Ed’s Corner

Listening to the Sun

Every year around mid-January I begin to feel that the sunlight has a different quality about it, compared to, say, a month ago. It could be that there’s more of it: in January we gain 1.5 – 2 minutes of sunlight each day, during February we add 2.5 minutes daily. But what I feel in the sunlight seems more related to quality rather than to quantity. The light seems to call to me to get outside, into nature; to take in and partake in the slow reawakening of the natural world.

Being outside in nature at this time of year offers a quiet, slower-paced environment to explore, with or without snow. A prolonged stillness as we head toward the Vernal Equinox.

Yet within the feelings of stillness and quiet bestowed by the woods in January there is tremendous movement occurring, just outside the scope of what we can observe. Movement within the earth is already brewing to bring forth the snow drops and crocuses of late winter, and the actual movement of our earth rotating through space is adding time and luster to the sun’s rays each day. Even when we are still, we are anything but! Consider some of the things that the earth – with us upon it – is doing:

* spinning around, once in 24 hours, making day and night
* revolving, orbiting the sun, one complete orbit called a year
* spinning around the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, where we are located in one of it’s ‘arms’
* our solar system moving along with our Milky Way galaxy as it speeds through space
* and presumably on and on…

It makes me dizzy just trying to think about it. Dramamine anyone?

Imagine that the earth’s movements listed above had audible sounds connected with them! This time of year would be anything but quiet. Perhaps we’d think of winter as that special season when our world gets quiet enough for us to hear the music of the spheres.