The pantheon · Seasonal
Qingming and the tending of graves
The one day in the year when the relationship with the ancestors is maintained in person, with a broom and a cloth rather than a prayer.
04-01 – 04-10
Qingming falls on the fifteenth day after the spring equinox, around the fourth or fifth of April. It is one of the few observances here fixed to the solar terms rather than the lunar month, which is why its Gregorian date barely moves.
The work of the day is literal: graves are swept, weeds pulled, inscriptions repainted. Offerings follow, but the sweeping comes first. It is the least mystical and most practical of the calendar’s observances, and for many families the only one still kept.
It is worth noting what this is not. Ancestor veneration is not worship of gods, and the ancestors are not petitioned as deities are. The relationship is familial.
Figures in this observance
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