Stories of the sun, p.2
Stories of the Sun, page 2
In order to understand our ancestors’ connections, lore and stories of the sun it is helpful to know a little of the science, so humour me a moment and let’s delve into the heliophysics of our life-giving star.
The sun is a yellow dwarf star that is 4.5 billion years old. It is 26,000 light-years away from the galactic centre and is 150 million kilometres from earth. Its core temperature is 15 million °C or 27 million °F. It is the sun’s gravity that stops the planets flying around the solar system getting swallowed up by black holes like a giant game of Hungry Hippos. The sun is master of the seasons, ocean currents, climate, radiation, auroras and, of course, the weather. Without the sun we would not survive.
The sun is approximately halfway through its life and according to scientists we have around another 5 billion years left before our star expands and consumes the solar system. That is, of course, unless we end it first.
The route the sun takes across the sky each year is called an analemma. Technically, it’s our route, not the sun’s, and it’s not the sun coming up, it’s us tilting at the sun like Don Quixote tilted at windmills. But let’s go back to that analemma. There are scientists and photographers who have plotted the position of the sun throughout the year by using complex technology or patiently and painstakingly taking photos in the same spot every week for fifty-two weeks of the year. When they have overlaid these points or photographs, it has essentially created a figure of eight in the sky. This figure of eight has a small loop at the top and a larger loop at the bottom and sits diagonally across the sky. During the shorter loop the sun appears higher in the sky, and during the longer loop the sun appears lower, thus dictating the hours of sunlight we have. During the shorter and higher loop, the sun takes longer to make its journey across the sky each day. This is the summer. The lower and larger loop means the sun is not in the sky for as long. This is winter. It is because of the earth’s position and its route around the sun that we get this analemma.
The earth’s route around the sun and the angle at which it is tilted results in the seasons, and because of this, the seasons are different in the southern and northern hemispheres. It takes 365¼ days for the earth to move around the sun, and as it does so, different hemispheres are exposed to more or less light.
When the southern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun and the northern away from it, it is winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern. When the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun and the southern away, it is summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern. Hence Australians enjoy their Christmas celebrations on the beach and here in the UK we typically enjoy it around the table bingeing on carbohydrates, sugar and grease to get us through the cold weather.
Homo sapiens have been on the earth for around 300,000 years, and for at least 12,000 of those, our ancestors have tracked the path of the sun, knowing with every fibre of their being that the sun plays a major part in providing us with food, warmth and, well, life! Evidence of this tracking of the sun is apparent in monuments across the world and I will explore some of these throughout this book.
You might think it’s fairly easy to predict where the sun comes up: the east, right? Well, actually it changes and this is the very problem I had that morning. I was indeed facing east, but I was not looking to the right of me, so south-east, where the winter sun would emerge. As a general rule, in the UK winter months, December to February, the sun rises in the south-east, then from March to May it rises in the east, from June to August in the north-east, then from September to November in the east again. Our ancestors would have had to watch the sun and work out exactly where it would rise in order to illuminate the monuments, megaliths and mountains that became their sacred places during the summer and winter solstices.
As we tilt and spin our way around the sun, the seasons unfurl: winter, spring, summer, autumn. Each cycle marks a year in our calendar, and whilst we know now that the seasons are the result of our planet’s tilt and relative position to the sun, this was not always the case for our ancestors.
Many cultures have stories that explain the seasons. The most famous of these in the northern hemisphere is arguably the Greek myth of Persephone. Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. Whilst wandering in a wildflower meadow, Persephone is stolen. Hades, ruler of the Underworld, hides her deep beneath the earth. The grief of Demeter, mourning for the loss of her daughter, is so great that the fields and plants stop growing. To right the balance and stop the world from starving, the gods demand that Hades returns Persephone to her mother. There is just one condition: Persephone must not have eaten anything within the realm of Hades. So it is that, before she is released, Hades tricks Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds whilst she is still in the Underworld. This results in Persephone only being able to return to the surface for six months of each year. During this time the light returns to the world and the fields flourish. When she is forced to return for six months in the Underworld, Demeter again mourns and nothing grows in the fields. For the ancient Greeks, this explained the seasons of summer and winter.
A similar story appears in Native American culture. The Blue Corn Maiden of the Pueblos people is the most desirable of all the corn maidens and so Winter Katsina comes down from the hills and steals her away. The Blue Corn Maiden misses her people and eventually manages to escape her frozen home in the mountains to collect enough Yucca leaves to make a fire to warm herself by. When she does this, Summer Katsina sees her and seeks to rescue her. When Winter Katsina returns from his travels in the mountains and finds Summer Katsina in his house, he is furious and battles him, but the fire of Summer Katsina is too strong and he melts Winter Katsina’s weapons of ice. Winter Katsina calls a truce and Summer Katsina returns the Blue Corn Maiden to the Pueblos people. But to keep the peace and stop Winter Katsina blowing snow and ice throughout the lands all year, every six months the Blue Corn Maiden returns to his house in the mountains, to live with Winter Katsina.
