Feest Isolation Days –1 March 2021
Today is officially, meteorologically speaking, the first day of Spring! These are some of the garden flowers that are telling us in no uncertain terms that Spring is indeed here.
Lockdown is easier in the sun than in the dark and murky days of winter that is for sure. So dear Auckland friends, as you are locked down for the next seven days, spare a thought for your Northern Hemisphere pals who are now in day three hundred and fifty-two! Whatever you do over there, please follow the rules. We would like to return, but it needs to be safe. While you spend the next days in lockdown, enjoy the sun and the moon!
There was a full moon last night. The sun and moon are perfectly aligned and we get the benefit of the brightness here on earth. It was stunning. Called a snow moon in the northern hemisphere, it’s name comes simply from February being the snowiest month of the year and it is the last full moon before Spring. It was full on Saturday, but the brightness will last three more days. It’s worth a look. The clear nights should give you a great view.
When we were in the Southern Hemisphere we discovered that although the moon goes through identical phases as it does in the northern hemisphere, it appears backwards! That is , up North it waxes on the right and wanes on the left, and the reerse in the southern hemisphere. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere and want to see the moon waxing and waning as it does back home here in the northern hemisphere, touch your toes and look through your legs. You are upside down and it won’t be! Good luck on getting this view for a look of the Northern Hemisphere.
As we sat on the swing in the sun yesterday, I started musing about what it must have been like to think about the world as flat, and wondered when it was first discovered that in fact the world as we all know, or most of us do anyway, is a sphere.
Eratosthenes of Cyrene, c 276 B.C., was a Greek “man of learning” or a polymath. He became the Chief Librarian at the Egyptian Library of Alexandria. He is credited as being the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth which he did by accessing the extensive survey results he had access to in his role at the library, and by observing the shadow of a vertical stick at noon. By a series of measurements, measuring the angle of a shadow cast by a stick at noon on the summer solstice in Alexandria he found it made an angle of about 7.2 degrees, or about 1/50 of a complete circle. From this he established the size of our sphere, and was only about ten percent off the actual size. He also calculated the tilt of the earth’s axis remarkably accurately. Impressive!
I then wondered how fast we are all spinning on our planet and the editor did a rough calculation and figures that we are moving at about 500 miles per hour. Half right. We are actually moving at 1000 mph! Just as well we can’t feel the rotation because we’re all moving with it at the same constant speed. The atmosphere, the oceans, and each one of us is spinning along with the earth. The jet airplane that takes us to the other side of the world travels between 440 and 550 miles an hour. Most birds fly between 10 and 40 mph.
I can’t wait to get on a plane and visit the Southern Hemisphere once more. How fortunate we have been to return there again and again! In the meantime, I shall continue to appreciate what is here. The moon, the stars, the birds and the plants. Ahhh.. and the SUN! Hope you do too.
Enjoy! Stay safe. It isn’t over yet but we are getting there!
With love,
Kathy x