Summer Solstice...
our journey here on the earth as we go around the sun
June 20, 2021…the longest day of the year. Technically summer begins tonite in our Northern Hemisphere at 8:32 p.m. PDT, 11:32 p.m. EDT (0332 June 21 GMT).
According to NASA’s Watch the Skies blog, “We will begin to see early dawns, long days, late sunsets, and short nights. On the solstice, our Sun will reach its highest point as it crosses the sky. Meanwhile, south of the equator, winter will begin!”
“The ancient cultures knew that the Sun’s path across the sky, length of daylight, and location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year. Additionally, people built monuments, like Stonehenge, to follow the Sun’s annual progress, to worship the Sun, and to predict its movements.”
I looked up worship in the Merriam Websters Dictionary. Worship in essence is to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power and extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem as in the worship of the dollar… their words not mine. Hmmn. Maybe we need to stop and think about what we worship? Why is reverence for nature and this miracle planet that we live on missing from and not a prominent value in our political discourse, from the focus of theology? We are not the center of the universe and the well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on earth have value in themselves. Deep Ecology states these values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes. This is not utopian thinking.
“Earth spins on its axis once in every 24-hour day. At Earth’s equator, the speed of Earth’s spin is about 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km per hour). The day-night has carried you around in a grand circle under the stars every day of your life, and yet you don’t feel Earth spinning. Why not? It’s because you and everything else – including Earth’s oceans and atmosphere – are spinning along with the Earth at the same constant speed.” 1
I was thinking of a quote that would be useful to think about as we journey around the sun. Thinking of a journey, along a path? "Look at every path closely and deliberately....Then ask yourself...one question...Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is no use." - Carlos Castaneda
Rachel Carson comes to mind today as I walked along the sea, on the coastal trail here in Fort Bragg- twice. Once this morning and later in the evening.
"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction," Carson said. She also famously stated, "But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself."