The rabbit on the moon

[Taomeow]

Mid-Autumn Festival, aka the Moon Festival, the second most prominent Chinese holiday after the New Year, fell on October 4th this time around, which was yesterday.  The moon, as always on this day, was spectacular.  The most beautiful moon of the year, as usual.  I bowed to Lady Chang-O and her rabbit, as usual.  I believe I never told the story of the rabbit on the moon here although I did tell the story of Lady Chang-O.  So here goes:

 

Once upon a time, many moons ago, three taoist immortals were walking through the woods, pretending to be beggars, asking animals to give them some food so as to test their moral character.  A wolf and a bear gladly gave them what they had.  The rabbit, however, had nothing to offer them.  He didn't want to come across as greedy, useless, or otherwise to lose face, so he exclaimed, "Well, since I have nothing else to offer, venerable sages, I offer myself!" -- and jumped into the fire to get roasted!  (Yup, taoist immortals are not vegetarians.)  The three sages, moved by his self-sacrifice, decided it would not be nice to eat such a selfless creature, so they made the rabbit immortal, conferred alchemical skills, and sent him to the moon to serve Lady Chang-O in and around her cinnamon palace.  You can clearly see him grind herbs in a large mortar when the moon is particularly bright.        

[Brian]

The rabbit on the moon is a Native American thing, too (which shouldn't be surprising...)

[Gerard]

"The Rabbit, or Hare as he is referred to in Chinese mythology, serves as the symbol of longevity and is said to derive his essence from the moon.

 

When a Western person gazes at the moon, he may tell a child the story of the man in the moon, but when a Chinese person looks at the moon, he sees the Moon Hare standing near a rock under a cassia tree holding the Elixir of Immortality in his hands."

 

From The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes

 

 

 

[CloudHands]

Kasher maybe, but certainly not a daoist rabbit.

[sagebrush]

rabbit on the moon native American thing?

 

never heard that before.

 

sometimes there is fact checking.

 

I am  not really inquiring though on Lady chang-o

 

Just liked the self sacrificing rabbit roast. similar to welsh rarebit

or welsh rabbit variations :

according to google search aid

buck rabbit and blushing bunny, hot brown.

 

 

reminds me of the movie the edge with Anthony Hopkins and alec baldwin

 

a line about why the rabbit is not afraid of the panther......

native American thing.....

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2017 by sagebrush

[Mudfoot]

14 hours ago, sagebrush said:

rabbit on the moon native American thing?

 

never heard that before.

 

sometimes there is fact checking.

Yepp. 

Googled it, Micmac story Rabbit and the Moon Man. 

[Taomeow]

A Taiwanese friend told me yet another version of the story.  He knows the rabbit as the beneficiary of the remainder of the immortality pill, which was shaped as a medicine ball, not the kind you will see if you google "Chinese medicine balls" that are for exercise, but rather, one of the forms in which Chinese herbal medicines can be dispensed.  I've seen and used those, they are considerably bigger than the tiny ones you typically get from a bottle of Chinese herbal pills -- about the size of a quail's egg -- and soft, not hard.  Each can be (and usually is if the medicine is valuable) placed in an individual ball-shaped or egg-shaped container "shell"-- modern ones are plastic, don't know what the original containers were made of.        

 

So, the Taiwanese version my friend shared asserts that Lady Chang-O, in a great hurry as she was fleeing after stealing the pill, didn't finish eating it and dropped the container shell on the floor with some of the medicine remaining in it.  She was fond of rabbits all her life and kept them for pets, so there were always rabbits hopping around, and one of them immediately went to explore the container she dropped, and ate the medicine.  Which made him immortal, and transported him to the moon right on his owner's heels. 

 

 

[Nungali]

What interests me is how some people can see a rabbit  and others not .  Clear as day to me .   Yet I don't see a 'man ' in the Moon.

 

I am used to the western tradition of seeing the Moon as representing the feminine  .  So ... 'Man in Moon '  ... ?  

