SUNRISE, SUNSET
The winter solstice arrived at 4:21 AM EST while I was still sleeping. For many folks, this event signals a hopeful seasonal turning point, heralding the incremental increase of sunlight in the days to come. For me, the winter solstice marks the southern boundary in the pendulum sweep of sunset, as viewed from my porch.
I vividly recall the first sunset I observed from this perch on September 1, 2022. I was stunned by the realization that this experience would become normative for me. For the first time in my life, I would regularly be able to watch the sun sink beneath the horizon. I had never lived in a place that afforded an unobstructed view of the setting sun; my memories of sunsets were almost exclusively limited to experiences on beach trips, when I relished the rare chance to watch the last rays of the sun vanish over the shimmering sea.
As I made weekly trips from Nashville to the mountains during the fall of 2022 to prepare for our official move, I was somewhat stunned to realize that my sunset view would be ever-changing. I should have known that the sun would not always set at the lowest point on the horizon, where I-40E winds through the final set of mountain curves before approaching Asheville.
When my birthday arrived the following August, I gifted myself a 16-month planner, with the intent of paying closer attention the natural world. On these pages, I would record the daily high and low temperatures, along with rainfall amounts.
In the “Notes” column on the right hand side of the two-page spread for each month, I listed the flowers and bushes that were blooming on our sliver of the mountain at the beginning of that month. On a spring day when I noticed a new blossom, I added a note beside the temperature and precipitation info for the day: forsythia flowering, dogwood budding, rhododendron blooming. In the fall, when the leaves of the tuliptree began to turn yellow, I scribbled a note. When the sugar maples reached their glorious, ruddy peak, I charted the occasion. The first handful of blueberries plucked from the bushes by the driveway was duly registered.
If I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the moon on a given day, I sketched its silhouette in the appropriate box on the grid, recording the phase. Never before I had been this attentive to the movements and phases of Earth’s natural satellite. I relished sightings of the full moon and made sure to inscribe the associated name: Harvest, Hunter’s, Beaver, Cold, Wolf. The solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, merited a special entry: 86% totality in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
My favorite entries over the past 16 months, though, have been the sketches I have made of sunsets. After my initial epiphany two years ago that the point where the sun dipped below the horizon would shift slightly with each passing day, I decided to keep a visual record of those solar vanishing points.
Accordingly, I began to adapt the rhythm of my days to increase the likelihood that I would be at home at sunset. I quickly learned that the “official” sunset time for my area was often 30 minutes later than the moment when the sun would disappear from my particular horizon.
As sunset neared, I would grab my phone and head out onto the porch, ready to capture an image that would later guide my rudimentary sketch in the calendar. Nine months out of the year, I can bracket the sunset between two of the towering tuliptrees that loom over our property. In November, December, and January, though, a different angle is required to photograph the setting sun.
I was delighted when the clouds cleared in time for me to take a picture of today’s winter solstice sunset. More than a week will pass before I will see visual evidence that the sun has resumed its northerly march across my western horizon. During the next six months, I will witness the interplay between the sun’s path and Sheep Top, Thompson Knob, Smather’s View, and Grassy Top, before the sun reverses course.
I realize that my language is scientifically imprecise. My position is not stationary while the sun’s is variable. The apparent movement of this yellow dwarf star is a result of the orbiting Earth’s axial tilt. If I think too hard about our spinning, tilting planet rotating around a sun that also rotates on its axis while orbiting the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, my head begins to spin.
What have a learned from 16 months of astronomical, meteorological, and botanical observations? Sunrise, sunset. New moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter, waning crescent. Rain falls (too much in September). Zinnias can thrive until Thanksgiving. Seasons come. Seasons go. The Earth keeps on spinning.
Paying attention to the rhythms of God’s good creation is deeply comforting in a world where the headlines of the day are more likely to provoke anxiety than awe. I want to spend more time in the awestruck zone. “Whatever is lovely or admirable - think about such things,” the Apostle Paul advised. Keeping a record helps me to think about things that are life-giving. Keeping a record also slows me down - you can’t rush a sunset.
My planner is a sacred record; my daily observations are spiritual practices.
Good night, winter solstice sun. Thanks for the show. Same time next year?
