Man has noted the regularity of nature in different ways; the order it implies is always translated provincially.
Recognition of the solstice as an important event goes back to Neolithic times. It would take some time to track the setting and rising sun on the horizon but it could be done easily enough. One can visualize the local tribal genius placing stakes on a flat plain or cliff by the ocean as he tracks the course of the sun's rising or setting. The idea that it was an important measurement seems the significant realization. When his stakes became predictive, he probably became a rock star.
The summer solstice marks the longest day of the calendar year and the beginning of the summer season in the northern hemisphere. It is the day the sun sets at its most northern point in its cycle, when the earth’s axial tilt is closest to the sun. Literally the word is from the Latin solstitium containing the Latin sol meaning “the sun” and stittium meaning “stoppage.” The term translates “point at which the sun seems to stand still.”
Historically, cultures following lunar calendars placed the beginning of the day on the previous evening at dusk at the moment when the sun had set. (Hence A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) In a number of cultures it was the most important celebration of the year. Ancient Rome’s festival of Vestalia, a celebration honoring the Roman Goddess of the hearth, Vesta, was the only time of the year that married women were allowed to enter the shrine of Vesta. Only the vestal virgins were permitted inside for the remaining 359 days of the year. In ancient China, the solstice was marked by honoring the earth, the feminine, and the yin forces.
In other cultures the point of the event was the turning of the sun south again. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely then and, in later years, witches were thought to be on their way to meetings with other powerful beings.
Those witches are gone now--or are in disguise.
Recognition of the solstice as an important event goes back to Neolithic times. It would take some time to track the setting and rising sun on the horizon but it could be done easily enough. One can visualize the local tribal genius placing stakes on a flat plain or cliff by the ocean as he tracks the course of the sun's rising or setting. The idea that it was an important measurement seems the significant realization. When his stakes became predictive, he probably became a rock star.
The summer solstice marks the longest day of the calendar year and the beginning of the summer season in the northern hemisphere. It is the day the sun sets at its most northern point in its cycle, when the earth’s axial tilt is closest to the sun. Literally the word is from the Latin solstitium containing the Latin sol meaning “the sun” and stittium meaning “stoppage.” The term translates “point at which the sun seems to stand still.”
Historically, cultures following lunar calendars placed the beginning of the day on the previous evening at dusk at the moment when the sun had set. (Hence A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) In a number of cultures it was the most important celebration of the year. Ancient Rome’s festival of Vestalia, a celebration honoring the Roman Goddess of the hearth, Vesta, was the only time of the year that married women were allowed to enter the shrine of Vesta. Only the vestal virgins were permitted inside for the remaining 359 days of the year. In ancient China, the solstice was marked by honoring the earth, the feminine, and the yin forces.
In other cultures the point of the event was the turning of the sun south again. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely then and, in later years, witches were thought to be on their way to meetings with other powerful beings.
Those witches are gone now--or are in disguise.
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