How the cyclical nature of light manifests itself in all sorts of ways.
Where does this image come from?
The taijitu, or yin-Yang symbol, comes from Taoism, and is one of the more widely recognized symbols. It represents complimentary opposites, as opposed to the more North American idea of conflicting opposites. It is an elegant design of the dynamic balance between light and dark, which are metaphors that can be extended (and have been) to all manner of such compliments. Light-Dark, Up-Down, Life-Death, Heat-Cold. Active-Passive. In one way, the light represents that which is present, the dark the state of its absence (as with light or heat). It is much else besides.
The symbol was developed by tracing shadows on the ground throughout the year. Given that the year, in terms of sunlight, is different for people in the arctic and antarctic, the northern and southern temperate zones, and the torrid zone. Each receives the same amount of sunlight, but its periodicity is vastly different. Nevertheless, at the summer solstice, the sun is in the highest point in the sky, at the winter solstice it is at its lowest, and at the equinoxes, everyone gets 12 hours of each.
The pattern of increasing and receding light is seen with the phases of the moon as well, as it waxes from new to full, and wanes back to new again.
Same pattern again throughout the day, as it shifts from darkness at midnight through twilight, dawn, morning, midday, afternoon, dusk, twilight and night.
Seasons in the Temperate Zones
Seasons can be defined in terms of the change in the amount of light, but more locally in terms of water – such things as rainy seasons, snow, dry seasons, etc… define the climatic seasons, which vary even more than those of the change in light. Suffice it to say that for the purposes of this exercise, seasons are defined by the cardinal points (solstices & equinoxes) and our relationship with solar radiation.
As the majority of the world’s population lives in the northern temperate zone, between the tropic of cancer and the arctic circle, this is the starting point for our exploration of annual daylight. At the winter solstice, on or about December 21st, the sun is at its lowest point in the sky. If you were standing on the tropic of capricorn, it would be directly overhead, which gives us the longest night (at 50 degrees N, that’s about 16 hours of night for 8 hours of daylight). At the summer solstice, on or about June 21st, it is at its highest point in the sky, direct above the tropic of cancer (16 hours of daylight, 8 hours of night). On the equinoxes, on or about March and September 21st, the sun is directly above the equator, and the day and night are of equal length.
This pattern is represented in the diagram below as follows – each day is represented by a circle (hardly original). The winter solstice is black, the summer solstice is white, and the days in between varying shades of grey (this was calculated using Vancouver Canada as its basis). The 365 days of the year are then arranged in a circle to represent the year. [click to enlarge]
This begins to resemble our yin-Yang image.
One other aspect of this annual change is that the amount of change in daylight from day-to-day is greater at the equinoxes than it is at the solstices. In Vancouver, for example, the change from Dec 21st to 22nd is about 5 seconds more sunlight. The change from Mar 21st to 22nd is 3 minutes 40 seconds. One way to divide the year is into quarters, as below:
Note that the winter solstice is set apart (the black circle at the bottom there), which makes dividing the rest of the 364 into quarters much easier. The four sections can be labeled from winter darkness at the bottom and clockwise through spring increase on the left, summer light at the top and autumn decrease on the right. Here’s a simpler image:
The arrows represent the increasing change during the spring and autumn. The seasons can further be divided by the cardinal points (solstices and equinoxes), which looks like this:
And again our fuller image
And lastly, combining these divisions.
This will be the image used to explore and map other such patterns. Granted that comparisons and analogy break down with a greater amount of detail, so for the sake of this particular exercise, we’ll stick to the more general characteristics that these have in common.
For example, there is a resemblance between this eight-fold division with the Buddhist Wheel of Dharma, the compass, as well as the Pagan Wheel of the Year.
So we have a number of traditions that repeat this pattern, to some degree or other. There are a few other patterns to consider (in future posts): life from conception to death, the lifecycle of civilations, possibly geological processes (nutation, glaciation, the water cycle), astronomical lifetimes (solar systems, galaxies, the universe?).
More to come.
340 Days to Dec 21st 2012
Related articles
- Winter Solstice Signals Start of Storytelling Season (indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com)
- Winter Solstice: Coaxing and Celebrating the Return of the Light (indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com)
