Southern Hemisphere Moon Festival

Happy Chinese Harvest Moon Festival! However, being in the Southern Hemisphere, we are not exactly celebrating an Autumn harvest, rather a Spring planting and sprouting season. Our vegetable garden is just beginning to sprout, the beans first to break the soil, their early leaves now spreading green and shining. Hopefully the potatoes will soon follow and we will have plenty to enjoy before the end of the season in March. Nonetheless, a good excuse to fill the house with fruit offerings, incense, and warm thoughts of our friends and family all over the world. Christine and I celebrated alone this year for the actual offering of fruit, but later in the night met up with friends in Niebla (the neighboring coastal town), toasting the Moon as it flirted with us from behind the clouds and cast an enchanting glow over the ocean waves below. Although Chileans do not typically salute the Moon in October, the celebration's essence was definitely embraced. Happy Moon Festival!