====== The fall and summer feasts ======

As today is the equinox (autumnal in my case), I figure I should at least muse a bit on the fall feast day. It's likely the least important of the four seasonal feasts. Great Kindling (the commemoration of the yinrih's rise to sapience) is likely sandwiched between the fall and winter feasts relative to the historically dominant Yih southern hemisphere. Being eclipsed by the highest holy day is probably why it gets little attention.



The spring feast celebrates birth, and the winter feast contemplates death. The fall feast may focus on wisdom born of age. Not sure yet what that would entail. Yinrih do not have grandparents in the cultural sense. Their sires and dams have sires and dams of their own of course, but these would be far too numerous to be meaningful (see Lightray Lacktail's friendly but perfunctory interactions with his "grandpups" in the latest part of First Contact.) Perhaps its a time to recognize mentors and teachers? The sort of relationship described with the Commonthroat <scscg>. Or maybe, the fall feast focuses on coming of age or aging in general, but in a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBJeF_Lav2o|melancholy way]]. Parents mourn the "loss" of their litter, the only litter they will ever have. Teens mourn their carefree puppyhood, the only puppyhood they will ever have.



I haven't touched on the summer feast, either. It's the most important of the four seasonal feasts. The reason why is fairly straightforward. Light is very important in the Bright Way, and the summer solstice is the day with the most light. Keeping with the secondary theme of life stages, the summer feast celebrates the vigor of youth. It is by far the most rowdy of the feasts. Sure Great Kindling and later First Meeting have plenty of festivities, but merriment is baked into the feast's identity. In that respect I suppose it's a bit like Christmas. You have a happy Thanksgiving and a happy Easter, but you gotta have a MERRY Christmas.



{{tag>religion}}