SHORTEST DAY, LONGEST NIGHT . . . AGAIN

Today is the shortest day of the year?

If that’s true, then the shortest day follows the longest night, or tonight is the longest night.

There’s got to be some kind of astrological meaning, but I don’t know.

What I do know is the night before Christmas used to last what felt like a week.

Now? Not so much. Why?

Mostly because I’m not six years old and ransacking the house with my brothers looking for presents to peak into.

And I’m not up half the night putting toys together for my kids.

What I am doing is enjoying the time, day and night.

I like moving toward the light more than the dark.

I like it when the sun rises to the left of Mt. Hood where I see it, instead of the right.

More than I like to admit, I never really thought about the winter solstice as much as I have this year.

I can see the sunrise now and imagine how light hits the earth differently on the shortest day.

The odd thing? I can imagine why ancient Greeks and Romans made up their gods to explain natural phenomena.

 

In the 100s BC, Hipparchus, the most important Greek astronomer of his time, calculated the comparative brightness of as many as 1,000 different stars. He also calculated the Moon’s distance from the Earth.

 

This is where a blog like Boomerpdx separates itself from the pack.

Have you heard of Hipparchus? Me neither. Will you google him? I did it for you.

How did some tunic-wearing Greek guy figure out distances in space?

This is how:

In the middle of the 2nd century BCE, Greek astronomer Hipparchus pioneered the use of a method known as parallax. The idea of parallax is simple: when objects are observed from two different angles, closer objects appear to shift more than do farther ones.

 

Parallax?

 

Cosmic Cowboys?

The ancients had to learn from experience, and from the knowledge left to them by Babylonians and Egyptians.

How about us?

We can go outside and look up at the same sky that’s always been there.

But first, why not get tuned up?

Here in western Oregon it’s harder to see stars because the skies are cloudy all year, but we can tell night from day.

So we find places, darker places.

On my street the lights never go off.

Houses have motion detector lights, video camera lights, and now and then police lights when they visit the meth house two doors down.

None are ideal, so getting to a dark place is a real event.

Just be careful when you get out there. And don’t fall down while you’re looking up.

 

Shortest Day For The Short Tempered

Some people use the shortest day to get their angriest.

They do it knowing it won’t last and tomorrow is another day.

If it’s not enough daylight, then it’s something else. Then something else until exhaustion sets in and everyone drops.

What’s the big topic on the shortest day?

If it’s whether or not to drink water from a stream, don’t.

Beaver Fever is just one of the things downstream.

What would be better, a long night with giardia, or a short day?

My advice is neither, so don’t drink stream water like that guy.

 

A better topic for condensed daytime?

Christmas shopping.

In other words, time is running out.

If you’re a fan of the darkness, your time is done once we get over the solstice hump.

If you’re a fan of last minute shopping, you still have time.

It might be dark, but as long as you’ve got a few bucks for a special person, you’ll bring the light.

For everything else?