Marking Time

The word planet is derived from the ancient Greek πλανήτης (planētēs) meaning nomad or wanderer. Nomad and wanderer are fitting metaphors for Earthborn observers on a life raft orbiting the Sun.

Points to Eastern Horizon
archival pigmented print

Jim Krehbiel

The construct of time, the narrative element of marking time, and the construct of orientation are traceable to the human experience of a random and arbitrary astronomical phenomenon: The elliptical circuit Earth travels around the Sun.

A 365° elliptical circuit of the Sun is the astronomical metronome that provides the clicks and markers for perhaps the most persistent human narratives which are the marking of time and a sense of direction.

Cross-quarter Sun by the Crescent Moon
archival pigmented print

Jim Krehbiel

Years are marked by a lap around the Sun. A year is segmented into seasons. Earth proceeds counter-clockwise through eight spatial milestones marking the beginning, midpoint and end of each season. The eight positions are visualized as spokes on what is considered the Wheel of the Year by modern Pagans.

Last month, Earth traveled through its Summer Solstice. Next month Earth passes through the cross-quarter called Lughnasadh, corresponding to a Gaelic festival marking the beginning of the harvest. September brings the Autumnal Equinox, followed by the cross-quarter Samhain, corresponding to a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest.

December harkens the arrival of Winter Solstice, followed by the cross-quarter Imbolc in February, corresponding to a Gaelic festival marking the beginning of spring. March brings the Vernal Equinox, followed by the cross-quarter Beltane, corresponding to a Gaelic May day festival. Completing the circuit brings us back to the Summer Solstice.

A rising and setting Sun is a predictable orientational prop. The force of gravity plays the principal role in our orientational fiction for up and down.

Earth's orbit of the Sun provides an additional framework for directional orientation. In native American cultures, notably the Hopis, direction is derived from observable phenomena rather than intellectual abstraction.

The four cardinal directions of Hopi cosmology, and apparently those of many other American Indian cosmologies, are not the four directions which the European tradition derives from an abstract geometrization of space. Rather their cardinal directions are empirically observable ones defined by observations of sunrise and sunset at the winter and summer solstices. The four solstitial directions not only provide a stable empirical framework within which astronomical observations are made, but they also provide a general cosmological framework which draws apparently unrelated natural phenomena into an organic unity.
— Stephen C. McCluskey

Ancient humans gazed up at the night sky to observe sparkling bodies overhead seemingly stationary, but to the patient observer, moving. Our ancient ancestors would have noticed the phases of the Moon because of the opportunities and threats an illuminated Moon might have posed to them.

Antares over Moonhouse
archival pigmented print

Jim Krehbiel

With unaided eye, our ancient ancestors would have also noticed faster moving bodies in the sky which we now know were the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They likely would have noted sunlight and shadow aligning, striking, and passing across targets aligned with equinox, solstice, and cross-quarter sunrises and sunsets.

We are all one child spinning through Mother Sky.
— Shawnee proverb

To ancient civilizations awed by cyclical astronomical phenomena, the ability to predict and mark such events was prized and sacred knowledge.


REFERENCES

• Archaeoastronomy, Wikipedia.
• Archaeoastronomy in the New World: American Primitive Astronomy, Anthony F. Aveni, Cambridge University Press, 1982.

September Equinox

The earth has two equinoxes – one in September and one in March. The September Equinox will occur next Saturday September 22 at 14:49 (or 2:49pm) Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

What is the equinox?

September Equinox

The equinox occurs when the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night is nearly equal. The twilight zone is a moving line that separates the illuminated day side and the dark night side of the earth. The equinoxes are the only times when the twilight zone is inclined 90° to the Earth's Equator.

Equinox is a Latin word meaning equal night. At the cusp of the equinox, night and day are 12 hours. The equilux is a word that describes that time when sunset and sunrise are exactly 12 hours apart.

A Reflection on Seasons

Seasons are opposite on either side of the equator. In the northern hemisphere the September equinox is known as the autumnal equinox. In the southern hemisphere it is known as the vernal or spring equinox.

Here in the North American continent, we are experiencing the approach of the autumnal equinox. It is a time of the year where we appreciate the remaining plant life, particularly delighting in autumn flowers.

Earth laughs in flowers.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flowers in autumn seem to grow more vibrant in color as the days and nights grow cooler - as if to defy their impending death.

At the autumnal equinox, many of us notice the waning plant life knowing their time remaining will be short. Philosopher Albert Camus noted:

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. 

Morning Glory

Some sowers of flower seeds bury pre-soaked and razor-scored Morning Glory seeds each Spring in a sort of long-view anticipation of the short window of their bluish-purple bloom in late summer and early autumn.

The Morning Glory is one of the sublimest of flowers, perhaps because of its sudden vibrancy and fleeting display of color. Poet Walt Whitman noted:

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

Poet Matsuo Bashô (松尾芭蕉) wrote:

朝顔に 我は飯食ふ 男かな

asagao ni ware wa meshi kû otoko kana

I am one Who eats his breakfast, Gazing at morning glories.

A Morning Glory

Many of the uncertainties we fret about have no permanence; like autumn flora they gradually pass away.

In the natural world, the autumnal equinox is a time for scattering and sowing seeds.

For humans, the autumnal equinox is a time for reflection, for renewing attentiveness, and for appreciating all that's fleeting.