By Larrence Berz
The circle stands as Euclidean geometry’s offering of perfection — at least to the ancient Greeks, if not to the youth of Aroostook County. Since January, 1961, as a young and vigorous John F. Kennedy challenged the nation, thousands of high school students, from proud Presquilians to able Ashlandians to faithful Fort Fairfieldians, to courageous Caribounians, mastered the craft of graphing circles on crinkly paper. These young beards and fair maidens perspired over second degree equations and off axis disks, all for the sake of SAT and rolling honor. Ancient Egyptians went further still, briefly uplifting the circle of the Sun as a unique all powerful deity, Akhanton. But how many local citizens spent any of the just expired weekend, gazing agog at the lengthy spells of the yellow-whitened sun disk commanding southern skies, albeit through gauzy cloud cover?
The Sagittarian Sun! Nothing less than nature’s return offering to us mortal miniatures scratching out a living on the living crust of planet Earth. Only during the mid-December through mid-January winter solstice season can you and I bask in the low drift of the solar day, southeast to southwest. This realm occupies the latest sunrise, the shortest day, and the earliest sunset of the year.
To me, the Sagittarian Sun signifies a darkened landscape for inner reflection upon our thoughts. There is a unique beauty to this Sun’s illumination. Take, for example, a mid-January rush along Route 1 in early morning preoccupation. In the midst of the hill country approaching metropolitan Presque Isle, rests to the southeast clumps of spruce, defying the snowyscapes of former fertile farms. Now, take a dash of snow dust suspended in the air, offer a midge of fine crystal frosting upon the boughs, and add a buttering of suspended altocumulus, altostratus, and ice crystals permeating the air. And ol’ Sagittarian Sun candles the whole scene in a warm yellow-orange glow from the bottom up. There’s nothing like it this side of the Food Channel.
What can any of us glean from the Mall seeing a suspended white/yellow disk of unsurpassed splendor hanging upon nothing in the sky? Even the most ardent thick walleted consumer among us ought to stand spellbound in the presence of such a guest — the Sagittaran Sun. Its aspect arrives only once a year, so stand and declare!
As adults, let’s reason together. Here is this disk — no, not really. It’s a sphere, but try as I might, I can only perceive a disk in the sky. But if it is a sphere, then my mathematics must keep up with reality. Pi “r” squared now transforms into 4/3 pi “r” cubed! And how does the voice of my or your sixth-grade science teacher remind us that one million Earths comfortably nestles into that sphere. One million Earths! But look, look closely. That sphere in the sky looks so small. My smallest digit handily covers its smooth circularity. While I’m loading with shopping bags, and the delights and headaches of my youngster’s digestive and economic imperatives, can’t the Sagittarian Sun save me?
My point is this, fellow folks. We all error and exaggerate. We all cast our wasteful or wicked words without charge to any listener within range as the stress of current cold and inevitable ice and swify kicklingswirls of snow impasse our lives. I am no different than any college graduate or common consumer. The sky and space beyond save us from our sense of self-importance or the burden of guilt for our misfired reactions to loved ones or loved land. The light of a heavenly scribed disk in the sky, the Sagittarian Sun awaits you, not with a miracle cure, but a sure and certain reminder, that we are more than Aroostook citizens, but we are indeed children of the Universe at large as well. And perhaps such awareness may yet make the last first and the first last, leveling every mountain of mental obstruction and raising up each valley of indecision. And we will all, under this Sagittarian Sun, see it together.
Lawrence Berz is Astronomy Educator of America at the The Francis Malcolm Science Institute in Easton.
