Finally, the solstice — the shortest day of the year, the birth of the baby winter.
Monday’s the day the tilted Earth so completely turns its butt to the sun — no offense to the Southern Hemisphere — that our half’s aimed the other way, facing the void of space, the cold, the dark, the hard, bright stars.
The moment the Northern Hemisphere turns as far away from the sun as it can will be 12:47 p.m. EST.
The good news: Once you get past the longest night, the daylight grows, minute by minute. Humans have celebrated this for millennia with rituals such as burning logs, hanging evergreen, feasting heartily, drinking excessively, driving fiendishly, consuming conspicuously, etc.
It’s still festive of us to mark the coming of longer days, because last week’s ever-shorter days of gray overcast and steady rain were like living inside a shell, immersed in egg white. Which makes you the yolk, I guess: The only thing that looks yellow to you in the morning is your face in the mirror.
Smile, knowing now that colder days lie ahead, but shorter days do not.
According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, sunrise Monday will be 7:38 a.m. Sunset will be 5:39 p.m. And for all you “Twilight” fans, twilight will begin at 7:38 a.m. and end at 6:06 p.m. Sounds like the gray twilight goes on all day, just like last week.
Compare winter solstice to summer solstice, June 21, also a Monday, when the sun will rise at 6:33 a.m. and set at 8:50 p.m.
Summer 2010: There’s something to look forward to, when the weather outside’s so frightful it’s like living in an egg — a pickled egg in a refrigerator, tonight, when the Weather Service says it’s supposed to drop below freezing.
If from recent, heavy, seemingly endless rains you’ve still got any standing water to wade through, imagine skating across it. You’ll want to be prepared for that, when it freezes.
Looking on the bright side, or the dark side, rather, the sky’s to be clear tonight, and nothing shines like stars in a clear winter sky. Artificial lights can’t match it, no matter how many you plug together.
It’s to be cold and clear Monday night, too, from 5:39 p.m. until 7:38 a.m., 14 hours of darkness, the first long, winter night.
Compare that to the first night of summer: The morning after the summer solstice, sunrise will be 6:33 a.m. With sunset having been 8:50 p.m., that’s 10 hours, 48 minutes of darkness. And any “Twilight” fans up at 6:05 a.m. or out ’til 9:19 p.m. by then may enjoy the vampire-like romance of being bitten by blood-sucking mosquitoes.
Their absence also we celebrate this solstice as we gaze at stars and dream of brighter days.
Dream we must, because we’re still in that El Nino weather pattern that brings cold, wet winters. Soon the @#$% rain’s going to start again, and we’ll be right back in the shell.
So, who wants eggnog?
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