More Summer Solstice stuff (I couldn't pass up the alliteration)

Dragon Mood? -- curious

These items were taken from here, here, and here:

-- The word "solstice" is derived from the Latin sol-stitium, for sun-standing. The summer solstice is the time of the year when the sun stops its northern climb and stands briefly before turning back toward the equator.

-- The official solstice is at 5:57 p.m., Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). That's when the Earth will be tilted so that the north pole is at its closest point with the sun. The result: There will be more minutes of daylight in the northern hemisphere than there are at any other time of the year.

-- The earliest sunrise (5:21 a.m.) of the year occurred last Monday. The longest days occur around the solstice (today), and the latest sunset (9:03 pm PDT) happens on June 28.

-- At this time of year, the full moon appears low above the southern horizon, as it did last Monday. It will rise from the southeast (128 degrees azimuth).

-- In ancient times, the beginning of summer was met with much joy. It meant a new beginning; the snow had thawed, the leaves were green, food was easier to find and crops could be planted. The season was so important that hundreds of groups celebrated it with religious festivities.

-- Most ancient civilizations throughout the world also have monuments and sites dedicated to the summer solstice. Sumerians, Egyptians, Persians, Mayans, Aztecs, among many other ancient people, all exerted great effort in building temples and pyramids precisely aligned with the sunrise on summer solstice.

-- In ancient Egypt, summer solstice was considered the beginning of the new year. It coincided with the flooding season, when the soil would be fertilized and water would quench the arid Nile Valley.

-- In ancient China, the ceremony celebrated the earth, the feminine and yin forces, complementing the winter solstice, which celebrated the heavens, masculinity and yang forces.

-- Many Native American tribes held feasts and created dances, ceremonies and stone structures linked with the solstice and other seasonal shifts.

--In recent years, archaeologists have unearthed a temple built by a Jewish sect called the Essenes at Qumram (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered). The temple is aligned on a longitudinal axis so rays from the setting sun on summer solstice pass through to illuminate an altar at the eastern wall. The ancient historian Josephus wrote the Essenes were sun worshipers.

An interesting side-note: some historians suggest Jesus and John the Baptist might have been a members of this religious group. Could that suggest the source of the symbolic connection with Jesus’s death and resurrection and that of the sun’s setting (death) and rising (life)?

-- The Catholic Church celebrates June 21 as the feast day of St. John the Baptist. He was the harbinger of Jesus whose birth we celebrate near the winter solstice.

-- In North America as well as Europe, the summer solstice is historically important as a time of fertility and celebration. In Canada and the United States around 600 BC, various Native American tribes built large mounds, called “Medicine Wheels,” as astronomical observatories aligned with the rising sun on summer solstice.

-- In the American Southwest, the Anasazi Indians, around the year 1000, built complex temples with near perfect east-west alignment. The dawning sunlight on June 21 entered a window and illuminated an alcove niche. And on a desolate canyon wall, the Anasazi carved a solstice marker. On summer solstice, light from the rising sun passes through two boulders and creates an effect like a “dagger” cutting through the heart of the Anasazi marker.

-- Germanic, Slavic and Celtic tribes celebrated with a bonfire whose flames were said to bring luck to lovers who would jump through them and magic to give a boost to the sun's energy.

-- In Britain, Germany and the Nordic regions, winters are long, dreary and psychologically draining. When spring arrives and the weather turns warm, it truly is a time of celebration in these far northern latitudes.

--Until recent times, these regions marked May 1st as the first day of summer. The summer solstice was called “Midsummer.” May 1st was a joyous time as revelers gathered flowers and prepared bounteous feasts. May 1st was also the time to dance around Maypoles - vestiges of ancient fertility rites. Midsummer - the summer solstice - was considered a day for madcap romance and weddings. William Shakespeare famously dramatized this in his hilarious “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

-- June still is the most popular month for weddings.

-- Nordic cultures still celebrate Midsummer as a time for dancing and feasting.