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The shortest day of the year is more than eight hours shorter than the longest — more than a third of the year’s longest day.

Every year on this day I begin the eleven day march to the year’s end. A candle is lit for one hour at sunset each day until December 31st. Christmas occurs on the 5th night of the procession. I spend the time to reflect on the past year and contemplate what must be done in the year ahead. You are welcome to join me.

Roddy

Galileo Galilee (1564-1642) was, but three months old, when Jean Calvin (1509-1564) passed away in May of 1564. Martin Luther (1483-1546) had preceded Galileo Galilee by more than a century. In effect, Galilee was a late-comer to the Christian Reformation, but it was he who made it clear that the earth and other planetary bodies, known to all of human-kind at the time, rotated around the sun, and that the earth was not the center of the universe, as many of us, humans, once believed.

The rotation of the earth around the sun does not form a concentric circle; it forms, rather, the pattern of a near circular ellipse. It is not this elliptical pattern that causes the four seasons that we who live distant from the equator experience every year. The cause is the tilt of the earth in relationship to the sun at each point of the earth’s orbit around the sun. Every year this relationship reaches four astronomical extremes: two of these occur in the spring and fall, and two in the summer and winter. Indeed, twice a year equality becomes an extreme, and the amount of sunlight and its absence, that we humans located on the earth’s surface experience, are the same.

With these thoughts I wish you a Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Roddy A. Stegemann
First Hill, Seattle 98104
Author of Mount Cambitas – The Story of Real Money

Today is, of course, the day of every year — but in particular this year — when the most amount of daylight is experienced by those of us resident north of the equator. Those to the south of same experience the greatest amount of darkness. In the north it is also the day when the sun sets and rises at its northern most points.

If you live in the north and are looking for a new place to live, you may want to insure that the side of your residence that you wish to be your coolest in summer faces south. For this same side will be the warmest in winter.

Now biologists and physicists do not always agree. For the biologist summer began nearly a month ago. For the physicists who studies astronomy summer begins today.

In either case, I wish you a Happy Summer!

Roddy

And still, another spring has come!

According to the calendar, though, it appears to have arrived earlier than past years. This is because our preference for counting time in terms of days and nights — and in some corners of the world even moons — puts us ever so slightly at odds with the rest of the universe and our own tiny cosmos whose center is the sun. Accordingly, once every four years we add a day — namely, February 29th — to the calendar that does not exist during the other years and call the modified year, Leap Year. No matter the name, whose origin I have some trouble explaining, it is important that we all agree and are able to adjust, what suits us best, to rest of the universe.

So, Happy Spring!

In liberty,

Roddy A. Stegemann

Yesterday marked the day when ever-longer nights reversed course and became ever-longer days. I celebrated. And, I will continue to celebrate for one hour at sunset every evening until the eve of January 1st when the star of Sirius appears above the horizon in the center of the sky marking the beginning of the solar New Year. There are about sixty minutes between civil sunset when the color of the evening sky turns to darkness and the astro sunset when only the direct light of the stars and the indirect light of the moon and planets fill the night with light. This year the moon will be full on December 26th, the day after Christmas.

Unlike the lunar New Years of the Chinese and Islamic traditions that begin at different times of the year and appear arbitrary beyond the separate historical traditions that define them, the solar New Year is the same for everyone, for it is determined by the position of a star very distant from our own solar system. Although the solar New Year also has a historical tradition, in the physical scheme of our galaxy it is anything, but arbitrary.

If there is a moral to these remarks, then it must be that there are certain truths to our existence that go beyond our separate cultures and unique, but different views of the world. That each preserve the truth of his own culture and person, and that no person or group of persons dictate to all of humanity what only Nature or Nature’s God is worthy.

Be healthy, be safe, and above all, be free. It takes courage, wisdom, and perseverence.

I wish everyone a thoughtful Countdown.

Seattle, 22 December 2023
Roddy A. Stegemann

Today has been the longest day of the year 2023. Beginning tomorrow our days will become shorter and things will begin to feel more normal. Although I like summer very much, so much light in such a dark world aggravates an already extreme and disoriented social situation. Truly I am looking forward to the autumn equinox.

Roddy A. Stegemann

Computer woes have delayed my greeting by two days, but I am still in time for the beginning of the celebration of the month of ramadan in the western hemisphere.

If you have ever been confused about where the true direction of the east and the west lie, and you are able to put your political biases aside, and if you do not have access to a compass (check your smart phone) to remove any and all doubt (please excuse my redundancy), then this is the time to look to the sky, for nature can provide you with an accurate confirmation or disconfirmation of your doubt — with, of course, slight adjustment for my belated quarterly appearance. For, during the spring and fall equinoxes the sun rises and sets exactly where the needle of a compass would point, if it were properly set, and there were enough light for you to see.

With this may I wish you a happy month of ramadan and express my hope that your journey to the summer solstice proceeds with the greatest of energy, for nature is on our side. From now until then, our days will become longer and our nights shorter. Yes, if there is a zero sum game, then this is it.

Happy spring!

Roddy

It is at this time every year that the Star of Sirius lies in the middle of the southern sky of the northern hemisphere.

You have simply to look in the direction of the equator, find the southern most point, and look for the brightest star. There you will have found Sirius.

The more distant that you are from the equator, the lower in the sky Sirius appears. Although I have never been to the equator on New Year’s Eve, I have been told that Sirius lies directly overhead on the first day of every solar year!

The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, the guardian of the gates. Janus is often depicted as looking in opposite directions at once — both behind and in front.

When we pass through a gate we leave one domain and enter into another at the same point. So, too, is it with time, but with one very important difference. Once you have passed through the gate of time, there is no turning back.

There is one very important exception, because you can remember where you have been. Looking back in time is a good thing to do by the way, when you have lost your way moving forward.

Roddy
December 31, 2022 and January 1, 2023

Open your heart to let the spirit
Of the times better guide you
Along the path of the divine —
Oneness with the universe,
And all things eternal.

Relent for a moment,
That the mystery of your being,
That unique force within you
Can find peace and the strength
To overcome what stands before you.

Cast aside the ballast that burdens you,
But, not the memory of how it came to be,
Find the star that suits you
And follow it relentlessly,
No matter that you will never reach it.

For, it is not the end that matters,
But the how of your path,
For, the righteous find no glory
In an end with foul means.
Rejoice! The spirit is upon you.

The spirit is within you,
The Winter Solstice of 2022 has arrived!

Roddy