Even if you didn't know it was the summer solstice, you'd probably notice June 21. It's the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, the shortest day in the southern hemisphere. For the north, it marks the first day of summer.
The solstice has not been commercialized--yet. So it's your chance to celebrate any way you want, and learn a bit of astronomy, anthropology and folklore in the bargain. Some say the solstice drives people to do strange things--like getting married under the Arctic midnight sun. In old days, it was known as midsummer, a mystical time of year. In this tour of the World Wide Web, designed for parents to take with their children, we'll explore some of the sites devoted to the solstice, from the personal and whimsical to the scientifically challenging.
As one folksy, though not technically rigorous site says, the solstice falls under the astrological sign of Cancer, the Crab, appropriate because from here on, the year starts to work backward. In Aptos, California, the Balboni family marks the occasion by reading poetry and eating strawberry shortcake, which five-year-old Tessa calls a "birthday cake for summer." Older brother Teddy, 7, provides a succinct description of their ritual in THE WORLD BOOK OF HOLIDAY TRADITIONS for June. In an e-mail interview, Teddy's mom, Jennifer, told FamilyFun that celebrating the Solstice has given the Balboni's an escape from the cares of their rushed lives. "I think it helps us stay in tune with the natural rhythms of life, which is not always easy in this age of high technology," she says.
The solstice is a good time to watch the June full moon--called the Strawberry Moon--come up. In ancient times, people usually marked the solstice at sunrise, rather than sunset. The U.S. Naval Observatory offers a chart to help you determine when the sun and the moon rise and set anywhere in the U.S.A.
Some people--even some textbooks--say that the solstice, and the hot weather of summer, are produced when the earth's orbit brings it closest to the sun. (The earth goes around the sun in an ellipse, a sort of oval.) This is wrong. As Eric W. Weisstein, a research scientist in astronomy at the University of Virginia, explains, the earth is nearest to the sun in January--and we all know that doesn't stop January from being very cold, at least in the northern hemisphere. Scientists call this time the perihelion.
The seasons are actually caused by the angle of the earth on its axis. Summer comes when the earth is tilted toward the sun (June for the northern hemisphere, January for the south), and winter comes when it is tilted away. This is true because the tilt of the earth affects how much sun is hitting the surface of the planet. In summer, the sun is highest in the sky, so the sun's rays are at their most concentrated. This is much like the rising and setting of the sun during the day--the sun is hottest at midday, when it is nearly overhead (directly overhead for those at the equator), and coolest at dawn and dusk, when it is on the horizon. Weisstein offers a somewhat technical version of all this, with a sketch that helps clarify the relationship of the sun and the earth.
The exact time and date of the solstice varies from year to year. Weisstein provides a concise, easy to use chart that will tell you the exact time of the solstice from 1992 to the year 2,000.
Not only scientists are interested in the solstice. Folklore is filled with solstice references. "As far back as we know," says Glenn Shaw, professor of physics and atmospheric sciences at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, "the Druids, Babylonian and Egyptian people worshiped the sun, kept their eyes on the sun, built monuments to the sun and always made a big fuss over what we call summer solstice." Even today, Catholics celebrate the birth of St. John the Baptist on midsummer (June 24), the date of the solstice in the Roman calendar.
One of the earliest known astronomical observatories is Stonehenge, dating from about 3100 BC in Salisbury Downs, England. Stonehenge, as you probably know, is an arrangement of stone slabs standing up straight. What you might not know is that the circle of stone megaliths opens up in the direction of the midsummer sunrise. STONEHENGE: GATEWAY TO THE REALMS offers a dramatic photo album, a rather dry chronological history and, if you scroll down, an impressive list of links. Legend holds that Celtic warrior queen Boudicca built Stonehenge as her monument, though, as this guide suggests, its actual origin is in dispute. There is a Stonehenge replica in the state of Washington.
The Incas also built an entranceway that captured sunrise on the solstice. Today Peruvians still use the temple to mark the solstice, recounted in this essay. For the ancient Romans, midsummer was a time to honor Fors Fortuna, the goddess of fortune. Midsummer rituals have often been associated with fire (because of the sun, perhaps?) and with powers both good--like healing--and bad--like witches' curses.
In modern times, the day has special meaning for people north of the Arctic Circle, because it brings them out of months of darkness into a brief period of constant light. "In the winter, we have days and days of darkness, and that's pretty depressing," Dr. Shaw says. "When spring comes, it comes very fast."
If you've been inspired to plan your own summer solstice celebration, you'll probably need some special solstice recipes. And you might want to print out--or even act out--a few scenes from the Bard himself. Shakespeare's comedy about romance in a fairy kingdom takes place--when else?--on the summer solstice, otherwise known as A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
Maura McDermott is assistant Education editor of FamilyFun.
