Father Sky

There are many questions for which we have no real answers, especially questions of early humans who are no longer here to ask nor written record to decipher. So here’s another, knowing full well the only answers will be just speculation.

Today we celebrate Equinox, the half-way point in the Earth’s journey from Winter to Summer, (or Summer to Winter for our Southern Hemisphere friends). In fact there’s no shortage of journals and websites that will tell you the precise moment the Sun crosses the equator, (11:44 GMT). But other than being the “official” start of Spring and an interesting tidbit of planetary dynamics, so what? Today will have a little bit more daylight than yesterday but it’s been progressing like that for 3 months and will continue for another 3. Unlike the Solstice’s which mark a significant turning point in the Sun’s journey as well as signal a reversal of recent weather trends, the Equinox’s are just another bump on the horizon, (see my “Calendar” post of June 13 ‘08 and “Let’s make our own” of June 26 ‘08).

So why do we care? Or better yet, why did early humans care?

OK, so here’s where the speculation comes in. The Equinox may or may not be the best day to sow or harvest, may or may not be the day the herds migrate or fish run. That all would depend on latitude, terrain and probably a dozen other considerations. But if we remove the Earthly impacts and just consider the Sun itself it might make more sense. If the Sun were a deity or at least something, (someone?) with tremendous influence on our lives, we would be sure to follow and even honor them out of respect or maybe even fear. Anyone who tracked the Sun’s progress throughout the year would care about the halfway point between the Solstice’s, not because of any impact here but more likely to honor the traveler and the journey, (how many times have you noted you’re “halfway there” when on a long journey?).

To the left is a photo of El Castillo, a Mayan structure at Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico by jimg944

What is significant about this structure is that only on the evening of the Equinox, the Sun rays hit those step-like stones on the right side of the pyramid and illuminate the short wall on the side of stairs coming down the face of the pyramid. Due to the jagged outline the wall takes on a slithering snake appearance which is certainly intentional. At the bottom of the stairs, halfway out of the field of view is a stone snake head to complete the effect!

So as I said, this is just speculation. But how would you explain it?

Happy Equinox!

Don’t worry, this post isn’t about that nutty definition the IAU came up with a year and a half ago. If you’ve followed this blog at all you know I’m really only interested in the early history or even prehistory of man’s relationship with the sky. And as fascinating as those NASA photo’s of our neighboring planets are, let me see if I can provide some planetary thrills without a spaceship or even a telescope!

Tonight, (or whenever your next clear night happens), take a step outside and see if you can find the constellation Leo. Here in March it will be somewhat high in the east/southeast after it gets dark (for those of us in the northern hemisphere). It’s one of the few constellations that actually (somewhat) look like the figure for which it is named. A large curved arc of stars for the large head and mane and front legs to the west and a somewhat narrow triangle of stars to the east for the lion’s hindquarters. If this constellation is at all familiar to you, you’ll notice an “extra” bright star a little below the hindquarters. This is the planet Saturn. But unless you had very good binoculars or a telescope you would never know it was anything more than a bright star.

That is, unless, you are very familiar with how the night sky is suppose to look night after night, year after year. For you see, from a naked eye perspective the stars appear “fixed”. That is, as the seasons go by the same grouping of stars pass overhead that went by last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. In fact, when your great, great grandparents were young and if they looked up on a clear March night they would have seen the exact same stars of Leo that you will tonight.

But this year, there is something different. There is that extra “star” we talked about earlier. As I’ve shared many times in this blog, early man was very observant, both of the sky and the world about him. He had to be in order to survive. That is why our earliest written records already knew all about these planets. They had names and they even had personalities. Mythology often had Saturn represented by someone old, some referred to Saturn as Father Time or even the Grim Reaper! Why? It moved the slowest against the backdrop of fixed stars compared to all of the other planets. Today we know that of the naked eye planets, Saturn is the furthest from the Sun. That is why Saturn is the slowest.

But all early man knew was that this particular “star” moved and that it moved slower than the other 4 wandering stars, (Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury). But why? Well, that gets to the ultimate question of this post. What did early man think these wanderer’s were? Visually, there really is no difference between any of the 5 wanderer’s and all of the other “fixed” stars. (Actually, Venus is brighter than any star from our perspective but that will be the subject of a different post).

Humans are always trying to make sense of their world. Rather than just accept the fact that 5 stars move we had to come up with a reason. But how do you find a reason for something going on up in the mysterious realm where sudden storms, rainbows, eclipses and any number of other bizarre events happen? The sky it truly a wondrous yet frightening place.

I really don’t know what early man pictured these 5 special stars to be but it wouldn’t surprise me if it played a hand in the development of our early spirituality. What do you think?                                 (Venus at Dawn photo by Frames-of-Mind)