Persimmon, Ginkgo and Saptaparni: Announcing the Rhythm of Life through Seasons

“Show your warm clothes some Sun,” advised the tuck-shop lady when I was paying for the milk.
“Shuāng Jiàng lai la,” she explained and I nodded.

It is the last term of autumn season in China when the frost begins to form. This year the ‘Frost Descent’ falls on the 23rd of October. The leaves turn auburn and the Chinese maple turns to a deeper maroon moving to a flaring bright color before it bids a farewell. You can feel a slight chill starts to develop in this part of the Chinese mainland, a nip in the air which bites your nose.

The season moves slowly through the year but not without a well-devised pattern. A pattern which had been set in stone by the ancient Chinese who observed and marked the seasons understanding the inherent cyclical nature. However, not all of China experiences the same seasonality as the rest.

The north is colder than the south, and the Qinling–Huaihe line, the traditional dividing line between them, shapes what grows, what is eaten and how people live on either side.

It’s captivating to see the Chinese calendar marked with changes in wind, temperature and the slow cadence of seasons passing the baton from one to another. The rhythmic flow of life, energy and grains as they are harvested or sowed, marked by the movement of the Sun.
The terms on the calendar consist of 12 pairs of major and minor solar terms interlaced with each other. The 24 solar terms embody a complete circle of the Sun and divide the circle of seasons into 24 segments, with each segment being about half a month long.

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It reminds me of home. On the first day of Navratri, Indian households sow grain in an earthen pot, the ritual of Ghatasthapana. It is read as a fertility test for the soil and a germination test for the seed, passed down through generations as devotion. Long before sustainability was built into corporate charters, these ancient civilizations had written its agricultural year down as an almanac, India planted it in a pot with a built-in sustainability.

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After spending two decades here, I still learn the calendar from the neighborhood, from the change in color of the leaves, the crushed golden ginkgo fruits and the persimmon which appears on food stalls. Back in Delhi the season announced itself marked by the scent of saptaparni flowers hanging from the high canopies and return of roasted peanut sellers on the streets.

It is intriguing to watch the movement of the wind and to move with nature. The calendar was never just meant to be a ritual, but a declaration of a way of life lived alongside nature, with it as a guide.