Susquehanna Meditations: Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice Sky

Welcome to the Winter Solstice.    The timing of the solstice is no guesswork, no approximation. You can count on it.  Quite literally.  Today sun is at its farthest distance from us.  Sunset for us will be at 4:15 PM.  The length of the day will be nine hours and five minutes.  It is the darkest day of the year.  Do not fret, it won’t stay this way.  The Winter Solstice heralds our turning point.  Ah’ silly hubris – thinking it is the sun that moves.  The sun may seem to us to stand till for this day but our earth moves on, the pull of gravity inexorable.  Don’t we know this?   Can you feel gravity happening?  Maybe not now?  Give it time and you’ll see the effect of gravity for sure.   

From solstice on, our daylight begins to increase.  The light increases.    Hope awakens.  No prediction this but promise. 

Tonight we welcome the night sky.  At 9:30 PM we bundle up in warm winter coats and scarves and venture outside.  Pull your boots on too, it’s probably wet.  Let’s hope for a clear night sky. 

We look northward.  Polaris is right where you saw it before.  The clock hands turn but the cannon pinion remains fixed.    Look now where Ursa Major is found:  off to the east of Polaris and slightly lower toward the horizon, as if the Big Dipper is almost standing straight up by its handle.  Little Dipper and Big Dipper face each other, although Little Dipper’s handle points up. 

Cassiopeia has wandered also, she is now high and closer to the west, her ‘W’ pointing down toward her husband King Cephus with his pointy hat pointing northeast. 

Fully to the east mid-high in the sky are the stars Castor and Pollux of the constellation Gemini (the Dioscuri, the sons of Zeus), Pollux the brighter of the brothers.  Pollux is the twelfth brightest star we can see with our naked eyes.  Born of Leda, these two brothers look down on us mortals as protectors of sailors, honored by the Romans, these brothers originally Argonauts sharing Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece.   Brothers:  they were inseparable, even when Castor was killed.  Zeus set them in the sky to honor their brotherly love.   Where one goes, so goes the other.  Brothers look out for each other.   It’s perfectly okay for brother to beat up brother but if bully show up to take one he’ll have to face to face two.  Brothers. 

Turn around and admire mid-high in the southern central sky another hero located at the edge of the Gemini constellation:  popular Orion with his sword belt and upheld club.   His foot is the star Rigel and his right shoulder marks the star Betelgeuse.  Tracing the line west from the three stars that form his belt and you find closer to the horizon the brightest star in the night sky:  Sirius, the dog star, Canis Major, the larger of Orion’s hunting dogs.  Trace the three stars of Orion’s belt in the other direction and you will locate the star Aldebaran,  the red eye of Taurus the bull.  Orion’s club is poised to strike the bull.  Just to the right of Aldebaran, if you squint just right, you will find the Hyades, the cluster of the seven sister stars that sparkle and glow as one.   Sisters together. 

Fully to the west, mid-high in the sky, the great square of Pegasus’ wing flies Perseus to Andromeda’s rescue, Pegasus interposing himself between beautiful Andromeda and the fearsome monster about to attack her, the constellation Cetus, the whale (which if you connect the dots does look like a whale swimming downward).

Monsters, heroes, adventurers, adventures, sisters, brothers, fights, rescues, and defeats.  Above is writ large what happens here below every day.