Venerating the Sun

Yesterday evening felt like Autumn, and I started thinking about saying goodbye to the Summer and the Summer Sun.

Enchanted Tarot card

I was reading some New Scientists, and there was an article about Biosphere 2.  The Biosphere project was a real-life experiment to research sealed human colonies, with the view to making space colonisation possible, gaining information we might need in the future if we break The Earth beyond repair.

New Scientist 27 July 2013

The Biosphere group leapt straight in: setting themselves the task of living in a sealed world, with nothing taken in for two years.  The facility was to prove that it was possible for humans to live in a closed environment - with the help of sunlight - it was the one thing required from outside.  Unpredicted complications meant the environment wasn't stable, oxygen levels fell.  Struggling to complete the task without having oxygen pumped in, the experimenters each day watched the Sun, hoping for sunshine, for the plants to photosynthesise, to make oxygen.  In that sealed environment, where they knew precisely that they were dependant on sunshine to survive, the participants reached a point when they were about to naturally venerate The Sun. 

We are all equally dependant on the Sun, but it doesn't feel immediate to us, the way it did in the Biosphere.  To them in their situation it would be natural to venerate the Sun, and this is the position our ancestors were in.  Sun worship is really a very logical thing.

The sun came out today, after last night seeming so bleak.  The butterflies are still on the buddleia, and it isn't winter yet.