The summer heat has broken in Chicago. At least for now. It's no longer blast-oven summer and it doesn't seem fully fall yet. There are signs all around that we're in some middle season. Here are four photos that seem to belong to the middle season between summer and fall. Sea oats in a planter outside work, an early red branch of a sumac at the Morton Arboretum, a single leaf from a maple that I've been watching on my bike ride home, and a Kentucky coffeetree pod from a neighborhood parkway street.
Ferris Jabr (@ferrissjabr) Tweeted in this thread that many cultures have a different number of seasons. For instance...
In ancient Japan the year was divided into 24 seasonal stages and 72 microseasons, each lasting a few days, with names like, "mist starts to linger," "wild geese fly north," "first lotus blossoms," and "deer shed antlers"
"Shubun" is the Japanese season of the autumnal equinox. Our season -- in other ways -- seems to align with Japan's season called "Shosho," "The season in which heat stops." Here's more information about the 24 Japanese seasons (or "Sekki").
Update: I just learned that during the French Revolution, a new calendar was created. 10-day weeks, "months" pretty much named after seasons named similarly to the Japanese calendar.
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| Months that look like "middle seasons" of the French Revolutionary Calendar (link) |
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