Photo: Tree Trunk by E. Rozan, © 2007; Salutation from B. Payne, 1985
With the New Year, the Sun begins its upward movement, out of the
dark of the year. Our work, bringing out the lights, calling to the Sun, has paid off. Slowly, the days
will lengthen. By the time of Imbolc (February 4), and the Sun's movement in Pisces (February 18), we're closing in
on the beauty of Spring, just a short month away!
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Life
is a process of time passage, and this can be readily seen by the annual journey of the Sun through the calendar. Whether
the starting point is January as the first month or March as the Spring Equinox, or the business fiscal year, we
experience the apparent movement of the Sun, as viewed from the Earth. The Sun's journey
forms an analemma, as pictured below. The word analemma comes from Greek for support and Latin for the pedestal
of the sundial. The Sun's journey occurs with exquisite regularity and with organic, systemic and systemmatic unfolding.
It gives us context and orientation.
The Sun is the center of our solar system. The Earth, turning on its axis to give us day
and night, revolves around the Sun to give us the seasons. The Earth’s path (the ecliptic) around the Sun
gives us the 12 signs of the zodiac. As we look out from the Earth, from our geocentric perspective, we see this as the Sun’s
path. This path, over the course of the year, forms an unequal figure 8, called
the analemma, because of the Earth’s tilt on its axis. The analemma shows an equation of time for each day of the year, as measured by the apparent declination
of the Sun. Declination is the latitude measurement of bodies in relation to the Earth’s equator. We say then that the analemma measures with great precision and
regularity the apparent movement of the Sun over the course of the year. Through
its loops and crossover days, the analemma provides a natural rhythm that supports the progression of life over time.
The
crossover days (April 13 and August 29) are significant because the Sun rises and sets at exactly the same time (this year,
at 6:06 am EDT). Does this suggest a harmony point or chaos? Combined with other planetary phenomenon, these days
are full of energy, and worthy of note on a personal, local, national, and international level.
We can give thanks to the Sun's life-giving qualities, as the
King of Light passes through the bottom of the analemma, where it is darkest at Winter Solstice, and to the top
of the analemma, where it is brightest at Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.
During the festival of Pongal, celebrated in India to honor the Sun's movement out of south declination--uttarayana.
The heart chakra relates to the Sun, and emanates through eight petals. According to the Vedas, this is a sacred time,
where one surrenders and discovers that the Divine is enshrined in the heart. Liberation and bliss are the lasting rewards.
Likened to a stalk of sugar cane, the human life is hard and has many knots. But when the knots are overcome--and the
cane is crushed and converted into molasses-- there is sweetness which takes up place in the heart as enduring bliss.
Sweet rice is shared and eaten, symbols of the harvest.