Some folktales tell of the months themselves as characters. One such story is a Slovak folktale of a young girl who is sent out into the winter woods by her cruel mother and sister, to find unseasonal flowers and fruit. She finds a circle of women in the forest who turn out to be the twelve months and they are able to provide her with the items she needs, despite it being the depths of winter. In other cases, it is a variety of different deities that are responsible for the different seasons or weather events.
Some myths explain not necessarily the seasons, but why the sun is in a certain position at a certain time of year. In the Hawaiian myth of how Māui slowed down the sun, the story is told of how a long time ago the sun, whose name was Tamanuiterā, travelled too quickly across the sky and the days were too short. As a result, Māui and his brothers had to work hard to get everything done that they needed to in the daylight. One day they became so fed up with this that Māui claimed that he would catch Tamanuiterā and teach him to slow down. Through cunning, team work and brute strength the brothers achieved this, and Tamanuiterā was so tired after struggling to get free that he no longer had the energy to travel so fast across the sky.
The Nart Sagas are a collection of stories from the ancient indigenous ethnic groups of the North Caucasus. These include the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz and Ubykhs, which became part of Russia in the late eighteenth century after the Russo-Circassian War.
During this time genocide was employed by the invading forces to gain control over the lands, and as a result much of the ancient traditions and myths of the Caucasus peoples was lost. Various scholars have subsequently translated the Nart Sagas and I first discovered the following story in a collection translated by John Colarusso. It gives a very ancient explanation as to the position of the sun at sunset.
It is important to remember that ancient and indigenous stories should be told with the care and respect they deserve. Whilst many of those translating the stories have sought first-hand accounts and knowledge of the culture from which the tales come, most translations of these tales are not written by those from this culture. This, coupled with the many changes that have occurred in this region over hundreds of years, means that these stories have inevitably been interpreted from the viewpoint of the translator and, in some cases perhaps, changed from their original forms, if only very subtly.
These influences aren’t always modern either. For example, Patricia Monaghan cites in her Encyclopaedia of Goddesses and Heroines that in the case of south-eastern Europe, as far back as the third century, there may have been outside influences at play in the telling and recording of these stories.
Below is my interpretation of this tale based on my research into these stories and the culture they have come from.
WHY THE SUN PAUSES AT SUNSET
Setenaya was a powerful goddess, a seer and the keeper of an apple tree, which could gift you health and immortality. Setenaya was a bewitching and strong-willed, life-giving woman. Her husband Warzameg would tell you she was a trickster and a wise woman, for she and he lived many a tale and Setenaya had many lessons to impart.
This tale is from long ago, in a time when Setenaya was renowned for her skills as a seamstress and weaver. One day she set herself the task of sewing a saya – a dress that used many metres of fabric and had to be sewn with the utmost care.
A young leatherworker overheard Setenaya set herself this challenge. He proclaimed that he would craft a saddle and that he too would complete it within the day.
The challenge proclaimed, they both set to work on their tasks as the sun began its ascent into the sky from behind the Caucasus Mountains.
The boy, despite his youth, worked expertly with the tanned hide, to cut, stretch and mould it over the wooden saddle tree.
Setenaya wove her fabric with deft hands, until she had enough to cut out the pieces for her dress, experience negating the need for her to measure.
With the sun almost at its zenith, Setenaya sat by the door of her house and began to sew. She held the fabric firm in her thumb and forefinger as her needle moved in and out of the cloth in tiny, neat, uniform stiches, the like of which no other could sew. Head down, she sewed and listened to the gentle hammering of the boy’s leatherwork as he tapped it into shape across the saddle tree.
The sun moved across the sky as they both worked on their creations. It watched as the boy wiped the sweat from his forehead and Setenaya unravelled her scarf, which had once kept away the morning’s chill.
As the sun began its descending arc, the boy started to etch carvings into the leather of the saddle and Setenaya began to hem her metres of fabric.
The boy finished as the sun was almost touching the horizon, and when Setenaya could no longer hear the music of his work, she looked up. She saw him, feet up and watching the sun as it threatened to turn the sky pink and orange.
Setenaya looked across to the sun and called to it, ‘If only you would pause a moment.’
The sun looked up from the horizon and saw Setenaya’s sewing. The light caught the delicate fabric of the dress and the perfect stitches, which were not yet quite finished. It looked across at the delightful saddle, polished and shining in the last of its rays, and it did indeed pause for a moment. It waited and watched as Setenaya sewed, watching each stitch as it was completed until finally Setenaya’s saya was complete. She held it up for the boy to see and then pulled it over her head.
‘See,’ she said, ‘it took me but a day.’
The boy did not argue, for the sun was indeed still above the horizon.
‘You are every bit as magnificent as they say,’ replied the boy, smiling at Setenaya.
It is said that from that day on the sun stops on the horizon every day. Perhaps it is to look upon the day’s creations, as it once did on Setenaya’s.
