We spent hours at this Southern Hemisphere working model of Stonehenge. James and I felt like we almost took a degree in world history and culture by the end of it. The girls felt baked as it was bloody hot. When resisted the sensation of impending heat stroke we were able to pick up some neat ideas but our brains were a bit fried so we may get the details wrong. Like that the astrological signs from the paper are all wrong as your sign will be different by year of birth as the stars shift over the years. Using the signs that way were actually invented to sell newspapers in the US!
We have been thinking about the seasons alot as they feel so different for us. Much of the Pakeha (European) New Zealand culture is based on Northern Hemisphere traditions which are in turn based on the earth's cycle of growth, harvest, and dark winters. Who wants to light candles and sing songs in the midst of summer? It isn't a time when the ancients felt worried that winter would last forever and they needed rituals to bring back the light! It reinforces to us the idea of living seasonally...What does that mean? Maybe choosing sports - ski in the winter, ?harvest in the fall, house projects in the spring and making sure we enjoy strawberry, raspberry, corn etc when it comes in season. I've always wanted to have a big harvest party and make things to squirrel away for darker days.
To explain why the Earth speeds up between the solstices...there is a legend of a Man that had two wives...at the solstices he was living with each of the wives...but in between he was on the way looking back at one and forward to the other so was hurrying.
This is the obelix that the sun lines up and the shadow falls in a helix shape that marks out the soltices, and the astrological periods.
We enjoyed the story of Orion and Artemis. Orion was a mortal hunter who bragged that he could hunt anything. This angered Artemis the goddess of the Hunt and they got into a big fight and Orion died. The other gods immortalized him by putting his figure in the sky (we can see Orion's belt here clearly every night).This ticked off Artemis so she went to make a constellation as well which is a Scorpion. So now whenever both of them are in the sky at the same time (seasons of spring and fall), it is times of change and less change when Orian is in the sky during the summer and Scorpian in the winter.
We spent hours at this Southern Hemisphere working model of Stonehenge. James and I felt like we almost took a degree in world history and culture by the end of it. The girls felt baked as it was bloody hot. When resisted the sensation of impending heat stroke we were able to pick up some neat ideas but our brains were a bit fried so we may get the details wrong. Like that the astrological signs from the paper are all wrong as your sign will be different by year of birth as the stars shift over the years. Using the signs that way were actually invented to sell newspapers in the US!
We have been thinking about the seasons alot as they feel so different for us. Much of the Pakeha (European) New Zealand culture is based on Northern Hemisphere traditions which are in turn based on the earth's cycle of growth, harvest, and dark winters. Who wants to light candles and sing songs in the midst of summer? It isn't a time when the ancients felt worried that winter would last forever and they needed rituals to bring back the light! It reinforces to us the idea of living seasonally...What does that mean? Maybe choosing sports - ski in the winter, ?harvest in the fall, house projects in the spring and making sure we enjoy strawberry, raspberry, corn etc when it comes in season. I've always wanted to have a big harvest party and make things to squirrel away for darker days.
To explain why the Earth speeds up between the solstices...there is a legend of a Man that had two wives...at the solstices he was living with each of the wives...but in between he was on the way looking back at one and forward to the other so was hurrying.
This is the obelix that the sun lines up and the shadow falls in a helix shape that marks out the soltices, and the astrological periods. 
We enjoyed the story of Orion and Artemis. Orion was a mortal hunter who bragged that he could hunt anything. This angered Artemis the goddess of the Hunt and they got into a big fight and Orion died. The other gods immortalized him by putting his figure in the sky (we can see Orion's belt here clearly every night).This ticked off Artemis so she went to make a constellation as well which is a Scorpion. So now whenever both of them are in the sky at the same time (seasons of spring and fall), it is times of change and less change when Orian is in the sky during the summer and Scorpian in the winter. 
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