Pssst! You. Yeah, you. Are a passenger on a planet. On a blue-green planet that's orbiting a golden star.

If you've been keeping your eye on the sky, you've noticed that we are spending much more time in our planet's shadow now than we do at other times of our year... If you're wondering what I'm talking about, switch on your imagination and pretend you're up in space, looking down on our Earth. You see one side of Earth lit up by the sun, while her other side casts a shadow. Her shadow is almost a million miles long and it's shaped like a cone. So, our Earth looks like a ball of ice cream in a cone of shadow -- a shadow that we call night.

Our planet is tilted at a 23.5 degree angle to the path of her yearly journey around the sun. So, our hemisphere points away from the sun (into our planet's shadow) at the winter solstice. Our hemisphere points toward the sun (away from our planet's shadow) at the summer solstice. So we're spending more more time in our shadow now than at any other point in our yearly journey around the sun.

Our shadow is a black blanket that protects us from dangerous radiation coming from the sun. In fact, night is when our primary healing happens. Scientists think this is because our Earth's shadow blocks solar radiation that might zap or scramble the super-sensitive, highly complex processes of DNA repair. People who don't get enough darkness (because of bright lighting at home or because of working a night shift) don't sleep as deeply, so they don't heal as well. These people suffer from higher rates of certain cancers. People in big cities where glaring urban lighting drowns the darkness suffer from higher rates of certain cancers. We need the night if we want to heal.

Our word, heal, means "to become whole again." Our words heal, whole, holy and hallowed all stem from the same root. Yes, night is healing, night is holy. Since night lasts longer now than any other time of our year, this is a holy time -- as in holiday. And the evening of a holy day (when we're just entering into the sacred safety of our planet's shadow) is when the celebration of the holiday begins.

If you keep your eye on the night sky, you notice that the Great Bear constellation is at its lowest point in the sky during these winter evenings. (It's so low that here in the tropics it's below our horizon.) This sky bear, like earthly bears, hibernates in winter. He's sleeping and dreaming for months now, which is the source of his wisdom and power.

Scientists have found that our deepest healing occurs during our deepest dreaming. But deep dreaming doesn't even begin until several hours after the lights go out. Our first scientists (our ancient, sky-watching ancestors) were called Magi. Magi were known as Wise Ones because they were experts at understanding dreams.

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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