Micro-Season: “Thunder Lowers Its Voice” (2023)

September 22 – 27 is the micro-season of “Thunder Lowers Its Voice”.  This is the first micro-season of the season of Autumn Equinox.  The micro-seasons within Autumn Equinox are:

• Thunder Lowers Its Voice (Sep 22 – Sep 27) 
• Hibernating Creatures Close Their Doors (Sep 28 – Oct 02) 
• The Paddy Water is First Drained (Oct 03 – Oct 07)

These seasons were established in 1685 by Japanese astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai. While they are specific to Japan, you can use them as a starting point to explore your environment.

To celebrate this season, we will talk about the equinox, discuss how thunder and lightning are created, and then read haiku by Basho, Issa, Reichhold, and Kerouac.

---

Autumn Equinox

An equinox marks the time when the length of the day equals the length of the night. After the autumn equinox, the days begin to get shorter, and the temperatures begin to fall.  The reason for these changes is the earth’s 23.5-degree tilt.  The tilt places the northern hemisphere farther away from the sun in the winter months and closer in the summer. 

The graphic below from the National Weather Service illustrates this process.

The Days Between The Seasons

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Autumn Equinox is on September 23, 2023. That is 94 days past the Summer Solstice (June 21, 2023), and only 91 days until the Winter Solstice (December 21, 2023). The Vernal Equinox (March 19, 2024) is now 178 days away,

---

“Thunder Lowers Its Voice”

“Thunder Lowers Its Voice” (Sep 22 -Sep 27) is a counter-season to “Thunder Raises Its Voice” (Mar 30 – Apr 03).  These two micro-seasons highlight the distinct changes in climate brought about by the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

A Bit About Thunder

Thunder is the sound that accompanies lightning.  Thunder is most common in thunderstorms, which are created when warm moist air rises and comes in contact with colder air. These conditions exist when there is an “unstable” air mass.

Unstable Air

An “unstable air mass” is when a warm air settles under cold air.

This is the opposite from a “stable” air mass where the cold air lies under the warm air.  It is called “stable”  because cold air is denser than warm air and will settle on the Earth’s surface.⁽²⁾

Thunder Clouds

When the warm moist air rises to meet the colder air (unstable air mass), the water vapor begins to condense and creates a cloud. As the warm air continues to rise, it creates a cloud formation that is known as a towering cumulus cloud.  

As the towering cumulus cloud continues to grow, it will eventually reach a high enough altitude that the warm air updrafts flatten out and create an anvil-like cloud that is known as cumulonimbus incus.⁽³⁾  At this time, water vapor has frozen in the cloud’s upper reaches and begins to fall back to Earth. As the ice falls, it thaws and becomes rain.  The falling rain then creates a downdraft.

The rising and falling of water molecules in the cloud create a static electric charge within the cloud.  When the cloud’s negative charge reaches its maximum limit, it looks for a place to discharge.  The earth’s surface offers that discharge point.  We see a lightning flash when the negatively charged clouds release their energy.

When lightning is created, it rapidly heats the atmosphere which creates the initial crack of thunder.  The rumble that follows the initial crack is created by the atmosphere cooling back down.⁽⁴⁾

Why Does The Thunder Lower Its Voice?

Once we reach autumn, the likelihood of thunderstorms decreases.  Part of the reason for this is that unstable air masses are less likely to develop in the cooler months.  

The opposite is true in the micro-season of “Thunder Raises its Voice”.  At this time the earth is beginning to warm up and there is more opportunity for unstable air masses and more moisture in the air.

---

Seasonal Haiku

Thunder and lightning have the potential to be multi-season kigo according to the World Kigo Database. However, “thunder” without another seasonal descriptor is considered a summer kigo, and “lightning” without a specific seasonal descriptor is an autumn kigo.⁽⁵⁾ 

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words as selected by Kenkichi Yamamoto list “lightning” and “autumn’s voice”, which is described as “the sounds of autumn: wind in dry leaves, insects, etc.”, are related Autumn kigo.

In A Dictionary of Haiku, Jane Reichhold lists “clouds”, “dark rain”, and “equinox” as other autumn kigo

With this in mind, let’s read a few haiku!

---

Basho

lightning— 
into the darkness
a night-heron's cry.
(translated by David Landis Barnhill)

a flash of lightning
your hand takes in darkness
a paper candle 
(translated by Jane Reichhold)

a flash of lightning - 
where there were faces
plumes of pampas grass 
(translated by Makoto Ueda)

Issa

in cool air
slicing the falling rain...
lightning!
(translated by David Lanoue)

lightning flash--
no way to hide
the wrinkles
(translated by David Lanoue)

in the lightning
how he laughs...
Buddha!
(translated by David Lanoue)

Jane Reichhold

in the dark of night
who would have thought
rain was round

Jack Kerouac

Drunk as a hoot owl
writing letters 
By thunderstorm

---

A Haiku Invitation

This week’s haiku invitation is to write a haiku or senryu that references autumn storms. 

Share your haiku in the comments below, or post on your own page and link back to this post. I can’t wait to read what you write! 

---

You can support this newsletter work by donating at “Buy Me a Coffee” or shopping at our bookstore.

Thank You!

Resources:

1. “The Seasons, the Equinox, and the Solstices”; National Weather Service
2. Highs and Lows/High and Low Air Flow: Iowa State University
3. “Thunderstorms”: Wikipedia
4. “What Causes Lightning and Thunder?”; SciJinks NOAA
5. “Thunder and Lightning”; Dr. Gabi Greve (WKD)

Basho’s haiku was retrieved from Matsuo Bashō’s haiku poems in romanized Japanese with English translations. Issa’s haiku was retrieved from HaikuGuy.com by David G. Lanoue. Jack Kerouac’s haiku were retrieved from “Jack Kerouac Collected Haikus”; Terebess Asia Online