Midautumn, Moonlight and Gratitude

Ovidia--every other Tuesday

The Mid-Autumn or the Mooncake Festival marks the end of the Hungry Ghost Month and the start of the last quarter of the year. But before saying goodbye to the ghosts, I want to share these talismans my dad-in-law lent me (only half joking) just in case I met anything strange on my evening walks during the Ghost Month.

The little wooden penis, he explained, is for frightening off pontianaks (typically angry female spirits); the tiny Buddhist tablet is a 'power up' and works on all spirits, not just female.

(He is ninety years old, fiercely independent, relaxes by watching survivalist documentaries and is very practical in his way).

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few Chinese festivals where women are favoured. After all, the Lady-Mother in the moon is feminine. For married women, “moon bathing” (walking in the moonlight) is said to bless relationships and keep marriages strong.

Traditionally you would go for moon watching evening picnics where children would play with lanterns and adults would drink osmanthus wine and eat mooncakes.
Nowadays, given how health conscious people are, I'm afraid people are more likely to photograph their mooncakes than eat them.

It's kind of sad though. I remember hearing about how, during the Japanese Occupation, when they were living on the border of starvation, my aunts mashed sweet potatoes with coconut and gula melaka and shaped them into mooncakes around dried mango 'yolks' to surprise their family for the Mooncake Festival and seeing what wonderful memories that created.
It's sad how traditions seem to matter more when they’re threatened.

This year, between the book deadline (I'm running late--I was actually ahead of schedule and decided to go ahead and rewrite down a rabbithole and I'm not sorry yet... but sorely pressed, yes), ongoing renovations (we're getting another 2 rooms done and the condo is repainting all the external walls and balconies so my plants are living indoors for the time being)...

My airplants would really rather be outdoors, but the paint fumes are something powerful when they get some painting done in between thunderstorms.

I don't really mind. I like the rain, though it’s hard on the workers, but this year it's been really relentless.

I didn’t even make it to the neighbourhood festival because everything looked like it was going to be wet and stuffy and slippery.

At least some of the children in the condo are excited about carrying their candlelit lanterns—but also getting it mixed up with the upcoming Halloween party (because: candy). And yes, I'm managing Not to call that an unhealthy imported American custom (again, because: candy).
It's a chance for the neighbours to get together and that's always something to be grateful for.

Because the Mid-Autumn Festival is about giving thanks: thanks for the year's harvest safely gathered in, for last and brightest moon of the year before winter storms set in, for the people around us who may or may not be around when the seasons change again.

It’s also a chance to pause before the year rushes toward its end. So if you can, take a moment to sip a sweet wine or taste a sweet cake and enjoy a moment with this bright, rainy moon.

May your lives be as full of light and happiness as the moon is bright tonight!

The Three Harrys: Wizard Savers of Their Worlds

Ovidia--every other Tuesday
I'm pushing through reworking the (hopefully) final, submittable draft of the next book--already missed first deadline and it looks like I'm going to be missing the second…

but I want to work through all the new wonderful stuff that decided to come to me only now (always happens doesn’t it?)

And the Mid-Autumn Festival is round the corner, so as always in times of pressure I turn to words of wisdom to comfort me—not from Mother Mary but the three wizard Harrys who all impacted me while saving their worlds in their own unique ways: Harry Potter, the boy wizard; Harry Dresden, the professional wizard; and Harry Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's socio-political wizard.
They are something I come back to whenever I need a charge up to keep on going. I discovered Harry Potter first.

I loved the magic and the message of Harry Potter for years! Yes, you can be a weird misfit but still the chosen one. You can find friends who become family. The monsters are real, and some of them are teachers and parent figures and in the government with power over you and you’re not imagining things, they really hate you and are out to get you…
But you can still make it through by not giving up.
I still love the Harry Potter world—even if the sad truth is that its creator seems to be turning into a Dolores Umbridge.
That helped me to leave Hogwarts behind along with my schooldays and come to Harry Dresden.

Harry Dresden: The Wizard Who Keeps Trying
Harry Dresden, a professional wizard in Chicago, is one of my favourite sleuths. Harry gets exhausted from overwork that pays poorly, doesn’t exercise enough, eats poorly, frequently has trouble with electronics and bills and his longest ongoing relationship is with Bob the talking skull…

This pretty much sums up a working writer’s life doesn’t it!

Harry Dresden has his personal issues, problems and (literal) demons, but he ends up trying to do his best despite feeling like the easiest thing would be to stay in bed. That’s where I am, much of the time—barely able to figure out what’s the right thing to do, let alone to summon up the energy to do it.

I also love Harry Dresden’s needing ‘energy’ to work his magic. This energy can be generated by lust, envy, rage or by joy, ecstasy and love—and the magic that emerges reflects the source of energy that fuelled it. I’ve found the same principle works when I’m trying to write or just live.
The material I absorb via reading, watching stuff online, interacting with people and dogs when I’m out or with my plants and human and animal companions at home all colour my thoughts and my writing.

Even though I feel more like Harry Dresden with his constant struggle to do good or just ‘do’, it’s Michael Carpenter, Dresden’s Knight friend who I envy. Michael, a true knight of faith who wields the holy sword Amoracchius, always acts with conviction. I have friends like that, and I envy them the same way… kind of.

Because Michael and his sword aren’t always right. And maybe a life lived without hesitation or doubt would be a little poorer. For what it’s worth, I’ll stick with Harry Dresden as a role model to keep me going. I don’t have a talking skull, but I do have these two munchkins that I discuss plot twists with.

And then there’s Harry Lee Kuan Yew, who wielded a different kind of magic—the magic of leadership.

Harry Lee Kuan Yew was, in many ways, the real-world wizard. He transformed Singapore from a small, struggling third world country into safe, stable first world nation. He made some tough, unpopular decisions with steely pragmatism, infamously saying, “Poetry is a luxury we cannot afford,” in the 60’s, when Singapore faced poverty, unemployment, racial tensions, and threats to our independence. Not the best role model for writers?

But once the slums were cleared, canals cleaned up and the people had safe drinking water he read poetry to his wife in her final years.

He did what needed to be done when it needed to be done. I owe it to the pioneering generation that I have access to my worlds of mystery and magic.

In the end, perhaps my biggest takeaway from all three is that the magic of creation often doesn’t look like magic when it’s in process. It looks like you’re plodding on hopelessly, endlessly, out of sheer stubbornness or stupidity. But then once you’ve brought all the right ingredients to the right place and infused it with the right energy, that’s when the magic happens. Good luck and Happy Mid-Autumn Festival everyone!