 

 

(Australian Aboriginal )   " Go to sleep, don't you kids lie there looking at the Moon. The Moon Man will get angry and come down here with his club and stomp around  ' Haa  haa haa !  Who lookin' at me ? '    and bash you with his club .    .....  and if you don't believe me , I take you to a place where it happened and show you the bones !    Don't stare at the Moon ! "

 

curious that one .  An even stranger one on the Sun being feminine

 

( An old Indian astrologer )   " Of Course the Sun is female !   If the Sun  was not female  ,  she would not be too afraid to come out at night !  "

 

( which could have been an old Indian astrologer pulling my leg  ?     )

Edited October 10, 2017 by Nungali

[Limahong]

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

I never told the story of the rabbit on the moon here

 

Hi Taomeow,

 

Yesterday night Bunny (the rabbit on the moon) came to my dream to ask me to thank you for featuring her story here.

Bunny like you to note that she is hare-y but not hairy. Why? She is a she.

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

The rabbit, however, had nothing to offer them.

 

Bunny said it was true that she had nothing to offer the sages.

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

He didn't want to come across as greedy, useless, or otherwise to lose face

 

"Who would like to come across as greedy and useless?" - Bunny asked. "Face" was very important to her. She said Nature had given her a face for self identity "just like you human". "No two rabbits look the same; my cousin Funny looks real comical" - added Bunny.

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

"Well, since I have nothing else to offer, venerable sages, I offer myself!"

 

Bunny was quite offended that she was made to appear "loose". It was wrong to say that she had "nothing". She has faith in the Divine and her soul is intact. She like you to amend that "she offers her spirituality". This makes a lot of sense as she was dealing with venerable sages.

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

... and jumped into the fire to get roasted!

 

As a rabbit, Bunny was livid that she was regarded as easy and ready meat for roasting (literally or otherwise). To her fire is sacred in spiritual rites. She felt that your mind, besides being roasted, is also coasted. Bunny boasted that she could teach you how to be a better feline Taoist. She said in no uncertain terms that you are a disgrace to Taoism. Holy cow! - she exclaimed and then laughed. Why? She was thinking of roast beef.

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

(Yup, taoist immortals are not vegetarians.) 

 

Bunny gave you a 'thumbs up' for this. "Taoist immortals are not only not vegetarians; they are virile octogenarians" - said Bunny. When it comes to Bunny, the venerable became vulnerable - the three yang's rose up to her ying.

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

The three sages, moved by his self-sacrifice, decided it would not be nice to eat such a selfless creature,

 

Bunny had rewritten the above thus:

"The three savages, moved by my spiritual sacrifice, found that it would not unwise to 'meat' me - a priceless creation".

 

Bunny rewrote thus as she was fed up with this:

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

... they made the rabbit immortal, conferred alchemical skills, and sent him to the moon to serve Lady Chang-O in and around her cinnamon palace.

 

... they made the Bunny immortal, conferred alcoholic-chemical skills, and sent her to the moon to serve Lady Chang-O (aka Lady Super-O) in-and-out and around her sinnamon places.

 

On 10/6/2017 at 7:45 AM, Taomeow said:

You can clearly see him grind herbs in a large mortar when the moon is particularly bright.        

 

Bunny does not like to be exposed thus on the 1st and 15th days of every lunar month. She finds it tiring to revitalize the three savages with herbs. Sometimes she feels like adding in some cyanide. The 1st and 15th make her lunartically mad. 

 

- LimA

[Taomeow]

39 minutes ago, Nungali said:

What interests me is how some people can see a rabbit  and others not .  Clear as day to me .   Yet I don't see a 'man ' in the Moon.

 

I am used to the western tradition of seeing the Moon as representing the feminine  .  So ... 'Man in Moon '  ... ?  

