What is the festival when the dragon looks up?

Dragon Head Raising (the second day of the second lunar month), also known as Spring Farming Festival, Farming Festival, Qinglong Festival and Spring Dragon Festival, is a traditional folk festival in China. "Dragon" refers to the astrology of the oriental black dragon in seven of the twenty-eight lodges. At the beginning of mid-spring every year, the "Dragon Horn Star" rises from the eastern horizon, so it is called "Dragon Head Up".

"The dragon looks up" means that the sun is the spirit and everything is full of vitality. Therefore, since ancient times, people have held ceremonies of offering sacrifices to the dragon gods and praying for rain to release them, in order to have an auspicious harvest in a year, and regard the season when the dragon heads up as an auspicious day of transshipment.

There is a saying in China that "on February 2, the village community worships; The dragon looked up and prayed for a bumper harvest; August 2, village hall; The dragon is over. Send it back. In terms of solar terms, the first day of February in the lunar calendar is between "rain", "fright" and "vernal equinox", and many places in southern China have begun to enter the rainy season. As the saying goes, "it doesn't rain if the dragon doesn't look up." "

In the ancient godhead genealogy, the dragon is the god of the sea and is in charge of rainfall. Rainfall is directly related to the harvest of crops in a year. Therefore, in order to make the dragon god make clouds and rain, the dragon should confess in front of the dragon temple when he looks up, hold a grand sacrifice ceremony and sing a big drama to entertain the dragon. Worship dragons and pray for rain, and let them go for a good harvest in a year; There are also some places where there are "dragon boat rowing" activities on the Dragon Head Festival.

Festival source:

The rhetoric of "dragon heads up" comes from ancient astronomy. In ancient times, people chose 28 groups of stars near the equator of the ecliptic as coordinates as reference objects for observing astronomical phenomena. According to the orbit and position of the sun, moon and stars, the ancients divided the astrology near the ecliptic into 28 groups, commonly known as "twenty-eight hostages".

"Accommodation" means to live, because they are surrounded by the sun, the moon and the five stars, much like the place where the sun, the moon and the five stars live, so they are called "accommodation". "Twenty-eight Hostels" are divided into four groups according to the four directions of east, west, north and south, resulting in "four elephants".

The seven nights in the East are called "Jiao, Kang, Earth, Fang, Xin, Wei and Ji Pan", which form a complete dragon-shaped astrology. People call it the "Oriental Black Dragon", in which the horn lodge represents the dragon's horn, Kang lodge represents the dragon's throat, Di lodge represents the dragon's claw, Xin lodge represents the dragon's heart, and Wei lodge and Jisu lodge represent the dragon's heart.

In winter, the seven nights in Black Dragon are hidden under the northern horizon. In mid-spring (between the vernal equinox and vernal equinox), arcturus (one star and two stars) appears on the eastern horizon. At this time, the whole body of the black dragon was still hidden below the horizon, but arcturus appeared first, so it was called "Dragon Looking Up".

Mid-spring, mid-summer flying, mid-autumn diving. They all refer to the subtle changes of black dragon's seven nights, but there are not really beasts and dragons changing.