On this solstice I am again reminded of my childhood fascination with the stars, the orbits, and just the way the universe works. The way the planet is tilted from it's orbital plane as it revolves causing the rotation around the sun through the year to change the length of the day we experience, the angle and intensity of the sunlight falling upon us, combining to give us seasons.

Day to night, and the predictable, repeating cycles of seasons, phase of moon and length of day were some of the early observations in the quest to understand the universe in which we live. Of course, there were times along the path to understanding where our stubborn preconceptions slowed down our understanding of the simplicity inherent in these cycles.

Within ourselves, on deeper levels, we have cycles upon cycles - from the rhythms of our heart and lungs, way in which one neuron sends a signal to the next and refreshes to be ready for the next signal. We have cycles of hormonal production, emotional sensitivity, growth (happens all our lives, we are taller when we wake than when we go to sleep, having to continually grow to fight the effects of gravity), cellular reproduction, cycles of brain activity, and many many more. Most of these cycles and rhythms adjust as we go through life - go for a run and your heart and lungs will pick up their pace and fall into a different rhythm, go to sleep and they will slow down. In the same way, the rhythm of your digestive system is impacted by what you eat, some things move more quickly than others. Almost all the rhythms and cycles within your body can be influenced by what you do, what you consume or otherwise allow into your body, and all the things going on around us. Our cycles, while they follow a rhythm inherent to us, are so easily able to be perturbed or disrupted.

On this solstice day, the demarcation of the longest or shortest day of the year depending upon where you are on our little spheroid of a planet, take a moment to think about all of the cycles and rhythms all through the universe and yourself, and the sensitivity of these cycles to outside influence. I hope you can share a glimmer of my own childhood curiosity, wonder and appreciation of it all.