Pssst! You! Yeah, you... are a passenger on a planet... on a blue-green planet that's orbiting a golden star. And right now we are traveling through a point in our yearly orbit that's celebrated with groundhogs and shadows. But this holiday is a weird one unless you are a student of shadows. Our ancient ancestors - no matter where in the world they lived - studied shadows and learned how to read their daily and seasonal changes. Because they learned this, we have clocks and calendars. Our ancestors also observed that on February 2nd the beginning of spring is as far ahead of us as the beginning of winter is behind us. On February 2nd we arrive at the mid-point of winter. Of course, the winter sun is underneath us for more time each day than it is above us. And the groundhog, like the winter sun, lives underground.

What's down in Europe is up in Australia. So winter in Europe is summer in Australia. But everywhere, the lack of sunlight in winter is a lack of food for plants - because plants eat light. Many plants die in winter, but some of them have solved the problem of winter's scarcity. They store food during summer, stashing it in the basement for use in winter. The most famous of these is the potato. Our first potato was a weed with a toxic underground tuber growing in the Andes Mountains of Peru. 10,000 - or maybe even 13,000 - years ago some observant people admired this weed for its ability to survive winter. They cultivated its admirable qualities, and today we have 5,000 varieties of potato worldwide. Of course, what we call a potato is what the potato plant calls "the contents of my storage unit."

Our shadow-watching ancestors stuck a stick in the ground in order to generate straight, neat, easy-to-read shadows. This stick-in-the ground is our first clock, our first calendar and our first observatory. With our observatory we can tell the date. With our observatory we can observe holy days - holidays. So it's not surprising that our word observant and our word reverent sprouted from the same root.

Our shadow-watching ancestors noticed that on February 2nd it's easy to see that the sun is spending more time above ground than it was at the beginning of winter. On February 2nd the groundhog comes up out of his hole and looks for his shadow. And since sunlight stimulates life, the increase in sunlight that we see at this mid-point of winter is worth celebrating.

I'm celebrating Groundhog Day by making potato pancakes. With each tasty bite, I'm thanking those ancient, anonymous Andes Mountains people who spotted an innovative weed with toxic tubers and cultivated it into a food that's now the fourth largest food crop on our planet. I'm also imagining potato plants growing all over the world. I see their roots being pulled down by our planet's gravity and meeting at its core. This core is the one place - the only place - that is down for all of us, no matter where in the world we live.

This is Harriet Witt, your guide for this little ride on our passenger planet.


If you have any questions, drop Harriet an email: harriet@passengerplanet.com


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