Winter Solstice
© Sam Wormley
The Moon was almost full that night washing out all the fainter stars. It would have been nice to point out the many constellations and renew acquaintances with the Milky Way, fuzzy spots of star clusters, nebulae and even our sister galaxy in Andromedae.
Instead there was another beauty... the companionship of the Moon encircled by a beautiful halo who's radius of twenty-two degrees was greater than the span of my outstretched hand at arm's length. The halo was caused by the interaction of moonlight with ice crystals high in our atmosphere. The Moon, wearing her halo illuminated the prairie grasses about us.
We are made from the stars. Literally! The Hydrogen and Helium atoms where made in the first few seconds of big bang... the creation. But the atoms heavier than hydrogen necessary for everything on the Earth--including our bodies--were forged in the firey cores of stars eons ago. Pulitzer Prize-winning astronomer, Carl Sagan, died a year ago yesterday (today) of complications arising from bone marrow disease. Sagan wrote a number of best-sellers that translated scientific concepts into ordinary language, but he's probably best remembered as host of the PBS series "COSMOS". Carl often pointed out that "we are made of star stuff".
We are also the product of the rhythms of nature. The Earth rotates about its polar axis once a day giving us night and day. Evolving life on the Earth, its patterns of activity and rest... are synchronous with the rhythm of night and day.
Because of the Earth's rotation, an observer sees the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars rise in the east and set in the west.
Superimposed on the daily rotation is an annual rotation caused by the Earth's orbit around the Sun.
Relative to the Sun, the stars rise and set roughly four minutes earlier each day. In the course of a month, the night sky appears to move two hours toward the West and after a year the shift has come full circle.
Because the Earth axis is tilted, we also experience seasons. For us in the northern hemisphere we experience summer when the north pole leans towards the Sun and Winter when leaning away.
The patterns of stars are the markers of the seasons. Long-term patterns of activity on the Earth are synchronous with the seasons.
o The renewal of Spring...
o The planting of crops...
o Growth of grasses and grains as the warm Sun swings northward...
o The Summer Solstice, marks the peak of growth...
o The harvesting of crops... as the Sun swings southward...
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