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+-- Higan --+
The autumnal equinox September 23rd These flowers are called Higan-bana which means the flower of the equinox. As you know, we have the equinox twice a year, but, actually, it's just the autumn equinox when we can see this flower. The vernal equinox generally makes people feel like everything around us is going to come to life, because the daytime will be longer and longer after we pass it, while the autumn equinox reminds us the reverse. Around the autumn equinox, we have the time for the fruition. We're ready to eat it, then everything is going back to the darkness once for the rebirth. If we consider the world to be consisted of the positive and the negative, the equinox is the bridge with which we can cross the border between the positive side and the negative side which also mean the life and the death, the light and the darkness, the daytime and the nighttime, this world and the other world. The daytime and the nighttime are exactly same on the border at the equinox, so the positive side and the negative side are combined twice a year on the joint of the wheel of the time. Higan is written as the other side of the shore in chinese characters. It is considered like that this world for us, living things, is separated from the other world for the dead things by the river. We have the custom to visit the graves of our ancestors in the 7 days around the equinox.It means the dead people can visit the world for us by crossing the river just during the period. We can find Higan-bana mainly on the riverside. It must have been easy to associate those read flowers with the souls of the dead people. It's not few people who don't like Higan-bana very much, because they remember the idea of the death when they see it. But, it's also true there are not few people who feel this flower beautiful, especially when this gregarious flowers make the field like the red carpet. Red can be the color of the death, and it can be also the color of the life. |