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Happy Summer Solstice!

I stole the pic from these people.

It’s the Solstice!

We grabbed a bottle, fired up the chimenea and spent the evening in the garden staring up at the stars. It was light, I swears, at eleven. Magic!

It’s all downhill from here.

In now. Not sober. G’night!

Comments


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: June 22, 2010, 12:56 am

Doesn’t stay light that late here, but it is almost 9:00 p.m. and there is still light in the sky, although dusk is gonna be here any minute.

Downhill? I suppose–but I treasure the enduring but everchanging round of the seasons, and you don’t get that in places where the difference between the summer and winter solstices is hard to notice. So–enjoy the snake, look forward to the next ladder!


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: June 22, 2010, 2:01 am

I look forward to the summer solstice as “we just turned the corner” on the summer heat and it’s half over – yay! It’s a lie, of course, since July and August are invariably hotter than June is around here but it’s a fiction I like to maintain.


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: June 22, 2010, 3:00 am

I got home ’bout 9 last night and there was still quite a bit of light in the western sky. It was all gone by 9:30, though. I marked the house the sun went down behind to compare it to where it goes down in December, just for kicks.

If only Enas wasn’t right, though. The hottest part of summer is the next 2 months. Fortunately I won’t be here for 3 of those weeks, but still.

My son says there’s light until 11 there in Oslo, as there was when we were in Alaska several years ago in August. Count me in the “likes the long nights of winter” category, though.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: June 22, 2010, 4:09 am

That website says the north pole ‘always points at Polaris’. FAIL! Precession of the equinoxes…

OK, so it takes 26000 years to precess through one revolution, but 2000 years ago there was no useful star near the celestial north pole (just like today there’s nothing really near the south pole you can see without a telescope – σ Oct is the brightest and at mag 5.5 barely visible – whereas back then β Hyi was a pretty good southern pole star.)


Comment from scubafreak
Time: June 22, 2010, 6:08 am

Kewl. I spent my day on a table pumped full of drugs and getting cameras shoved through my digestive tract… 🙁


Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: June 22, 2010, 6:42 am

Today the days start getting shorter! Winter’s coming!


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: June 22, 2010, 9:03 am

With all the gas flares around and the dust particles to scatter the light, it never gets really dark here.

On the minus side, I need to put a black plastic trash bag over the window so it gets dark enough to sleep.

On the plus side, I can see the critters snoozing on the walkways soon enough to avoid stepping on them.


Comment from Deborah
Time: June 22, 2010, 11:32 am

I miss a long twilight—I’m down in the Texas hill country, and our twilight does not linger. But I like to sit outside in the gathering dark, and watch for fireflies. One firefly—and then I’m happy.


Comment from MarkT
Time: June 22, 2010, 12:49 pm

I’ve been blessed enough to have been visiting Helsinki on both the shortest and longest days of the year. 03.30 in the morning, and there’s still a goodish amount of light, definitely enough to read the newspaper–quite a surreal experience. A Finnish friend was having some crises in his life and decided to find spiritual answers. He applied for and received hospitality at a Finnish monastery. He lasted two days/nights. Apparently the Brethren weren’t on the same wavelength, and he couldn’t wait to get away. He actually sneaked out at 03.00 in the morning and says his moment of epiphany came while bicycling through the Finnish forest in that morning of the solstace–all the animals were out foraging, not a human noise intruded, and all of the vernal splendour was cast in almost full day-light, sun beams dancing everywhere. He found Whom/What he was Looking For as a result of the sheer beauty of the experience.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: June 22, 2010, 3:50 pm

I know I’m biased, but you really do get some excellent comments here 🙂


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: June 22, 2010, 6:28 pm

Uncle B: Well…yeah. Not from me, true, but other people are extremely witty and urbane in their commenting efforts. 🙂

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