After Liqiu, every day is a loop of cool morning and hot night. And with the frequent typhoon this year, humid and hot days followed by storms weekly. My mother always says the weather now is 爭秋奪暑. In fact, after Liqiu, there is a tern Chushu. I tried to find the explanation of it:
Chushu reflects the changing of temperature. Chu means stop and shu means summer, so Chushu indicates that the hot summer is ending. However, in fact, it is not cool yet at the moment and could be still very hot in some days, especially in the afternoon of sunny days. This is also a busy season of harvesting for farmers.
立秋過後，單日天氣一直循環於早涼晚熱的狀態。而且今年颱風特別多，悶極幾天又來一場大風雨。老媽最近四個字常掛口邊，「爭秋奪暑」。好奇下搜了一下，原來是立秋之後的節氣叫處暑，「處」即停止的意思。立了秋，但夏天還要來一場謝幕戲份，這就是爭秋奪暑：
曆書記載：「斗指戊為處暑，暑將退，伏而潛處，故名也」。所以有俗語說：爭秋奪暑，是指立秋和處暑之間的時間，雖然秋季在意義上已經來臨，但夏天的暑氣仍然未減。
Outline. 起稿
The first thing comes to my mind is harvest. And this year is Rooster year, the rooster work hard for over half years for good harvest.
將進秋天，想起的就是收成了。今年是雞年，就讓這公雞成為主角，努力了大半年，進入收成的時期！
Coloring. 上色
A large area of yellow and then draw lines as the rice ears.
用黃色系打底，再畫上一條條的稻穗。
For the rooster, I fill it with my favorite Easter egg pattern drawing.
公雞的身體，我選擇了我很喜歡的彩蛋紋飾風格。
Background and fine tune. 背景和修飾
處暑之日，鷹乃祭鳥。又刷日，天地始肅。又五日，禾乃登。
When I search for Chushu, there is a old pentad describing it.There are 3 stages of Chushu. On the first day, the eagle feels the coming of Autumn and start hunting for food stock. The second stage, the land and lifes become silent and condense. Finally, gold harvest comes.
It is amazing that the old ancient calendar and season indicators still apply today's weather. This reminds me what I study in high school Chinese Language and Culture lesson. Our ancients observed the nature and live with nature. This is the spirit what we likely forget nowadays. People and media always say that the weather and climate is extreme or become extreme. The Earth is changing itself, but we can't ignore what we had done to the nature. We are also making changing to the weather and climate. There may be someday the old indicators no more fit the my life, if we keep exhausting the Earth :-(
看處暑的資料時，看到上面的一句處暑時訓。原來處暑分三段。首先鷹感應到秋天到來，要去捕獵食物。之後天地開始肅清靜默。最後，農作物到達黃金收成期。
令我有點驚訝的是這些古人觀察出來的節氣，到今天仍然實用。這令我想起以前高中時的中文課，讀到天人合一的理念。在發展的競賽裡，我們都好像忘記了先人的智慧。到今天常常聽到氣候反常和環保的呼籲。我覺得地球它自己一直在變化，但也無可否認人們的行為也在影響著它，而且也不輕。或許有一天，這些節氣也不再合用，變成單純的古藉研究了。
sources : chushu / 處暑 / 時訓