Finally, Summer!

"Summer afternoon -- summer afternoon, to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language."  H. James

Though culturally we've been in summer mode for a few weeks now, the season, scientifically, starts at the solstice -- that moment when the sun kisses the Tropic of Cancer before heading immediately (though slowly) back toward the south.  Of course, poetically and Earth-centrically, we think of the sun moving north and south; in reality the sun is pretty indifferent to the earth.  The earth, orbniting the star that to us means life, is tilted on its axis, always in the same direction.  As it hits the point in its journey 'round where the "top" is most tilted toward the sun, we have our solstice, our longest days, our seasonal transition.

This year, that moment occurs at 11:24 pm CDT on June 20... which means that the solstice actually occurs on June 21 in New York and June 20 in Chicago (and points west).  (Though we think of it as a day, the solstice is actually a moment, and it's the same moment glob-wide!)

I'll leave you with one more summer quotation:
"Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy.  To do nothing and have it count for something.  To lie in the grass and count the stars.  To sit on a branch and study the clouds." R. Brett
Enjoy the lazy days of summer!

Darkest Days

Happy Winter Solstice!  We've hit the darkest time of the year... these days, our shadows are long, our sun is low in the sky (when it shines at all, which is only a short part of each day)... it's the day when the northern hemisphere is most tilted away from the sun. And now, we begin the slow but steady process of welcoming the sun back.

Though winter seems like it's just beginning, at least our days will start to get a little bit longer from here on out!

Happy Winter!

Winter Solstice... the ray of hope in our darkest days.  In science, as in life, it may be that as we stand on the precipice, looking at the beginning of months of hardship and trial, things start to get just a little bit brighter.  Winter truly is a season of scarcity and challenges for animals that don't have the human luxuries of central heating and grocery store food.  Plants still face months of dormancy before they will green with new life, so food sources are severely limited... caches painstakingly collected and stored in the fall, a few leftover seeds, bark and twigs.  The succulent newness of leafy greens is so far away it's hardly imaginable, even to me.  And this at the time when the body most needs energy to heat itself.  It would be a bleak outlook, I think, if animals had the capacity to look forward into the future.  

And yet... after months of our days growing oppressively short, they will... almost imperceptibly at first... start to lengthen.  Today is the winter solstice, when the earth's tilt causes the sun to hit (at 5:12 am local time) its southern-most angle of shine upon the earth's surface.  For the next 6 months, as we travel around the sun on our topsy-turvy cosmic journey, we northern-hemisphere-dwellers will get the sun's light more and more directly each day.    Eventually the sun's rays will shine upon us directly enough to start to warm the earth's surface.  And so the first calendar day of winter is also the day it begins to recede, to gradually lose its fight.  Our glimmer of light just as the hard times begin.

And winter this year tried to start with a show of seasonal power.  Now, I don't want to minimize the first winter storm of the year for those around the Midwest who were involved in traffic accidents or travel delays or whatever, but... for us, it was kind of a bust.  It began with rain... steady, drumming rain that kept me awake Wednesday night and into the small hours of Thursday morning, and continued to fall all day Thursday.  The world was wet and puddly and dreary and drippy... and relatively warm, hitting the mid-40s.  The forecasters' predicted snowfall decreased as the hour of temperature drop drew near... but we still didn't even hit the large 2-6 inch target that meteorologists left open for us.  Around 4 pm Thursday the rain turned to sleet and wet heavy snow, which did mess with rush hour but didn't last very long into the night.  I went to bed with my driveway's blacktop still showing and I awoke to the same sight.  

That's not to say that winter didn't dawn with a fierce bite.  Piercing winds whip across the prairies and fields.  I look out, through wildly shaking locust branches, at a wind turbine whose motion is so fast it looks like a blurry circle.  The small amount of snow that fell has frozen solid, a crunchy crust covering cars and pavement, trees and grasses.  Now that the sun has finally risen on this shortest day of the year, the frozen drops on the tree branches catch the light and sparkle.  Diamonds all over are spectacular holiday decorations.  Plus, it's cold -- in the mid 20s but those winds from the north make it feel much colder.

And this... is just the beginning!  Happy first day of winter!

Happy Summer!

Today at 12:16 local time, the sun hit its northern-most point, thus officially beginning summer 2011. Or more accurately, the sun didn't do anything out of the ordinary, if you consider the sun's daily activities of creating enough energy by nuclear fusion to power our planet as a side job, and anchoring the solar system, etc., ordinary... but the earth, in its annual tilted orbit, hit the point when the north pole was tilted as much toward the sun as it gets. That makes this the longest day of the year for this particular location, and any other northern one.

Since we're traveling to Scotland (EXCITING!!!), we'll get some longer days... also some computer-free days, so expect another absence, followed by some prolific blogging...

Happy Solstice!

What a Night

Yesterday was the winter solstice, and a full moon (although it was cloudy). I suppose those two correspond with way less frequency than "once in a blue moon." In fact, it's been over 10 years. Even more significant, there was also a lunar eclipse in the very early hours of the 21st, but the clouds, at least in this area, would have made it hard to see, were one awake and healthy enough to try. I, personally, was not... I have spent my winter break thus far being terrible ill... I'm getting better now... I missed another disappointing snowfall (less than 2 inches for us), and the shortest day of the year along with its once-in-a-lifetime eclipse (or once in several, as the last coincidence of an eclipse and the solstice was 632 years ago). I understand the eclipse was lovely in areas where the sky was clear...

Ah, well... next time?

Our Darkest Hour

Today, at 11:47 am cdt, the sun kisses the Tropic of Capricorn and then begins on its six-month journey toward the northern tropic. At least, that's the pre-Copernican version of things... more accurately, today, in the earth's tilted orbit around Sol, we will hit the point where the southern hemisphere is tilted directly toward the sun. The tilt will stay the same, but the earth will keep moving around until, six months hence, the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun. This (when it works) is a really good "applet" to see the whole process, where you can actually set your own latitude, or the latitude you wished you lived at, and see it from that perspective.

For us, that means... winter officially begins. Of course, with snow on the ground for a while, this seems a rather artificial starting point for the cold season. And it doesn't really mean the end of short days or low-angled, never-feels-mid-day sun, either. But it does mean that we're at least heading toward longer days and higher sun, eventually, instead of the opposite.

And so we celebrate, as people have since ancient times,* the day the sun stands still. We celebrate the sun regaining its strength, we celebrate our ultimate source of food and energy, warmth and light. In our darkest hour, we celebrate the sun.

*Interesting to note... before, you know, our scientific revolution, before watches and our understanding of the solar system and the earth's movements... before all that, people still, of course noticed the lengthening and shortening of days that accompanied the changing of the seasons, and the phenological rhythms that guided their livelihoods. Without "sophisticated" science, you really start to notice the lengthening of days a few days after the solstice, around the 25. Sound familiar? That's right, people... we're all pagans at heart.