Interesting article re: #Solstice Archived Message Posted by Gerard on December 23, 2019, 8:58 pm "Solar noon - the time midway between sunrise and sunset - is when the sun reaches its highest point for the day, but the exact time of solar noon, as measured by Earth’s spin, shifts. A clock ticks off exactly 24 hours from one noon to the next but actual days – as measured by the spin of the Earth – are rarely exactly 24 hours long. If the Earth’s spin is measured from one solar noon to the next, then one finds that around the time of the December solstice, the time period between consecutive solar noons is actually 30 seconds longer than 24 hours. Therefore two weeks before the solstice, for example – the sun reaches its 'noontime' position at 11:52am local standard time. Two weeks later - on the winter solstice – the sun reached that noontime position at 11:59am - seven minutes later. The later clock time for solar noon also means a later clock time for sunrise and sunset. The result? Earlier sunsets before the winter solstice and increasingly later sunrises for a few weeks after the winter solstice. The exact date of earliest sunset varies with latitude but the sequence is always the same. For the Northern Hemisphere the earliest sunset occurs in early December and the latest sunrise happens in early January. This year the earliest sunset is on December 8 and the latest sunrise on January 4." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/2019/12/22/winter-solstice-2019-do-pagans-celebrate-shortest-day-year/ Remembering that we call a Solstice such because of our Julian/Gregorian calendar...the ancients went to enormous lengths (all over the world), to ensure that their timings were correct..this shows just how "out of wack" we are! One may well argue that this is the result of patriarchy...surely no coincidence that the church as a state institution removed any reference to female emancipation from the bible..and it was worship of the Goddess that was excised here in Britain whilst worship of the God (Kernunnos "Lord of the Trees" remained -to an extent-), for the desire to embrace the "Womb of the Cosmos" that informs the variability and impermanence of our existences on this planet (and in this universe), had to be controlled if one was to impose oneself on the populace..a "little variation" in solar terms could (they felt), be accommodated..but as we see "a little goes a long way"! G Message Thread: Interesting article re: #Solstice - Gerard December 23, 2019, 8:58 pm Re: Interesting article re: #Solstice - Mary December 23, 2019, 9:42 pm Re: Interesting article re: #Solstice - Gerard December 24, 2019, 9:36 am   Searching