Lunar New Year
Routh Assembly
Monday 27th January
ìoҹ˼ Thoughts in the Silent Night
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Before my bed, the bright moonlight,
I wonder if it’s frost on the ground.
I raise my head to gaze at the moon,
Then lower it and think of home.
As many of us will know, the Lunar New Year 2025 begins on Wednesday. It will be celebrated by an estimated 2 billion people, particularly those who live in China but also in a variety of other Asian countries including Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. For those countries, Wednesday marks the beginning of Spring and the start of the new lunar calendar. Wednesday will also be the start of the New Year in the Chinese calendar and the beginning of the Year of the Snake.
More specifically, we are beginning the Year of the Wood Snake because the Chinese zodiac operates on a 12-year cycle, with each year represented by an animal, and one of the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water) which cycle through every 12 years as well. Therefore, each specific combination, like the Wood Snake, repeats every 60 years and so there are only a few folk sat here this morning who were around in the last year of the Wood Snake, 1965.
In 1965, NASA’s Ranger 9 probe took the first pictures of the Moon in a form that meant that they could be watched by TV viewers. For the first time, ordinary people could look at their black and white television sets to see live images of the Moon’s craters and rocky surface before Ranger 9 crashed into it.
If we look up at the sky on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and assuming it is relatively clear, we’ll see the Moon moving into its new moon phase. As the Moon becomes positioned between the Earth and the Sun, it becomes almost invisible and then, as the days go on, the Moon will wax - a small sliver of the Moon will be illuminated, gradually increasing in size each night.
Of course, the Moon itself doesn’t actually increase in size, it is just the image that we are able to see, and the apparently changing shape of the Moon has fascinated people on Earth for thousands of years. In the Lascaux cave paintings in France, which are thought to be around 15,000 years old, there are markings that are believed to represent the Moon going through its different phases over the 27-day lunar cycle.
NASA continues to explore the Moon and, in his book, the Power of Geography, Tim Marshall talks about the competition that exists between some countries seeking to exploit the resources there. It is thought that there are valuable materials there such as silicon, titanium and other elements that would make the journey worthwhile
However, coming back to the poem, perhaps the most significant feature of the Moon is that it can be seen by people right across the world. Wherever we are on Earth, there is a good chance that we can look up and see our only natural satellite 290,000 miles away. I wonder whether that gives some comfort to those who are separated from families at this important time of the year, the Moon resembling that connection that exists even though loved ones are far away. And perhaps, on Holocaust Memorial Day, the Moon reminds all of us that whatever part of the world we come from, whatever our race, religion, gender and so on, there should be so much more that unites us than divides us. As someone said, always remember we are under the same sky, looking up at the same Moon.