SUN SALUTATION
In this month’s chapter we have (very briefly) explored the science, rhythms and seasons of the sun. We still have many rituals that connect us to the start of the day and the return of the sun. This could be as simple as breakfast, the meal that breaks our nightly fast. A fabulous way to connect daily with the sun is a sequence of yoga poses known as a sun salutation.
Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj, which is a root word that means to connect or unite something. The traditions held within yoga were passed down through the generations orally. They were first recorded in the third century in the Rigveda, a Sanskrit script containing hymns, which is one of four volumes known as the Vedas.
In the Hindu faith Lord Shiva, one of the primary gods in the pantheon and one of a trinity with Brahma and Vishnu, was the first to teach the practice of yoga.
Several centuries later, in the mid-nineteenth century, yoga arrived in the west with Swami Vivekananda, a progressive Hindu monk from India who was also an author and philosopher.
Sūryanamaskāra, which translates as ‘sun salutation’, is one of the best-known sequences in the practice of yoga. Today for many it has become an excellent way of warming up the muscles before exercise. For others it is a deeply spiritual practice. Whether this salutation is referring literally to the sun, or perhaps to a fire within ourselves, is a subject that has been discussed by yoga experts worldwide. As we will discover as we progress through this book, all cultures have in some way or another celebrated and worshipped the sun, so it is possible that this sequence of movements is intended to do just that: worship the sun that holds a link between the light and the dark, or the world of the human and that of the gods.
It could also be linked to the many stories that use fire to represent the uncontrolled passion that lies within us in the form of lust or anger. By performing this sequence of movements, we are keeping that fire in check, and giving it the time and respect it needs in order to do this.
Whatever your beliefs, the practice of yoga and the sun salutation can be a great way of gently getting the circulation going first thing in the morning, calming your mind ready for the day ahead and connecting with the warmth of the sun, even on the coldest of winter days.
As you rise each morning, you could make the sun salutation part of your routine. Find a space that has room for you to stretch out your arms and legs, and is quiet, warm and safe. If you start this exercise in the winter, you could try facing south-east so that you are greeting the sun as it rises.
Below is the sequence of movements that make up the sun salutation. Do remember to listen to your body and only do what you are comfortable with. If you have any injuries or health conditions that may impact on this exercise, you might want to discuss this with your doctor or physiotherapist before trying out the exercise.
If you have never done yoga before, it is recommended that you seek out a yoga expert to get you started. If you would like to see the exercises performed by a yogi online, there are some examples on the website page that accompanies this book. You will find the web address in the introduction.
Sequence of Movements in the Sun Salutation
Remember: one of the overriding principles of yoga is control, so each of these movements should be transitioned between, slowly and smoothly, with care and mindfulness.
Begin in Mountain Pose – Tadasana.
Gradually move to Forward Fold – Uttanasana.
Slowly move up to Half Lift – Ardha Uttanasana.
Move back to Forward Fold – Uttanasana.
Step back into Downward-Facing Dog – Adho Mukha Svanasana.
Come down onto your knees and lower your body down to the floor through your arms, moving into Cobra – Bhujangasana.
Lower yourself back to the floor, then tuck your toes under and lift back to Downward-Facing Dog – Adho Mukha Svanasana.
Walk your feet back towards your hands and into Forward Fold once more – Uttanasana.
Then slowly rise to Half Lift – Ardha Uttanasana.
Move back to Forward Fold – Uttanasana.
Stand up slowly to Mountain Pose – Tadasana.
Finish with the palms of your hands together and held over the heart – Añjali Mudrā.
FEBRUARY
THE IN-BETWEEN
I AM UP AT SIX again and out at twenty past the hour. Security lights fling themselves on, but as I walk along the street, I can see well without them. Although I’m out at the same time as I was in January, the difference in the light level is tangible. This is the beginning of the civil twilight.
There are three phases of twilight before the sunrise and these are astronomical twilight, nautical twilight and civil twilight. These twilights are defined by the angle at which the earth is to the sun. Yes, yet again it’s all to do with the angle at which we are tilted. As we turn further towards the sun, the light grows through the three twilights until sunrise and the transition between night and day is complete.
Civil twilight is the brightest of the three and the time when it is considered that human eyes can see to complete most tasks, even though the sun is not yet above the horizon. The further north or south from the equator you are, the longer the twilight; hence the midnight sun that occurs in the far north of Scandinavia and at the poles. Civil twilight, unless you live close to or along the equator, is generally longer in the summer. In January I sat through all three of these twilights immersed in the crepuscular spaces of the in-between.
At the end of the street, framed by the rooftops, a soft orange glow offers the promise of the day. Most of the songbirds are not yet up and the solo voice of a crow calls indignantly at the cold wind.
I pass the deserted local pub, abandoned village hall, houses still in darkness punctuated by the percussive lights from house and car alarms, until I reach the red glow of a lonely temporary traffic light, which, sensing my presence, greets me at the junction with an amber and a green.
