Nebraskaland

MARCH 2017 • NEBRASKAland 55 I once mentioned in passing to a large class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that I took special pleasure driving west on Vine Street that morning because I saw the sun coming up directly behind me, straight down the middle line, and was reminded that it was March 20, the spring equinox. I expected nods and maybe some "Oh yeah! That's right!" from the class but instead got a puzzled silence. Maybe it was the earlier hour of the class. I tried again: "Equinox? Anyone?" Nothing. The upshot of the following discussion was that few in the class had noticed in their lifetimes, let alone that spring, that the sun does not rise (or for that matter set) at the same place on the horizon every day. But a few times a year it does – the equinoxes when day and night hours are the same, and the winter and summer solstices when the sun's sweeps on the horizon are at their extreme. These children of the New Age had simply never noticed. Well, I do. I joke that if I don't keep the skies well regulated and following their prescribed schedules, who will? Actually, it's the other way around: I like to note the cosmic passages in their regularity so that I can keep my own life well grounded. Observing such near eternal landmarks (skymarks?) remind me that whatever my own agenda (change furnace filters spring and fall, remember Linda's birthday and our anniversary, service the car when the odometer is only a thousand miles or so past where the sticker on the windshield says I should have done it, that sort of thing), my concerns are trivial compared to the grander workings of the universe, from Orion's march across the winter sky to the cycles of the moon and sun. Or even the slightly smaller but equally remarkable and apparently eternal workings closer to our eyes and lives – the first burring of the cranes, nightlong honkings of geese headed north, or returning south, the sudden awareness that the big maple at our front door is suddenly abuzz with tens of thousands of bees going at their annual spring work, the morning I wake up and step into the yard to hear … nothing, and the rather sad knowledge that by some secret signal the birds have all decided in what is an apparent unanimous vote it's time to head south and leave the strange two-leggeds bound to Earth to hear only crow calls for a few months. I used to have three stakes set up in the hills above our house, so arranged that if I stood at dawn at one of them I would see the sun rise up directly behind another, main post some hundred yards distant depending on whether it was one of the solstices or an equinox. It was a small exercise, a little tougher getting up there in December than June, but it is a good time to contemplate the great workings of this world, this tiny blue ball whirling through space. Now I observe the same from the comfort of another vantage point in the house, having marked the house with curious little ceramic symbols made for the purpose by my daughter, Joyce. I know that at the winter solstice, as I sit in my lounge chair enjoying my first coffee and the morning news, the moment the sun breaks the horizon, a ray will streak through the kitchen window, cross the dining room, and illuminate a small mark on the fireplace just behind my right shoulder. And I smile. Yep, everything's on schedule. The world is still in orbit and spinning at roughly the right rate, tilting just a bit, as is proper. At sunset on the solstices, Sol's last ray comes in the back window and for just a moment lights the small sun-face Joyce made for the east wall. All through the house are little tokens reminding me what to expect as long as all is well with the universe, and like the rooster who nods his approval and satisfaction when he crows and the sun comes up, I like to think I have something to do with some involvement in the Grand Mechanism. Over the millenniums mankind has assigned many names to the Grand Regulator of this complicated watchwork but I have chosen to refer to it with the Old Pawnee term "Tawadahat" or "This Immensity," because that's about the limit to my ability to understand and describe what it's all about. Just as when I stood on the hill and watched the sun come up yet once again behind that central fence post a football field away, just as I now see the dagger of light hit that spot on the fireplace, just as I think every time I step into the backyard and see the planets and stars aligned in the brilliant Nebraska sky, the only words I can come up with to describe my awe are the same ones the Pawnee came up with centuries ago: This Immensity. ■ Roger Welsch is an author, humorist, folklorist and a former essayist for CBS News Sunday Morning. He is the author of more than 40 books, including his most recent "Why I'm an Only Child and Other Slightly Naughty Plains Folktales" avail- able from University of Nebraska Press. Let the Sun Shine In Look to the skies to keep yourself grounded. By Roger Welsch

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