Solstice Sunbeam

(This was started around the winter solstice so even though we are approaching the Equinox it may still be of interest.)

Electron Blue 18: Solstice Sunbeam

There is a seasonal phenomenon in my dwelling which I have observed with reverence ever since I noticed it. From December until mid-January, beams of sunlight from the solstice-lowered sun, stream into secret places in the apartment: the auxiliary bathroom and the hall closet. The angle of the sunlight in these winter weeks is low enough that it streams through under the eaves and finds its mark in my otherwise poorly lit apartment.

Here is the winter sunlight.

This sun invasion is something that human beings have noticed ever since they developed language and memory. If they stayed in one place long enough as settlers they would notice that the direction of sunshine and the elevation of the sun above the horizon followed a yearly cycle. When they knew how to predict these cycles, they set down markers to note it as a calendar. This is why the sun rises between the pillars of Stonehenge on the winter solstice, and why the sun only enters some monuments at solstice or equinox. 

This usage is worldwide, wherever people saw and observed the sun and its path. In Abu Simbel, Egypt, the Pharaoh Ramses II built a giant monument to himself and his divinities, the sun gods Amen-Re and Re-Horakhte. The monument was built so that on his birthday and again on the anniversary of his coronation the sunlight would thread its way through a pathway carved into the rock, and illuminate Ramses and his patron gods’ images with its golden rays. National Geographic has an excellent article on this monument, including the story of how modern engineers disassembled the stonework and re-built it out of reach of the waters of the reservoir Lake Nasser.

My apartment building is not a monument to any divinity that I know of, but nevertheless the sunlight comes in and illuminates a significant place: my bathroom. I can see and feel the warm sunlight and know that the season is turning. The sun will gain now, and winter will lessen. Let us honor the Sun Gods (Ra Ra Ra!) and the memory of Ramses, for the sun shines upon his throne.