Celebrating Taoist Festivals - E-book - ePub

CELEBRATING TAOIST FESTIVALS is Fr. Axel's latest addition to his growing list of Taoist publications. Follow the author through the ANNUAL LITURGICAL CYCLE. A swirl of faith, colours and magic across the 12 LUNAR MONTHS of Han-Chinese's deepest beliefs. The Taoist Ritual Calendar is as colourful as the Catholic/Orthodox spiritual docket. It centers around TAO, being the source and engine of the Liturgical Year.
Like the Roman-Catholic and Greek-Orthodox celebrate the resurrection of Christ at Easter, so the Chinese people rekindle their defunct Yang Chi on New Year's Day. Fr. Axel takes the reader on a journey, from light into darkness and back again. Like the emerging Sun - which gives us hope during CNY - soon losing its power as a lighthouse, over the upcoming months. Perusing this book as a manual of the only indigenous High-Religion of China, the reader rides on the heavenly chariot of waxing and waning Yin and Yang of the agricultural Middle Kingdom and its diaspora.
Like the seeds planted by the farmer and the ensuing reaping of harvest, so the faithful find spiritual sustenance in the rituals of the Taoist Faith. The first part deals with the overall pattern of the Liturgical Year. In the second part are described in detail the Taoist Gods and Saints, who descend from Heaven into the ritual area. The author also narrates the lifestories of those Exalted Beings.
It is the intention of Fr. Axel, to introduce the reader to the splendour and magnificence of the Taoist Liturgical Year. He explains the foods, preparations, customs, sayings and symbolic meanings of Festivals. This book also commemorates Fr. Axel's 20th Anniversary as a Taoist in South-East Asia.