Matariki

The winter solstice in Auckland was at 1704 this evening. Matariki is the festival which Maori held to celebrate the turn of the solar year and the start of the lengthening days. The time of the winter solstice is when the earth's axis is tipped furthest away from the sun.

At that exact time, the sun was so obscured by clouds below these ones, through which the sun's rays could still be seen. So I have opted to post this photograph which I took at 1659, from the balcony of our apartment.

I have decreased the shadow a little so as to bring out the upper Waitemata Harbour, which was easily seen in the real and without adjustment was a dark blur. Otherwise this is exactly as it came from the camera, an accurate representation of what I saw at the (almost) moment of the winter solstice.

Hereon, we look forward to lengthening days, and the new cycle of warmth and growth. The cycles of the earth are within all of us, and it will be well for the world, and we its inhabitants, when we return to living in synchrony with those rhythms, rather than try to live the same way 365 days of the year.

This is even better large.