What is "Solstice"?
How can the sun stand still?
What do you mean the Sun 'stands still'?
That’s impossible, isn’t it?
At the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination.
So what the hell is declination, Elen? I’m confused!
It’s the number of degrees north or south an object is from the celestial equator. So, at Winter Solstice, the sun has reached its lowest point in the sky. It appears to rise on the same point on the horizon, ‘stand still’, for a three days while its progress in the sky changes direction.
At the Winter Solstice, the Sun rises at the southernmost point of its arc; from then on it rises further and further north each day along the horizon.
This happens as a visual effect because of the way the Earth tilts as she orbits the sun. At Midwinter, the Earth’s north pole is tilted furthest away from the sun, so the north pole is in full darkness. As the Earth’s tilt changes in relation to her orbit the sun appears to pause before it turns back north again.
Our ancient ancestors from Palaeolithic times could observe this, and did so. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they were less intelligent than us, modern science is proving that there’s no reason whatever to suppose that. Victorian and subsequent people found it boosted their egos to depict our ancestors as Grunts and Savages. Fortunately we’re now getting scientists and archaeologists who don’t have so much of those ego problems.
And, after all, they had a big advantage over us as they were not swamped in artificial light, so could watch the sky and the stars in ways our modern life has made impossible for most of us now.
I’m lucky where I live as, from my bedroom window, I look out on a long range of hills so I actually watch this happen each day of the year. At Midwinter, the sun rises just south of the Oak tree at the top of the lane, over the Lawley.
At Midsummer Solstice it rises way north over a big hill called the Wrekin.
It’s one of the reasons I love living here, being able to visibly follow the sun’s path through the seasons. I have relatively little light pollution too, although nothing like the Dark Skies I had when I lived on Exmoor, or when I visit my mate in the Highlands. It’s dark enough here for me to observe a lot of the constellations, and some of the Milky Way. When I go up onto the tops of the Mynd I can see a lot more, like this wonderful pic a friend (Andrew Fusek Peters) took. But he still has a bit of light pollution at the bottom from Shrewsbury☹️.
Wherever you are, you can still feel into the Standstill at the Solstices, even if it’s hard for you to see it happening. How about you try my Midwinter Ritual?