Happy Summer Solstice, everybody !
“Daylight Saving Time” disturbs the celestial symmetry. Clearly, sunrise and sunset have to be measured by reference to high noon, when the hands of our (truly analog) clocks would point straight up and when the Sun is at zenith and shows us the way south - not by arbitrary human attempts to increase shopping hours, or even by imposing a time zone meridian (120ºW) on the geometry of the world to facilitate communication and commerce. By that more natural reckoning, the image above depicts a moment that passed our local meridian (125ºW) at 04:09 this morning, while our bedside alarm clocks read 05:29.
Our calendars tell us that this marks the “beginning of summer”, yet the older rituals of Midsummer Night inform us that summer is halfway over, that, while temperatures will continue to rise and skies will empty of clouds, and it will feel more like summer than before, the days will grow shorter again, starting now.
The Sun rose into a cloudy sky today, but not without first rising above the coastal mountains in her awesome brilliance and power ...