 

 

(Australian Aboriginal )   " Go to sleep, don't you kids lie there looking at the Moon. The Moon Man will get angry and come down here with his club and stomp around  ' Haa  haa haa !  Who lookin' at me ? '    and bash you with his club .    .....  and if you don't believe me , I take you to a place where it happened and show you the bones !    Don't stare at the Moon ! "

 

curious that one .  An even stranger one on the Sun being feminine

 

( An old Indian astrologer )   " Of Course the Sun is female !   If the Sun  was not female  ,  she would not be too afraid to come out at night !  "

 

( which could have been an old Indian astrologer pulling my leg  ?     )

 

Sun and moon exchange genders in quite a few cultures, but some designations make more sense than others.  E.g. the taoist way of applying the dynamic yin-yang principle that posits nothing is yin by itself or yang by itself, only in comparison to something else -- i.e. things yang are merely "more yang than some other things," and things yin are really just "more yin than some other things."  Nowhere is this comparison of two objects more obvious than with the sun and moon.  One can't possibly see the sun as "more yin than the moon."  In many cultures, there's much confusion which came about for assorted reasons and got embedded in the language.  In Russian, e.g., the ambiguity of the moon's gender is practically guaranteed by the fact that there's two words for "moon," one feminine gender (luna) and another, masculine (mesyats).  The masculine version is the same word as the word that means "month," same as in Chinese, but the word for a woman's menstrual period is also derived from that moon/month word (mesyachnye).  The moon is male in the folk tradition, while the sun, being of the neuter gender, is neither.

 

About the Aboriginal warning to not lie there looking at the moon when going to sleep, lest the Moon Man bash you with the club -- compare to the warning coming from Central Asia/Pamir Mountains region:

"Don't lie there looking at the moon, or the Moon Woman will count your eyelashes!  If you let her, she'll set the number as the number of months you've got left to live."  

Edited October 10, 2017 by Taomeow

[Nungali]

39 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Sun and moon exchange genders in quite a few cultures, but some designations make more sense than others.  E.g. the taoist way of applying the dynamic yin-yang principle that posits nothing is yin by itself or yang by itself, only in comparison to something else -- i.e. things yang are merely "more yang than some other things," and things yin are really just "more yin than some other things."  Nowhere is this comparison of two objects more obvious than with the sun and moon.  One can't possibly see the sun as "more yin than the moon."  In many cultures, there's much confusion which came about for assorted reasons and got embedded in the language.  In Russian, e.g., the ambiguity of the moon's gender is practically guaranteed by the fact that there's two words for "moon," one feminine gender (luna) and another, masculine (mesyats).  The masculine version is the same word as the word that means "month," same as in Chinese, but the word for a woman's menstrual period is also derived from that moon/month word (mesyachnye).  The moon is male in the folk tradition, while the sun, being of the neuter gender, is neither.

 

About the Aboriginal warning to not lie there looking at the moon when going to sleep, lest the Moon Man bash you with the club -- compare to the warning coming from Central Asia/Pamir Mountains region:

"Don't lie there looking at the moon, or the Moon Woman will count your eyelashes!  If you let her, she'll set the number as the number of months you've got left to live."  

 

Very interesting !     Do you have a source for that last quote ?    As you might know, I have written a fair bit here about Central Asia and  Pamirs  as a possible location for ancient 'mythological'  Airyana Vaeja  / Shamballa  /   'source of wisdom '  ( in the west, said to come from the east, in the east {eg. Tibet} said to come from the west ) ;

 

 

 

In addition to mentioning Airyana Vaeja, the Zoroastrian scriptures, the books of the Avesta, also mention neighbouring nations or lands.

These references, along with references to the terrain and weather in Airyana Vaeja, give us clues about the location of the original Aryan homeland, as well as information about the Aryan people, their neighbours, and their relationships.

http://heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/airyanavaeja.htm

 

Interesting to compare ancient 'isolated'  myths and stories  ;

 

" However, stars were commonly used to measure time and the seasons and to regulate daily activities before written culture, and long after in some cultures. The myths of the Australian Aboriginal people are, as around the world, to do with moral lessons and various reminders such as when to eat certain types of food, which is itself a cultural connection in the general form of the stories

 

"Therefore, the study of the stars is probably the oldest knowledge on earth, such that it remains an intriguing possibility that aboriginal star knowledge does contain some fragments of a much older original culture. Aboriginal people came to Australia from Asia 50,000 years ago (well before Greek culture formed 3-4,000 years ago), and presumably the Aboriginal people originally came from Africa. while there is no hard evidence of a cultural connection, the possibility should not be written off and the door is open to research to construct models of older human cultures, through the tracing of these narratives and other means such as linguistics "      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronomy

Edited October 10, 2017 by Nungali