winter is 22 hours old
Sunset toward the Atlantic, Dec 22 ::: north american winter is 22 hours old
"As winter closes in, the darkness grows and light recedes... a place of potential, of gestation. New life is nurtured. Solstice reminds us that no darkness, no loss, no grief or disappointment is final. Out of darkness light is born.
"At Solstice the moon is a Super Moon, at its closest to the earth. We are also directly aligned with our Milky Way's Galactic Center, where the galaxy gives birth to stars..."
-- small excerpt from an essay in the Washington Post on 12/20, by 'Starhawk'
"Imagine yourself standing on a dusty Lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway. You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it's not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth's circumference you're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once...."
-- small excerpt from NASA Science News on 12/17, by Dr. Tony Phillips