Blessings of the summer solstice to you. This composite image above, perfectly illustrates how the solstices and equinoxes function, in a practical sense. Many of us understand that the summer solstice represents the zenith of the Sun and the longest day, but dont really know why it happens. The same applies to the winter solstice and the two equinoxes.
The changes in the solar cycle, or rather the Earth's journey around the Sun, are due to two main factors. Firstly the Earth's orbit around the Sun is not circular, it's an ellipse - a type of oval shape that looks like a slightly flattened circle. As you can see from the diagram, the radius of the ellipse varies a bit, by about 5 million kilometers in fact, which accounts for some of the changes in temperature we experience.
The second factor is one that has far more impact on much of the world, apart from those living near the equator. This factor is, of course, the tilt of the Earth's vertical axis, which is 23.5 degrees. It is this that causes us to experience what we refer to as 'the seasons'. The further North or South from the equator you are the more extreme this becomes. For the northern most countries they experience night-time sun at the summer solstice and perpetual night at the winter solstice, such is the extreme nature of life near the North pole. The opposite applies to the southern hemisphere, in terms of time of year - their winter is at the time of the North's summer and vice-versa.
The equinoxes are times of more-or-less equal day and night (equillux is the exact term for equal day/night). The definition of an equinox is "Either of the two times during a year when the Sun crosses the celestial equator and when the length of day and night are approximately equal." These two equinoxes are identical in terms of the appearance and height of the Sun - spring/vernal equinox or the autumnal equinox, being at opposite times of the year.
With our modern understanding of the solar system, we know that the Earth is globe (not flat) and that the planet are heliocentric, they rotate around the Sun, although not all planets travel in the same direction - Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate clockwise (retrograde motion). Earth, like the other 5 main planets, travels anti-clockwise around the Sun. Pluto (one of 5 dwarf-planets) travels anti-clockwise, like the 4 others (Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris).
To us the Sun and Moon appear to travel clockwise (sunwise), but this is merely an illusion, it is us that is travelling around the Sun, while the Moon is travelling anti-clockwise around Earth, it appears to travel the same path (elliptic) as the Sun, rising in the East and setting in the West. From our view-point everything seems to rotate around us but that is not actually the case. The ancients seemed to understand the roundness of the Earth and the heliocentric view of our localised 'universe', which was dismissed and banned by the Roman Catholic Church. It took science to prove beyond a doubt that the Druids, Sumerians, Greeks and others were correct!
The Sun can represent the Gods/God to some, as female or male deities, but to astromoners it is not sentient or alive. In reality it is constantly changing, expanding and contracting, like a living being and it is not simply a lifeless ball, like the planets (except Earth) that orbit around it. The ancients understood that it was the source of life, and was regarded as holy, sacred, if not actually 'God/Goddess' it represented the divine power of the Godhead. To this very moment we are 100% reliant on the Sun to stay alive - without it the whole planet, even the depths of the oceans would freeze (apart from the most deep places where the magma of the Earth's core generates heat).
In Ireland the most famous solstice site is of course Newgrange (Síd in Broga or Brug Mac ind Óc), but this is a winter solstice site. On the summer solstice, the Sun rises perpendicular to the entrance at Newgrange, at a 90-degree angle to where the Sun rises on the winter solstice. On the East coast the sunrise was marked, but on the West coast the sunset was marked. Traditionally places on high ground (e.g. Hill of Tara) were used to celebrate the sunrise and through the day. On the Western side Carrowkeel Cairns, illuminates during sunset and the Ardmore Stones (near dingle) align with the Summer Solstice sunset. Many of the stone circles around Ireland are aligned with both Solstice sunrises in particular as well as the equinoxes.
Early depictions of the Sun date back to perhaps 40,000 BCE in cave art (eg Altamira, Spain) and the Nebra Sky Disk (Eastern Germany) is perhaps from 2000 BCE, showing an ancient view of the cosmos, as they saw it. The ancients understood complex astronomical phenomena (like the precession of the equinoxes) and the motion of the stars, planets and comets, far better than many scientists, religious bodies or others with an 'anti Pagan agenda' might wish to acknowledge. The pre-Abrahamic world was far more sophisticated than we have been led to believe and 'cave people' were perhaps not a 'dumb' as at first believed - complex pictographs existed thousands of years before acknowledged 'writing' in the form of pictographs or hieroglyphics.
As Pagans our unstanding of the Sun and the seasons is different from that of scientists and indeed other religions, but strangely, modern physics and astronomy has confirmed the vital importance of the sun for humanity and all life and its more mystical or esoteric qualities that may defy rational explanation. Life is quite miraculous, in all its diversity and without the perfect placement of the Earth and presence of the Sun, almost none of it would be here! Is it any wonder that the Sun has been revered as sacred since humans became conscious beings?
