At 4:04 this morning, Pacific Standard Time, a perfectly vertical ray of sunlight touched, just for an instant, a point on the Earth 23.5 degrees of latitude south of the Equator. This was the Winter Solstice. In the next instant, the tilted Earth continued on its rotation around the Sun. The Sun's falling rays left 23.5 South Latitude and started to track north.
In the primitive world, this was cause for whooping and hollering. This great big hot ball in the sky that you couldn't look at was all that made the Earth tolerably warm from time to time. If that big hot ball went out for whatever reason, like what we now call nightfall, then on Earth it was freezerville. Even worse, in the Cradle of Civilization, there came a stretch of days when it looked like the Sun was leaving the Earth altogether, tired of warming this rock and drifting way down in the sky – what we would call south – as if it just might leave altogether.
It never did. Just when the days were starting to get really cold, even in the middle of the day, a day arrived when the Sun looked like it had decided not to leave after all, and started back toward the huddled primitives in time to make the days reasonably bearable again by what we call April. But then maybe the primitives celebrated too much, enjoyed the green, stopped praying to the Sun, prayed to the Rain instead, to the point that the Sun became dissed and said, "I'm out of here," and started wandering off again. Who knows what kind of horror stories the primitive brain could launch, about an object as important as the Sun?
So the Sun, in its fickle winter fancy, developed a nice pagan crowd of celebrants on that crucial day when it decided not to leave, tens of thousands of years before more scientific minds came along and decided that the Earth didn't orbit the Sun at all, but just the other way around.
Thousands of years more passed, and one day at Alta Mira I noticed that at the dawn of the day of the Winter Solstice, the Sun rose out of King Tut's eye. I thought that was very cool. Within me rose an ancient, visceral sigh of relief and a voice whispered, "You and me, Tut." I showed you Tut a few blogs ago. Here he is this morning with the Sun rising out of his eye. Tomorrow, it will rise to the left, a sliver closer to his nose. Then in a week, his mouth, then his chin, his throat, his folded hands, after which April is not far behind. Makes me feel good, I'll tell you.
In the primitive world, this was cause for whooping and hollering. This great big hot ball in the sky that you couldn't look at was all that made the Earth tolerably warm from time to time. If that big hot ball went out for whatever reason, like what we now call nightfall, then on Earth it was freezerville. Even worse, in the Cradle of Civilization, there came a stretch of days when it looked like the Sun was leaving the Earth altogether, tired of warming this rock and drifting way down in the sky – what we would call south – as if it just might leave altogether.
It never did. Just when the days were starting to get really cold, even in the middle of the day, a day arrived when the Sun looked like it had decided not to leave after all, and started back toward the huddled primitives in time to make the days reasonably bearable again by what we call April. But then maybe the primitives celebrated too much, enjoyed the green, stopped praying to the Sun, prayed to the Rain instead, to the point that the Sun became dissed and said, "I'm out of here," and started wandering off again. Who knows what kind of horror stories the primitive brain could launch, about an object as important as the Sun?
So the Sun, in its fickle winter fancy, developed a nice pagan crowd of celebrants on that crucial day when it decided not to leave, tens of thousands of years before more scientific minds came along and decided that the Earth didn't orbit the Sun at all, but just the other way around.
Thousands of years more passed, and one day at Alta Mira I noticed that at the dawn of the day of the Winter Solstice, the Sun rose out of King Tut's eye. I thought that was very cool. Within me rose an ancient, visceral sigh of relief and a voice whispered, "You and me, Tut." I showed you Tut a few blogs ago. Here he is this morning with the Sun rising out of his eye. Tomorrow, it will rise to the left, a sliver closer to his nose. Then in a week, his mouth, then his chin, his throat, his folded hands, after which April is not far behind. Makes me feel good, I'll tell you.
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