Small Seasons
In agricultural days, staying in-tune with the seasons was important. When should we plant seeds? When should we harvest? When will the rains come? Are they late this year? Knowing what was happening with nature was the difference between a plentiful harvest and a barren crop.
Prior to the Gregorian calendar, farmers in China and Japan broke each year down into 24 sekki or “small seasons.” These seasons didn't use dates to mark seasons, but instead, they divided up the year by natural phenomena:
Meaning | Associations | Approx. Date | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Spring | Risshun | 立春 | Start of spring | Ground thaws, fish appear under ice. | Feb 4 | |
Usui | 雨水 | Rain waters | Snow recedes, mist lingers in the air. | Feb 18 | ||
Keichitsu | 啓蟄 | Going-out of the worms | Bugs surface from hibernation. | Mar 6 | ||
Shunbun | 春分 | Vernal equinox | Sparrows start to nest, cherry blossoms bloom. | Mar 21 | ||
Seimei | 清明 | Clear and bright | Geese fly north, the first rainbows of the year appear. | Apr 4 | ||
Kokū | 穀雨 | Rain for harvests | Reeds sprout by rivers, rice seedlings grow. | Apr 21 | ||
Summer | Rikka | 立夏 | Start of summer | Birds and frogs start the songs of summer. | May 6 | |
Shōman | 小満 | Small blooming | Flowers and plants bloom, wheat ripens. | May 21 | ||
Bōshu | 芒種 | Seeds and cereals | Praying mantises hatch, fireflies come out. Time to seed the soil. | Jun 5 | ||
Geshi | 夏至 | Reaching summer | Longest days of the year, irises bloom. | Jun 21 | ||
Shōsho | 小暑 | Small heat | Warm winds blow, young hawks learn to fly. | Jul 7 | ||
Taisho | 大暑 | Big heat | Summer heat at its strongest, accompanied by great rains. | Jul 23 | ||
Autumn | Risshu | 立秋 | Start of autumn | Cooler winds blow, thick fogs roll through hills. | Aug 8 | |
Shosho | 処暑 | Lessening heat | Rice has ripened, the heat of summer, forgotten. | Aug 23 | ||
Hakuro | 白露 | White dew | Drops of dew on grass. | Sep 7 | ||
Shubun | 秋分 | Autumnal equinox | Day and night are of equal length. | Sep 23 | ||
Kanro | 寒露 | Cold dew | Temperatures begin to drop, crickets stop chirping. | Oct 8 | ||
Sōkō | 霜降 | Frosting | The first frosts, maple leaves turn yellow. | Oct 23 | ||
Winter | Ritto | 立冬 | Start of winter | The ground starts to freeze. | Nov 8 | |
Shōsetsu | 小雪 | Small snow | Light snow, the last leaves have fallen from trees. | Now | Nov 23 | |
Taisetsu | 大雪 | Big snow | Cold sets in, bears hibernate. | Dec 8 | ||
Tōji | 冬至 | Winter solstice | Shortest days of the year. | Dec 22 | ||
Shōkan | 小寒 | Small cold | Temperatures quickly drop. | Jan 6 | ||
Daikan | 大寒 | Big cold | Ice thickens on the streams, hens huddle together. | Jan 20 |
Living in cities, most of us don’t need to know if the rains are late this year, or when the bushwarblers will start warbling.
But it's nice to have a more fine-grained way of thinking about the year; dividing such a big span of time into four big seasons feels really clumsy. Thinking in two week sekki seems to match how my life and environment changes a lot better.
Follow along with the changing of the seasons on this site, with @smallseasonsbot on Bluesky, Mastodon, or on your own calendar (Google, iCal). These are a few ways for me to enshrine this idea.
I'd love to push this idea further, make it more useful for people. If you have ideas of how you'd like to see this stuff, throw a note on this Github repo.