What is the festival when the dragon looks up?

Dragon Head Rise (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, "Dragon Horn Star" rises from the eastern horizon, so it is called "Dragon Head Up".

"Dragon heads up" means that the sun is the spirit and everything is full of vitality. Therefore, since ancient times, people have held ceremonies of dragon festival, praying for rain and releasing animals, so as to get an auspicious harvest in a year, and regard the season when the dragon heads up as a lucky day for luck.

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 finished and sent back. In terms of solar terms, the early February of 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: "If the dragon doesn't look up, it won't rain. "

In the ancient godhead genealogy, the dragon is the god of the sea, in charge of rainfall. Rainfall is directly related to the harvest of crops in a year. Therefore, in order for the dragon god to create clouds and rain, the dragon should repent in front of the dragon temple when he looks up, hold a grand worship ceremony and sing a big play to entertain the god. Respect the dragon and pray for rain, and release it for a bumper harvest in one 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 "28 hostages".

"Accommodation" means living, because they are surrounded by the sun, the moon and the five stars, much like 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 constellations in the East are called "Jiao, Kang, Di, Fang, Xin, Wei and Polar Plate", which form a complete dragon-shaped astrology. People call it "Oriental black dragon", in which the ox horn represents the dragon's horn, Kang represents the dragon's throat, Di represents the dragon's claws, Xin represents the dragon's heart, and Wei and Jisu represent the dragon's heart.

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

Mid-spring rises, mid-summer flies and mid-autumn dives. They all refer to the subtle changes of seven nights in black dragon, but not the changes of animal dragons.