Sunset, Saturday, 3 April 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Some of my reactions to the sunset aren’t necessarily what you might expect from a loyal and dedicated daily follower of the sky.

Like, “What! You mean it’s changing again!?”

This fit of consternation can be attributed largely to the amount of concentration it takes to ‘assemble’ a sky while observing it, in order to paint it. I had absorbed this one pretty completely a couple of times before it changed yet again. On top of everything else, it simply became more Easteresque, with the changes – I guess purple and gold relate to some sort of ecclesiastical association.

Before this, say what you may about crucifixions, Passovers, resurrections, Calvarys, hosannas, and so on, the day’s warmth, its streaked blue sky, pale green trees, yellow flowers and pink cherry blossoms were about as sweetly pastel as it gets here. Chalk it up to the Easter Bunny.

Sunset, Saturday, 3 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Although the rising of the full moon here would appear to be tomorrow night – our moonrise tomorrow will coincide with sunset – for many Asian people living all over the world tonight is the most important night of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is a major holiday for the Chinese, and is also observed, wth variations, by people from Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

We spent part of the afternoon putting together battery-operated paper lanterns to give tonight to friends who own a Chinese restaurant; they gave us beautiful lotus-flavored ‘mooncakes’. I often paint the Mid-Autumn moonrise for them, although possibly they’re sick of them by now!

I was thinking it’s a little sad that in Western culture, although we have major holidays keyed to a phase of the moon, such as Easter and Passover, I couldn’t come up with any holidays that are in any way about the sun or the moon. I guess those went the way of the pagans. We do have one holiday of sorts on behalf of a heavenly body, and that would be Earth Day.

Tonight I found a possible connection between the ancient, 3,000-year-old Chinese Moon Festival and our modern Earth Day. Among the many stories associated with the Moon Festival is a myth that always begins with the premise that the earth once had ten suns. Each day a different one of the ten suns would light the earth. (I love this idea, of course; you could tell me there were a million different suns and I would believe you.) But one day all ten suns showed up at once, and so threatened to burn up the world.

The hero of the myth is an archer who shot down nine of the suns. That’s where Earth Day comes in, and climate change. Perhaps one day our heroes will be the archers who shoot down our nine too many suns.