The day the sun stands still

Tomorrow, at 16:39 UTC (or 4:39pm Universal Coordinated Time for those of you not yet in the 21st century) the sun will stop (which is what the word "solstice" actually means). In the Northern Hemisphere it marks the longest day and shortest night of the year, astronomically the real beginning of summer, but for those with other modes of time reckoning, mid-summer. Especially in places that are dark a lot, it is a day of merriment and celebration.

Solstices occur when the sun is at its zenith; that is, at its highest point, in relation to the earth's equator. Humankind has known about them for almost as long as there have been humans on this planet, and in our earliest civilizations they played a special and significant role. It was nature that determined how we calculated and counted our notions of time, not according to the averaging of the frequencies of certain isotopes of uranium selected for this particular purpose (which is how our most precise time is established.

Still, Mother Nature, the Cosmos, doesn't really care how sophisticated we humans think we are. On 30 June this year 23:59:60 UTC (midnight, in common terms), a leap second will be added to UTC in order to synchronize atomic clocks with astronomical time to within 0.9 seconds. Oh, how proud we must be. OK, I'm enough of a geek to find this kind of stuff cool, but what really fascinates me about it is what it says about us as a species. We humans have the privilege and benefit of being able to reflect upon such things, even if the vast majority of us (a) don't know that such things even exist and (b) when we do, we simply fail to take advantage of it.

The summer solstice, of course, is the counterpart to the other yearly solstice, the one in winter. That one is much more well known (though barely) because it occurs near to Christmas and the winter festivities have stuck with us longer. Occurring exactly half a year apart, they have different meanings, primarily because of the physical differences that we denizens of this planet experience at these particular times. The festivals of the winter solstice, throughout history, have been spiritual ones; the summer ones, physical: lots of drinking, dancing, cavorting, merry-making ... like in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. We should remember, however, that things are exactly opposite in the Southern Hemisphere. There it is winter that starts and they should be celebrating their spiritual festivals, but they aren't going to be doing so for the most part because Northern Hemisphereans colonized the Southern Hemisphere and decided that everyone needed to be just like us.

It's really sad when you stop to think about it: one half of the earth was moving from the spiritual to the physical while at the same time the other half was moving in the opposite direction. The earth, as it were, was really a giant, living Ying-Yang. But we found a way to change it and work against the flow of time and nature that had served the planet for billions of years. And look at us now. Now wonder the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" only became a cult classic. That was a film about know-it-alls who were making life miserable for others. And that's what we do best.

Perhaps, in part, because we started ignoring the days the sun stops.

Late-winter blues

Gee, I hope nobody gets the idea that I'm just singin' the blues ... that's not my intent at all. To me, the blues, as a genre of music, reflects down-to-earth, everyday experience that, while not always exciting and uplifting, is nevertheless worth thinking about. Yes, anything worth thinking about has something to do with the blues.

Now, in late winter, when the fasting time is upon us, there is a subtle change in the air that is well worth noting. Yes, it made sense that, at least for us here in the northern climes, that a period of fasting be introduced, for there was a time when our stores of food that got us through the winter would be coming to an end. Spring was coming, to be sure, but that was a time of preparing and planting. Late grasses, like field lettuce (or lamb's lettuce, or rapunzel, for those of you familiar with fairy tales) would be available, but it would still be awhile before the first berries would become available, strawberries generally, and that would be after Easter anyway.

This is a time of change, though, if you choose to see it. The days are getting longer ... well actually, we are experiencing more daylight hours (for as long as I can remember days only have 24 hours, both summer and winter) which most of us take to be a positive thing. There are still a lot of cold days, the wind can be particularly biting, and it can certainly be wet, but in between, sometimes even for a few days at a time, it can warm up enough that we find that we have loosened our scarves and maybe even unbuttoned our coats. Yes, things are starting to loosen up after winter's firm and chilling grasp.

The only reason I mention it at all is that I realize how many people don't notice these things at all, unless we remind them. Our modern lives are pretty much divorced from nature, and we don't relate very well to it anymore. We jam ourselves into urban areas, do our hunting-and-gathering at the local supermarket, have fruits and vegetables of all kinds all year round (I still don't like seeing strawberries in the produce department in December), and so we have, for the most part, simply lost touch with the natural rhythms that once guided our lives ... or at least the lives of our forebears.

There is a natural rhythm and flow to nature, and it is one that we're not the better for when we ignore it. Electric lights are wonderful things, don't get me wrong, but they have driven us to an always-on, always-doing, always-working lifestyle, and we lose sight of the fact that periods of retreat, of quiet, of relaxation and reflection, can also be very positive influences in our lives. It is possible to put a bit more rhythm in our lives (which is, just in case you were wondering, not the same as routine: going to the gym on Tuesdays is routine, strawberries after Easter is rhythm), but it means being a bit more aware, not just of the world around us, but of the natural world as well.

Think about it. Get a new groove.

Really, from the bottom up?

