in love with the maple forest at night, and the frost leaves are red in February flowers".
The ancients observed nature, gained wisdom from celestial phenomena and objects, and applied phenological symbols such as grass and trees, birds and insects to cultivation and daily life, which became an important part of the twenty-four solar terms time system. In the long historical evolution and cultural inheritance, it has continuously evolved, condensed and sublimated, and further transformed into symbolic symbols, becoming Chinese unique national cultural symbols, aesthetic objects and local traditions, and developing into important spiritual wealth in the process of life time of generation after generation.
Even in today's hustle and bustle, the idea of harmonious coexistence between man and nature is still very important. For man, past, present or future, man has always lived in the rhythms of the universe and nature. At present, the inheritance of seasonal interest and phenological beauty is to absorb traditional cultural resources in the new cultural environment, reshape the harmonious relationship between man and nature, and respond to people's anxiety about the lack of cultural identity and sense of belonging, so as to generate a new life culture and aesthetic culture, which is transformed into cultural self-confidence and life well-being.
Guangming Daily ( 2022-03-14 15th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily