Tanabata

(Leaf 79) – Reflection

 

Xu Beihong - Double Happiness (c.1930s-1940s)

Tanabata is celebrated on 7th July, the seventh night of the seventh month. It marks the evening when the star, Altair (the oxherd boy) is thought to cross the Milky Way (the River of Heaven) to join his lover, Vega (the weaver girl), the one night of the year when they are permitted to meet. In some versions of the story, the two lovers are said to take the form of a pair of magpies in order to cross the celestial river that flows unceasingly, high in the heavens.

 

 

TANABATA

 

Journeying through the sky

– starlight, 

glinting off black feathers.