Have you ever thought much about where the sun sets? Well, in the west of course, but that’s actually only an approximate direction. In winter it goes down early, well to the north of due west, and in summer much later, and well south. It’s all to do with the earth being tilted 23° on its axis, the angle of the dangle and other esoteric astronomical stuff.
We were sitting on the veranda on the shortest day of the year – what’s called the winter solstice – just watching the sun set in the west-nor’-west and not celebrating much apart from the view and the vino.
However, this day’s counterpart in the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice, really is a celebration, particularly in England. The locals go quite potty because midsummer's eve is apparently when the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest and when fairies are at their most powerful. True. It’s the day the Poms have over 16½ hours of daylight, which could also affect them a bit.
Down in Wiltshire people flock to Stonehenge to see the rising sun slanting around to touch the middle of the stones and shine directly onto the central altar, but only on that day. You would have to say the ancients who knocked up Stonehenge sure knew a) their astronomy, and b) how to build things to last.
Pagan rituals to mark the winter solstice aren’t that widespread in Australia. Not on the mainland anyway – on the morning of the day we were sitting on the veranda you may have heard that down on a beach in Tassie there was a big strip and swim, with 1000-odd people (take it as 1000 odd people) displaying excesses of pinkness and streaking into the water en masse. One participant, when asked if she had done any training for the event, said she had taken her clothes off the night before.
It was evident many gentlemen participants were considerably diminished by the experience. I reckon the main reason most of them submerged fully was to hide their bits.
Anyway, there we were contemplating life, and at the very minute the sun was sinking behind the hills the shadow from the corner post on the veranda lined up exactly with the diagonal strip of decking where the north side meets the west side, if you get my drift. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Had a perfectly aligned shadow, thrown at the instant of the winter solstice, revealed our humble abode as a pagan monument? Could be. I’ll be checking council records from way back for evidence of mystical development applications and oblique references to holy men.
It’s certainly time for we bushies to mark solstices, winter and summer, with a bit more reverence and ritual, up to at least the standard of the Tasmanian beach frolics. I’m thinking, for example, regional field days that fall on the shortest or longest day could have human sacrifice events involving big fires and non-performing politicians.
A successful bringing in of the crop or a specially high price being hit for superfine wool could be marked by chanting and solemn mass disrobing on the local footy oval, or in a paddock if you’re out of town, followed by feasting etc under the back of the grandstand or in the shearing shed.
There is potential for a movie, perhaps called Quantum of Solstice or something. Or has James Bond beaten us to it?
Meantime, we can’t wait for 2017’s summer solstice to see what the sun does and where the shadows fall. If everything lines up a couple of ex-city heathens could well be opening a new tourist attraction in the Central West.
