{"id":1234,"date":"2013-04-04T23:31:11","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T22:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2013-04-04T23:31:11","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T22:31:11","slug":"spring-forward-fall-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1234","title":{"rendered":"Spring Forward, Fall Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, for many of us, the clocks went forward and we lost an hours sleep.\u00a0 Many in the West celebrated Easter – either by going to Church or gorging themselves on chocolate.\u00a0 Perhaps both.\u00a0 March ended and April began.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today remained bitterly cold – and although some of our smaller daffodils are out, the larger ones are still tight in their spring green wraps.\u00a0 We seem to have been locked in a strange weather pattern in the UK for a year now – with March being the coldest on record for 40 years.\u00a0 Many forget that this time last year we had 18 months of drought.\u00a0 Whoever did the rain-dance this time last year sure did a good one!<\/span><\/p>\n

In China and other countries in the East, it was a holiday – the Qingming Festival<\/b><\/em>.\u00a0 This festival has various translations including: Pure Brightness Festival; Clear Bright Festival; Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day.\u00a0 Traditionally celebrated on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox,\u00a0 it is a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime and to tend to the graves of their departed ancestors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tomb<\/a><\/p>\n

The festival\u2019s origin is credited to the Tang Emporer Xuanzong in 732. Wealthy citizens in China were reportedly holding too many extravagant and ostentatiously expensive ceremonies in honor of their ancestors. Emperor Xuanzong, seeking to curb this practice, declared that respects could be formally paid at ancestors’ graves only on Qingming.\u00a0 The observance of Qingming found a firm place in Chinese culture and has continued to root itself in many other parts of Asia.\u00a0 Any excuse for a holiday!<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea that we come out of the winter and into pure, clear brightness – and spring-clean the tombs of our ancestors does not really have an equivalent in the West. \u00a0 The Christian Church displaced many of these more pagan traditions for\u00a0 celebrating Spring by defining it as the most important festival of the Christian calendar: Easter.\u00a0 The chocolate companies partly displaced this with Easter Eggs and everything chocolate.\u00a0 We don\u2019t really have an equivalent celebration or holiday to go and sorting out our ancestors\u2019 graves on one particular day of the year.\u00a0 I suppose the closest we get is the idea of a \u201cSpring Clean\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever your belief system, though, Spring is a magic time of the year (if is ever\u00a0 going to be allowed to break free from the cold clutches of winter this year).\u00a0 It is a time of hope.\u00a0 A time of renewed energy.\u00a0 A time for cleaning those parts of your life that need cleansing.\u00a0 A time for being positive and leaning forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spring is sprung and the green shoots are surely going to break through soon!\u00a0 Happy Qingming Festival – and may your ancestors\u2019 graves be much cleaner today than they were yesterday!<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: Wikipedia, http:\/\/www.chinatouradvisors.com (picture)\u00a0and my Garden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, for many of us, the clocks went forward and we lost an hours sleep.\u00a0 Many in the West celebrated Easter – either by going to Church or gorging themselves on chocolate.\u00a0 Perhaps both.\u00a0 March ended and April began. Today remained bitterly cold – and although some of our smaller daffodils are out, the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Spring Forward, Fall Back”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[41,26,80,32,82,103,89,65,57],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DQGK-jU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":815,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=815","url_meta":{"origin":1234,"position":0},"title":"On Sustaining the Gains (and Losses)","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"05\/01\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"You are probably past the point of setting New Year\u2019s resolutions and have forgotten the one you set last year.\u00a0 Yet when you look back a year and look forward a year, it is surprising how little changes and how much stays the same. 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