Morning SunEdward Hopper
Today there will be 24 hours of daylight north of the Arctic Circle, and 24 hours of darkness in Antarctica. Seattle is not close to the North Pole, although sometimes it feels like it. Still...the summer days are longer in the top left corner of America.
An insomniac will notice faint light in the eastern sky before 4 am. Then the insomniac will hear the birds start up. But at 9:30 pm, when the early risers are trying to get a few hours of sleep before going to work, it's still full light out.
The Summer Solstice on June 21st is a celestial event which results in the longest day and shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates it in June, the Southern Hemisphere in December. Without this tilt of the earth's axis, there would be no seasons north and south of the tropics. Of course, near the Equator the warm climate and amount of daylight is pretty much the same year-round.
Seasons changing is old news to all living creatures, but still interesting. And it reminds me of why I like the tropics. To the human body rhythm, there's something regular about 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness.
Sol + stice is a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" and "stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises until it seems to stand still in the sky.
For centuries, most civilizations celebrated the first day of summer with dancing and bonfires to help increase the sun's energy. Pagan spirit gatherings or festivals were common in June, and the Christian church joined in deciding to celebrate St. John's birthday on June 24.At old Stonehenge, thousands still gather on Solstice Eve to dress up in funny clothes (or take them all off) and watch the sunrise after a night of serious partying.
We've had one of the coolest and gloomiest springs I can remember in Seattle. It feels like summer hasn't even started yet, but beginning tomorrow the days will be getting shorter as we head oh-so-slowly toward the winter solstice in December.Peacefully
The quiet stars came out,
One after one;
The holy twilight fell upon the sea,
The summer day was done.
Celia Thaxter
Quite right, and the winter solstice is much nicer at 20.6 latitude. Join us and take your clothes off (or put them on) - we do a lot of things a bit differently down south.
ReplyDeleteJohn tells me there's lots of falling asleep in meetings this time of year-- everyone is sleep deprived.
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