Current location:	RI
Current mood:	worried
Current music:	Loreena McKennitt, An Ancient Muse
Entry tags:	rants, reflections on the day

random quasi-rant on the day
'Tis the solstice. By convention, the beginning of Summer. But by sunlight, the end of its ascendancy. The days will get shorter; winter is a cumin in. :)

But the solstice can also be regarded as the peak of a season -- one based on the cross-quarter days, midway between the solstices and the equinoxes. This season ends with Lammas day on August 1st -- with the Church appropriating the day observed by the Druids or whoever to Christianize it, so we are told, as we are for many days.

I've got to do some research on this. If you use the 21st as roughly close to the date of equinox or solstice, the 17th days are close to the mark, though changing as the sun changes. But the dates I see given are usually close to the 2cd or so, based on the sun's position in the sky, which, with an elliptical orbit, I guess, needn't match the number of days so tidily. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-quarter_day)

So this season would begin close to the Presentation, Candlemas, on the 2cd of February.

Again, I've got to do some research on this, because I hear some neo-pagans fixing on fixed days in the Roman (Gregorian) calendar as being days of observance in Celtic British times, and accepting Christian Saints' days for the dates. Convenient, I suppose, for modern tastes, but not likely historically. Since the equinoxes and solstices move a bit, so also the cross-quarter days or whatever they were called at the time. (The movability is noted in the Wikipedia entry above.)

The conventional seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter are heavily marked by heat -- regardless of the sun in the sky, it takes time for the earth to heat up and cool off. So the heat of the sun has its full effect only after its day has past; similarly for winter. Call these the heat and cold seasons.

But the light and dark seasons interest me. I think I've noted that I recall as a kid being aware that summer ended with July 4th, and winter ended with New Year's Day. These are each when I would first note the changing length of day.

Interestingly, they're also the holidays close to the Earth's greatest distance from the sun (Aphelion, roughly July 4th), and the Earth's closest approach to the sun (Perihelion, roughly January 3rd or so).

I wonder why these days get so little coverage. I mean, increasing heat or cold, increasing light or dark are all very well and good. But aren't the engulfed or eclipsed by the possibility of plunging into the sun or spinning off into space?!

take care, :)

John