Willow (84.04.12 - 97.12.16) Winter Solstice Sam Wormley's Program Notes - December 21, 1997 A few years ago, as an amateur astronomer, I was invited to be part of a winter solstice night-time nature walk at McFarland Park north of Ames. 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... o Rest and restoration of the Winter... In the Northern Hemisphere, today] is the Winter Solstice. It is the shortest day of the year. When did we stop looking at the night sky? Thousands of years ago and up until this last century, people had a thorough knowledge of the night sky and its motions. This is very clear from the many astronomical references in ancient literature, whether it be the Chinese lyric poets or the classical Greek and Roman writers. For Dante, astronomy was central to his whole vision of the world. The writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries are full of astronomical allusions. But it is much more unusual to find astronomical references in modern writing. No part of our environment is so rich as an archive of other intelligences, as the night sky. The night is a repository of human cultural history. The names of the stars are entries in a family album that show us what we have been and what we have become. Perhaps people stopped looking at the sky because with Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton everything was explained. The erratic motions of the planets along the zodiac held no more mystery, no longer was it rational to imagine that comets were terrible omens. Human destiny was not tied to the night sky and so we gradually stopped looking at it. Marking of the change of seasons was important to cultures all around the World. Before calendars, ancient civilizations built sighting rings of stone or built structures that allowed spots or daggers of light to fall on certain places to mark the times of solstices, equinoxes, and other celestial event. These structures are found all over Europe, and in North and South America. Rituals and festivals accompany the winter solstice. People didn't just sit huddled in a dark corner around a fire to pass the time. They celebrated with song... and story... and dance! [As we are doing today] The Roman Catholic church move the birthdate of Christ to December 25 (which in the old calendars fell on the winter solstice), because the Celts and everyone else had been celebrating the solstice for thousands of years. Tribal peoples believed they had a part in helping the Earth cycles to continue in a way that was healthy. Rituals such as the solstice ceremony "add energy to the universe, and help the flow go on in the expected way". "The Old Religion was the religion of the peasants, and it had extremely strong roots in the Earth. When Christianity came along, it was unable to sever the roots the peasants had with their mother the Earth. So instead of pursuing its eradication, they incorporated it. So you have things like Brigid, the celtic fire goddess, becoming a saint in the Catholic church". Holly... evergreens... carols... and wassail are other elements taken from Pagan ritual and adapted to Christianity. Many of you knew Carmel, the Franzen's big Golden Retriever, who graced the steps of this Fellowship for many a year. Carmel's sister, Willow, is my dog. Willow was raised with the philosophy, that of the Monks of New Skete... that the dog should be an integral part of one's life. My life and all of its activities, through our last fourteen trips around the Sun, have been integrated with Willow... as my companion. We have adventures together... she comes to work with me... and we spend just about every possible night out under the stars. I did not know it at the time, but Willow started to bleed internally Monday night and probably would not have survived the following day. She was euthanised Tuesday afternoon. She was in relative comfort... She and I were so lucky to be close... in communication... and caring for each other to the end. She has been an outstanding companion for the last almost fourteen years together... never endingly loyal and caring. Communication was strong, sometimes subtle, involving gesture, sound, eye contact, touch and on and on. I miss her dearly. Losses like this... make one question what life is all about and why we even have existence. She has made my life infinitely better, and I think I have made hers the same. The solstices mark our passage through life. They mark life and death... growth and rest... and they help us to contemplate nature and our very existence.