Here comes the Sun

I have been waiting for days to write this blog.  My favorite day of the year is coming!  First -- a little history....

Stonehenge -- as you probably know  - is an ancient site in Scotland where the Druid are thought to have practiced their religious cult.  But it has an interesting structure.  By standing at a certain point, one can tell where the sun is and when it passes certain latitudes each year.  This was apparently  of the utmost importance to them.

Machu Picchu is an ancient Mayan city in the mountains of Peru where they survived centuries ago.  Among the structures there is a site where the Mayans could foretell the position of the sun at any time.  I have read -- some of the great pyramids in Egypt are built so the sun will shine down a shaft at certain special times of the year.

I have visited the ancient site of Chichen Itza and climbed the famous chopped off pyramid called El Castillo.  That is a Mayan ruin in the jungle near the Mexican city of Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.  Although that climb was a heart stopping experience -- the most interesting thing I found while visiting this ancient site was  their tower and circle of cog-like rock formations with which they could tell at any moment in tine where the moon and Venus were located in the sky with respect to the Earth.  This tower also told these progressive people where the sun was and when it passed the various latitudes on the earth's surface.

Now stay with me ---  These three sites determined that on a certain day each year the sun's rays  passed over the equator on its trip from the Tropic of Capricorn in the south and toward the Tropic of Cancer in the north where the sun seemed to  stop and began to return to compete the cycle again.  They knew this centuries ago.

Most of the folks on this earth thought that the sun moved about and would stay a little longer until a certain day when it began to move away  -- then it would seem to slowly leave us.  They were afraid it wouldn't come back. So, after lots of prayers to various Gods and various ceremonies and dances and even human sacrifices -- the sun (which they worshiped) would decided to return and do the whole thing again year after year. (It is thought that the approximate  date upon which we celebrate Christmas might have been chosen because of this cycle of the sun's winter solstice December 21st).  It was only a few years ago that our brilliant religious leaders admitted that maybe the earth was doing the moving and not the sun.  I think the Mayans and maybe the Druids already knew that centuries ago.

Stay with me ---  Some years ago -- I was privileged to go with some friends down to Baja California in Mexico to a fishing village called Rancho Buena Vista and fish for big Marlin in the Sea of Cortez.  It was in late June.  As we traveled from the Cabo Airport to our destination, we passed a huge sign beside the road near the entrance to the village which stated in huge letters  TROPIC  OF CANCER  with a line across the road.  We stopped and I took a picture.   

One day during our trip, we took a day off from fishing and I found myself strolling along the beach all alone -- having a cold beer.  It was June 21st and it was exactly noon and it was hot.  There was a strange aura all about me.  I saw a discarded beer can on the beach and an old abandoned boat.  But something was wrong -- not wrong but different.  Then it came to me.  It was noon on June 21st and I was standing directly on the Tropic of Cancer.  The sun was as directly over head as it would ever be anywhere on the earth and  there were NO SHADOWS. The beer can and the boat had no shadows.  I looked at my feet.  I was standing entirely on my own shadow.  It was weird!  I had my camera and tried to take a picture but I couldn't capture that strange world where no shadows existed.  I will never forget it. 

I always think of that experience as we approach the summer solstice or the longest day of the year -- June 21st.  I love this long day of sunshine --  I wonder if anyone is going to stand on their shadow on the Tropic of Cancer? -- Yes, I know the sun doesn't go anywhere -- the earth does all the moving.  But I certainly understand why it doesn't seem that way.  I will just go along with tradition -- I'm easy.

From the heart of Olaf Hart......