12:21 and 12:22

Thinking cosmically . . .

Hello everyone—and a special welcome to new readers.

For those who don’t know, I’m fascinated by time, calendars, dates, numbers, and patterns of all sorts. Including our seasonal structures, which are nicely clustered near my favorite number: 22.

---

Solstice, Part 1

In the Northern Hemisphere, calendars designate 12.21 as the Winter Solstice. But the Solstice is not a day, but a moment—a specific point in time, when the Sun is exactly overhead the Tropic of Capricorn. And in 2023, that point in time takes place on December 22, at 3:27 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time).

Here in Texas, where we are six hours behind UTC, the moment happens on December 21. That date has its own interest, being a palindromic number—reading the same backward or forward.

But actually, 12.22 is the date when astronomical winter begins on earth this year. Due to the vagaries of our calendar system, the Solstice date varies by year, and may occur on the 20th, the 21st, the 22nd, or the 23rd. Most often the date is 21 or 22—and 23 is quite rare. It hasn’t happened since 1903, and won’t happen again until 2303.

Since I tend to notice patterns, I was curious about why the rare “23” date occurred in years ending with a “3.” And 400 years apart, which is quite a gap.

Despite my interest in numbers, I’m hopeless at anything that involves calculation. Whatever couldn’t be done with Excel was lost to me—until AI! I’m just beginning to develop relevant skills, but the more I learn how to construct AI prompts, the more I can get useful answers to odd questions.

So I can tell you that:

From that explanation, I can see there’s a mathematical reason for that particular instance—but it’s actually more peculiar than that. AI completely flamed out when asked to identify instances of 12.23 solstices prior to 1903, so I had to fall back on old-fashioned tables to determine that such a thing had never happened before, in the entire history of our calendar.

On the face of it, this would seem to be the kind of random occurrence that doesn’t have what we call “meaning.” I’ve written previously about the dilemma of coincidence, and if this sort of thing intrigues you, have a look!

But for now, I’ll just mention the idea that certain aspects of reality may be connected thematically rather than causally. Because we are so conditioned to view reality in causal terms, it’s easy to miss themes that would otherwise be obvious.

AI gave me a causal reason why the (apparently) only two December 23 solstices we know about fall on years ending in 3. But I can’t help wondering whether there’s something else—perhaps a deeper astronomical reason that I couldn’t ferret out?

And of course I couldn’t resist looking at the other Solstice outlier, December 20. It’s less rare than the 23rd, but still quite out of the ordinary. And here’s how it seems to be arrayed:

• 11 instances between 1664 and 1697

• 5 instances scheduled to fall between 2080 and 2096

That’s the lot, during the 800 years that elapse between 1600 and 2400.

Which might not seem to matter all that much . . .

But! I would argue that we too rarely look at big swathes of history, or at the fact that we live on a big round planet that turns and tilts on its axis, orbits the Sun and travels around the solar system. Instead, we see ourselves driving around on a flat plane, within the confines of a planner-sized slice of time.

I’ll maneuver out of this topic by making a quick Tarot connection. The miniature cosmos—Moon, Star, Sun—nested near the end of the Major Arcana sequence is a reminder that Tarot was, from its earliest appearance, intended as a complete model of reality. And from my perspective, the reduction of the Tarot in recent years from cosmic scope to personal scope seems like a loss.

---

Solstice, Part 2

Since the future of EP is undefined at the moment, I’ve been gathering some suggestions for other newsletters EP readers would enjoy. My Inbox is full of Solstice- or Winter-focused mail, so this seems the perfect occasion to introduce (or re-emphasize) worthwhile resources.

First, Solstice offerings from two sources I’ve been sharing and supporting for quite a while:

Solstice 2023 Gifts for You

Meeting the Solstice just as you are

Second, two writers I’ve just recently discovered:

Rewilding rigour: a creative toolkit for Capricorn season

A robin's true Tarot tale

Enjoy!

---

Thanks so much for reading. I’ll be back soon—and in the meantime, I hope you’ll have a wonderful weekend. C