The Reason for the Season

In the face of crass and unbridled, if not completely unhinged, commercialization of the winter holiday season we have to admit that we somewhat welcome those infrequent reminders of “The Reason for the Season”; alas, so few of those get it right:

Many of our cultural traditions come from an agrarian culture that developed primarily in the northern hemisphere of an approximately spherical terrestrial planet whose axis of rotation is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to the axis of its orbit around its parent star. Due to physical principles that govern the motion of celestial bodies, the fundamental symmetry of the universe that gives rise to the conservation of angular momentum, and the geometry and thermodynamics of (approximately) point sources of electromagnetic radiation illuminating distant spheres, this state of affairs produces a highly predictable phenomenon of seasons, significant for its crucial agricultural implications, and dramatically demonstrated twice a year in the reversal in direction of the apparent motion of the parent star with respect to the horizon from a fixed location on the surface of the planet. This latter phenomenon, a solstice, and our understanding of it and our ability to understand it, and our understanding of its place in the unfolding of natural phenomena is exquisitely beautiful and worthy of celebration. This recognition takes nothing – absolutely nothing – away from the metaphor and mythology, the symbolism and legend, and, yes, religion, that has been piled on to the holidays that we celebrate near the winter solstice. Indeed, I propose quite the opposite: that a failure to recognize this as the reason for the season undermines our ability to see and to celebrate the genuine and true majesty and splendor of the world we are so fortunate to inhabit and that we must share with others. Happy solstice