This is fascinating. I love the names of these seasons, and this guide does a great job offering a pithy and easily grokable description.
By the same token, I am curious how else we can come to understand seasons and yearly cycles. The climate stability that led to this sequence of small seasons and their associations with agriculture has begun to vanish. With the worsening climate emergency, where there is no "new normal," what yearly cycles can we still hold onto?
It's unfortunate that your description already feels like it has more of an impact on my life than most details in the sekki descriptions, with or without climate change. Just reading the sekki descriptions initially made me kinda sad because I realized how far removed I am from all that. That was at least different as a kid who played outside a lot in a small village.
One of the weirdest things about existence, besides that we're all made of meat or that the entire universe will one day crumble into cold nothingness forever, is that we can only be one person.
You can be the one who stayed in the village or the one who left the village for the big city, but you can't be both. You can be one who left the village but came back, or the one who goes back and forth between the city and the village, but those are different, a third and forth person, and whichever one you pick, you still only get to be one.
The climate over time has not been stable and has affected history. The decline of the Roman Empire under the Emperor Justinian May have been due to a colder climate. (There is evidence for a large volcanic eruption too) Also some fairly bad climatic conditions didn’t help the lead up to the French Revolution.
Some solar terms are based on astronomical observations (vernal & autumn equinox, summer & winter solstice) and while they no longer line up with seasonal changes you can definitely rely on them.
By the same token, I am curious how else we can come to understand seasons and yearly cycles. The climate stability that led to this sequence of small seasons and their associations with agriculture has begun to vanish. With the worsening climate emergency, where there is no "new normal," what yearly cycles can we still hold onto?