I don't argue that I have simplified my discussion of "human nature", if we want to call it that, and that I've focused on an aspect of our nature - our consciousness - that our animal cousins do not share with us to the same degree as it is present in ourselves. There are, however, a couple of other biologically determined features that also speak for our differentness:

1. our digestive tract, from teeth to colon, is suited for any kind of food;
2. we're built not for speed, but for endurance;
3. we have speech organs that allow for highly differentiated communication possibilities;
4. we walk/run upright, freeing our hands for other tasks/activities;
5. we have an opposable thumb, facilitating tool use and production;
6. we also never stop learning and can learn through imitation, oral instruction, demonstration, and a variety of other modes.

When we consider these additional features, we find that we're also exceedingly adaptable creatures. We are the only species who can be found living in all the climate that the planet has to offer. We are everywhere and we have found ways to accommodate ourselves to any environment. Considering in particular items 3-6 in the list above, we find additional reinforcement for our social proclivity: we function best in a group. It is the group that can find and eat anything, anywhere, almost anytime, because we can communicate well and make things that help us adapt. It's a kind of virtuous circle.

We are, in a word, quite amazing creatures, and we are so, and hence so successful as a species because we can do something better than any other species can: we can cooperate. I know, I know, lions are successful in prides, and chimpanzees often hunt in troops, wolves and orcas run in packs. But, we can adjust the size, intensity, level of commitment and leadership of our groups on the fly, a moment's notice, with a minimum of effort.

This is just the way we are, but when we look around these days, there is little left of this nature to be seen: we've walled ourselves in, we communicate very little, we avoid learning more often than not, and we have trouble simply getting along. We don't need to turn back the clock and become hunter-gatherers again, not at all. We simply need to be aware of our strengths and build on them, and wherever possible, avoid our inherent weaknesses.

We've got a great foundation to build upon, so why do we work so hard at tearing it down?

Lighter tomorrows

If you've given something up ... if you've shifted your attention away from yourself to someone else, then you've got to feel lighter. You see how simple it all can be.

Yeah, yeah, I know ... all you do is sacrifice yourself for others. Who doesn't? All we all do is give and give and give and everybody we know just takes and takes and takes. No wonder the world is so screwed up. If everyone were like me ... right.

That's where we always get stuck, isn't it? We just love to think that we're just fine and everyone else is the problem. That's only partially true. Yes, everyone else is a problem, but we're the problem, too. There are no exceptions. Master George said it best: you're born, you're guilty, end of story. That's right. Being present is the admission of guilt. You're here, you're part of the problem.

The funny part is, contrary to popular belief, no one has ever expected you to change the world all on your own. You can't. You just aren't that important. Why place that burden on yourself? It's really simple ... and obvious ... if you stop to think about it.

Humans are one of nature's creatures who is most helpless when born. We are not capable of living on our own for quite some time (and some people never manage to mature that far, but that's another story). We aren't suited to eat "outside" (mom) food till around nine months after we show up. We can't walk till around then either, and we have no idea where to go anyway. We spend years depending on our parents for everything: food, shelter, clothing. We can't function without learning lots of useful and useless things in school, and even then, we don't grow or hunt our own food, most of us don't know how to cook. We are, and remain, highly dependent upon others for our mere survival. It's time to simply acknowledge this simple fact.

The point is that nature has made us dependent on others. There's nothing wrong with that. It's how we are, by nature. All that bullshit about individualism, rugged or otherwise, is just that: bullshit. You are not any more of an individual than anyone else, and in the end, we are our own selves, that is true, but we are selves who cannot live without others. The sooner we own up to that simple fact, the sooner things even stand a chance of getting better.

Time to celebrate?

It might be advisable to get out of the hole for a moment. There are plenty of things to explore there, and we can get back to it whenever we please. It may have escaped your notice, but we've got the big spring thing going on, and I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention it.
Yes, for some it's Easter, of course, for others it is Passover. The close affinity of the two religions gives us the overlap.

Like Christmas, believe it or not, just when these holidays fall is also related to cosmological events. You will recall we have two solstices (when the sun is farthest and closest to the earth, the longest day and longest night, that is, the beginning of summer and the beginning of winter). You will also be happy to know we have two equinoxes as well, that is, days when the days and nights are of equal length. These occur when the sun crosses the equator going north (spring) or south (fall). Spring just recently sprang, so things are looking up. If you're not clouded in at night, though, you may want to check out the moon, because it is waxing (getting larger) and on Friday (the 6th, for most of us) it will be all filled up. We'll have our first full moon after the spring (that is, vernal) equinox. The first sabbath thereafter is when the holidays occur.

It's all very logical, isn't it? Perhaps. Just as I mentioned between the years, we moderns don't handle these kinds of things very well. It all seems to arbitrary, doesn't it? Well, actually, no ... at least not to one who is still aware of the fact that we humans, whether we like it or not, are still a part of nature and still very much influenced by it. When the moon is full, the tides are higher and water flows more strongly. When spring arrives, the plant realm awakens from it's winter sleep and things start to bloom. And our hibernating animal cousins awaken as well.

For anyone who wants to take it seriously, let's face it, this is precisely that point in the year when we get a new lease on life. That's reason to celebrate, isn't it?