Our green world and ready contact with its natural rhythms can sometimes feel remote in urban settings. Because so many people live in one of the “mega-metro” areas on the planet, their appreciation of the natural world may often burn more brightly than it does for the small-towner who has lived all her life surrounded by cows and trees. With Tokyo, Seoul, Mexico City, New York and Mumbai heading the list at over 20 million souls each (counting their greater metro areas), it’s good to celebrate the green world particularly when it makes itself known among the girders and concrete. The first entry in my “Druid of the Day” series, just started, was a nod in that direction. Manhattanhenge is another one, and much larger:
If you follow Yahoo, you probably caught it. The caption for yesterday’s image reads “The sun sets during ‘Manhattanhenge’ on July 12, 2011 in New York City. The Manhattan Solstice is a semiannual occurrence in which the setting sun aligns west-east with the street grid of the city.” There’s a short sequence of similar images worth visiting.
We need such rhythms — to calibrate our biological clocks, to remind us how the world nourishes and sustains us, and how we need to remember it in our daily decisions — not out of piety for the Earth Mother (though nothing’s wrong with that, of course) but for the very real reason that this world is home. Whenever we can truly celebrate, our hearts open. And in a time when so much “news” doesn’t help us live better, stopping to enjoy the sun looking down the city streets is a good thing.
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For those interested in astronomical details and explanations, Wikipedia’s entry for Manhattanhenge helps. The event occurs twice a year, in May and July, on either side of the planetary solstice, as the sun makes its (apparent) journey north and then south again after the solstice.
A Druid Way 