Winter solstice (tooji)

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Winter solstice (tooji, Japan)

***** Location: Japan, worldwide
***** Season: Mid-Winter
***** Category: Season

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Explanation

Winter solstice, tooji 冬至
The 21st of December.
On this special day, we eat pumpkin soup and take a bath with yuzu fruit (see below). This a Japanese custom to keep your good health in the winter season.
This day is also called "The sun is coming back" (ichiyoo raifuku　一陽来復）. Yin and Yang are changing. Bad things are coming to an end and new, better ones are to be expected.

Etsuko Yanagibori

For Summer Solstice, see below.

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Some Astronomical Facts

As the Earth travels around the Sun in its orbit, the north-south position of the Sun changes over the course of the year due to the changing orientation of the Earth's tilted rotation axes with respect to the Sun. A QuickTime movie illustrates the tilt of the Earth's equatorial plane relative to the Sun which is responsible for the seasons. The dates of maximum tilt of the Earth's equator correspond to the summer solstice and winter solstice, and the dates of zero tilt to the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox.

In the northern hemisphere, the Winter solstice is day of the year (near December 22) when the Sun is farthest south. However, in the southern hemisphere, winter and summer solstices are exchanged so that the winter solstice is the day on which the Sun is farthest north. The winter solstice marks the first day of the season of winter. The declination of the Sun on the (northern) winter solstice is known as the tropic of capricorn (-23° 27').

The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, respectively, in the sense that the length of time elapsed between sunrise and sunset on this day is a minimum for the year. Of course, daylight saving time means that the first Sunday in April has 23 hours and the last Sunday in October has 25 hours, but these human meddlings with the calendar and do not correspond to the actual number of daylight hours. In Chicago, there are 9:20 hours of daylight on the winter solstice of December 22, 1999.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/WinterSolstice.html





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Worldwide use

Ireland

The Winter Solstice, or Yule,
is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. It is associated with the birth of the Sun King. It falls on the first day of winter, which is either 21 or 22 December, and is celebrated as the day that the Sun is reborn (later adapted by Christianity as the "son" is born) to warm the Earth again. Yule comes from the word Jule, which in Old Norse means, "wheel."

Celtic people celebrate Yule as the battle between the aging Holly King, who represents the darkness of the old year, and the young Oak King, who symbolizes the light of the new year. Sometimes the battle is re-enacted during the burning of the Yule log — which is done to encourage the Sun's easy birth, welcome it back to Earth.

This was a time of joy and hope — a holiday meant to uplift spirits weary from winter and a time to appreciate the wonders that will come with the spring.

Along with the evergreen, the holly and the ivy and the mistletoe were important plants of the season, all symbolizing fertility and everlasting life. According to the Bardic Tradition, the Winter Solstice was called 'Alban Arthan' by the Druids. It was then that the Chief Druid cut the sacred mistletoe from the Oak. The Celtic Druids would cut the mistletoe with a golden sickle on the sixth night of the moon. Later Christian churches would ban mistletoe from Christmas celebrations because of its fertility rite connotations.

In addition to fertility rituals, divinations were cast for the coming Spring both through ritual means and through good-natured taunting and wagering.
©　www.irelandsown.net

.....

Silver-white frostwork
sleeping in winter-clad towns:
Yule hibernation

Nuala Ní Chonchúir
(from ¡Divas! New Irish Women's Writing publ. by Arlen House)



WKD : Winter Solstice in Ireland


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Winter Solstice Celebrations around the World
www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm


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Things found on the way

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HAIKU



By Soji
http://www.haikupoetshut.com/

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風雲の少しく遊ぶ冬至かな
fuu-un no sukoshiku asobu tooji kana

wind and clouds
playing just a little -
winter soltice
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

Ishida Hakyo (1913-1969)　石田波郷　
http://jindaiji.co.jp/sobazen/199712.html
http://www.lib.ehime-u.ac.jp/KUHI/ENG/hakyoeng.html

Fuu-un can also mean: winds and clouds/elements/situation/state of affairs

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winter solstice
headlights
in both directions

willard

From the Shiki Archives. The Photo above is also from this link.
Read more haiku on this topic here:
http://shiki1.cc.ehime-u.ac.jp/~shiki/kukai/kukai51-1.html

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winter solstice
a titmouse moves deeper
into the bush

B. Ross


winter solstice-
where are my
sheepskin slippers?

Kate Steere
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cherrypoetryclub/message/21086

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Beethoven
and some incense smoke -
the longest night

Beethoven
und Incenserauch -
die laengste Nacht

Gabi Greve
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/977

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winter solstice
a rainbow
around the moon

susan delphine delaney

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winter solstice -
a dark shadow grows
darker

gabi greve, Dezember 2008

I Ching 24. Fu - Return (The Turning Point)
and some musings about American Haiku


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Related words

***** Plum blossoms of the Winter Solstice
(tooji bai　冬至梅）
The Japanese UME is in fact an apricot, but usually translated as plum blossoms.

http://www.mpchiba.com/yomoyama_hanashi/023.html

apricot blossoms
start to bloom
the winter solstice

etsuko yanagibori

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堀端の風の甘さや冬至梅
horibata no kaze no amasa ya tooji bai

the wind from the riverbank
smells so sweet -
plums at winter solstice
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

http://www.hpmix.com/home/tetsuan/R39.htm

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The Winter Solstice day and the time around it is a time to care for your health, with food like this and with a hot bath.


***** Pumpkin Soup at the Winter Solstice (tooji kabocha 冬至南瓜）

***** Rice Gruel at the Winter Solstice (tooji-gayu　冬至粥)

***** Yuzu Bath on the Winter Solstice Day (tooji yu 冬至湯, tooji-buro冬至風呂)
... ... see Yuzu (citron family)

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***** Long Night (yonaga, nagaki yo 夜長、長き夜）　
kigo for atumn
(The above link also includes explanations for : short night, long day, short day.)

Properly speaking, the longest night is that of the winter solstice (around 21 December by the Gregorian calendar), but "long night(s)" as an autumn topic is based less on the calendar than on poetic sensibility: the contrast with summer's brief nights. At night-work or reading a book in the pleasant climate of autumn, one keenly feels the lengthening nights.


山鳥の枝ふみかゆる夜長かな
yamadori no eda fumikayuru yonaga kana

a copper pheasant's
feet fidget on the branch--
this long night

Buson ... 蕪村

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よそに鳴る夜長の時計数へけり
yoso ni naru yonaga no tokei kazoekeri

distant strikings
of a clock in the long night--
I counted each

Sugita Hisajo .... 杉田久女

There are more examples here:
JAPANESE Virginia University Saijiki

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long night
moon playing hide and seek
with the sun

Ella Wagenmakers

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***** Yuzu Bath on the Winter Solstice Day (tooji yu 冬至湯, tooji-buro冬至風呂)
see Yuzu (citron family)

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***** Summer Solstice (geshi　夏至)
kigo for summer


Chinese astronomers determining the summer solstice
The Mathematics of the Chinese Calendar


The Summer Solstice is the beginning of the Astronomical Summer, and is often considered the start of summer in the United States (even though Summer vacations started at the end of the school year--usually in May).
The traditional European Summer, as well as the definition of Summer used for Japanese haiku, has the Summer Solstice as the middle of the Summer season.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season


Click HERE to see more photos, of Stonehenge and other places


first night of summer...
neither the mockingbird
nor I can sleep

© gK
http://tinywords.com/haiku/2002/07/30/

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summer solstice --
an old pine anchors
the moon

Laryalee Frazer, 2005

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summer solstice--
we hang suspended
in the first light

John Daleiden, June 2006


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