Chang'e Tattoo Meaning
The moon, immortality, solitude, and the woman who floated to the cold white palace.
Chang'e is the Chinese goddess of the moon — the woman who swallowed the elixir of immortality and floated up to the cold white palace on the moon, where she dwells in beautiful, eternal solitude, honored each year at the Mid-Autumn Festival of family reunion. To carry Chang'e is to carry the moon, immortality, and solitude — the goddess who ascended to the cold lunar palace, the woman whose choice won immortality at the price of cosmic loneliness, the lady of the moon gazed upon by all who long for those far away.
Chang'e (嫦娥) is the moon goddess of Chinese mythology — the beautiful woman who dwells upon the moon. She lives there in the Guanghan Palace, the 'Cold Palace,' a place of crystalline, lonely beauty, accompanied only by a few companions: the Jade Rabbit, who endlessly pounds the herbs of the elixir of immortality with a mortar and pestle, and sometimes the woodcutter Wu Gang, who is condemned to chop forever at a self-healing tree that regrows as fast as he cuts it. In her cold lunar palace, with these few strange companions, Chang'e abides in solitary beauty.
Chang'e is honored above all at the Mid-Autumn Festival (zhongqiu jie), celebrated under the full harvest moon — one of the most important festivals in Chinese culture, second only to the Lunar New Year as a time of family reunion. On this night families gather, share round mooncakes, and gaze together at the bright full moon where Chang'e dwells, honoring the moon goddess and celebrating reunion and togetherness. Chang'e, the lady of the moon, presides over this festival of the full moon, gazed up at by all who celebrate beneath her light. The Chinese Chang'e is the moon goddess of the Cold Palace, honored at the Mid-Autumn Festival of reunion. The Chinese Chang'e is the lady of the cold moon palace — the moon goddess who dwells upon the moon in the Guanghan ('Cold') Palace, a place of crystalline lonely beauty, accompanied only by the Jade Rabbit (endlessly pounding the herbs of the immortality elixir) and sometimes the woodcutter Wu Gang (doomed to chop forever at a self-healing tree), honored above all at the Mid-Autumn Festival under the full harvest moon — second only to the Lunar New Year as a time of family reunion, when families gather, share mooncakes, and gaze together at the bright moon where Chang'e dwells.
The Mid-Autumn Festival (zhōngqiū jié), celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month (usually September or early October), is the second most important festival in the Chinese calendar — families reunite, mooncakes are eaten and shared, and the full moon (the fullest of the year) is contemplated; Chang'e is the festival's presiding deity, her image on mooncake boxes and festival decorations throughout East Asia. The Chinese lunar exploration program is named Chang'e — the Chang'e spacecraft series has landed on the moon multiple times, including the first landing on the lunar far side (Chang'e 4, January 2019 CE). The Jade Rabbit on the moon: the rabbit pounding medicine with a mortar appears in Chinese lunar mythology by at least the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE); China's lunar rover is named Yutu (玉兔, Jade Rabbit). The Cold Palace (广寒宫, Guǎnghán Gōng) — 'the Palace of Vast Cold' — is the mythological site of Chang'e's immortal exile on the moon.
Chang'e across cultures
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