2009.12.19 19:00 - Solstices, Winter & Summer

The Guardian for this meeting was Pema Pera. The comments are by Pema Pera.

Pema Pera: hey, Avastu!
Pema Pera: good to see you again
Avastu Maruti: hello my friend
Pema Pera: how have you been?
Avastu Maruti: perfect as always - and you?
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: pretty good too
Pema Pera: how are your nonduality sessions going, has there been some changes in the mean time?
Avastu Maruti: they are going on as usual - only a change in location
Avastu Maruti: and this location is nice, my friend
Avastu Maruti: do you like it better than the old place?
Pema Pera: thanks! Storm has done a great job, as usual, in building this
Avastu Maruti: yes
Pema Pera: this has a bit more room for more people, for one thing
Avastu Maruti: have their been many attendees?
Pema Pera: it is also close to the welcome center, and occasionally we get random visitors who are new to SL, which is interesting
Pema Pera: yes, our group is steadily growing
Pema Pera: we often have ten to fifteen or more people gathering here for a session
Pema Pera: the 1 pm sessions are most popular, when Europe and the US overlap in time
Avastu Maruti: yes - SL is great to allow for an ever-smaller world
Pema Pera: yes indeed!
Pema Pera: are there some lessons you have learned from holding those sessions for a couple years now, something that you might be able to express in a few words?
Pema Pera: hi Calvino!
Avastu Maruti: nothing to express
Avastu Maruti: it comes as it comes
Calvino Rabeni: Hello, Pema and hmm, three others. Avastu
Pema Pera: Hi Eden and hi Marvin!
Avastu Maruti: hello my friends
Marvin Dailey: Hi! ツ
Eden Haiku: Hi!
Pema Pera: Marvin, have you been here before?
Marvin Dailey: no
Pema Pera: we get together a few times a day to chat about the nature of reality, and everything else, and we have a wiki http://playasbeing.wik.is/ -- We record our conversations there. Do you mind being included in our blogs?
Marvin Dailey: first time
Marvin Dailey: it's ok
Pema Pera: thank you!
Pema Pera: I see you are from Brasil, I myself are from Holland originally
--BELL--
Pema Pera: always nice to meet people here with so many different backgrounds!

Pema Pera: Eden and Calvino, have you met Avastu before? He has been visiting us since we started, early last year, and he has his own Advaita, Non-Duality, group in SL.
Eden Haiku: Yes, I had the pleasure to attend one session here while Avastu was attending too. ;-)
Calvino Rabeni: I am not sure, that might have happened :) Good to meet you,Avastu.
Eden Haiku: Aren't you connected with the Guru Cafe also Avastu?
Avastu Maruti: yes, my friend
Eden Haiku: I went there one evening but there was nobody: I watched part of a video.
Eden Haiku: About Vedanta .
Eden Haiku: Nice flexi skirt Eliza!
Pema Pera: Hi Eliza!
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Everyone :))
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks Eden... I do like this one :)
Eliza Madrigal: and you look dazzling :)
Avastu Maruti: hello my friend
Eliza Madrigal: Hello Avastu! Long time no see :)
Eden Haiku: There is a kind of red crinoline under the skirt, that is so lovely!
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: Sorry to be late. Don't let me interrupt
Pema Pera: we hadn't really started yet, Eliza :)
Pema Pera: does anyone like to bring up a question, observation, idea?
Eden Haiku: We decorated our Christmas tree today.
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: nice ritual!
Eden Haiku: It is like having the soul of the forest indoors.
Eden Haiku: The sosltice of winter is tomorrow? Or the 21st? The light will be back.
Marvin Dailey: 21st isn't it?
Marvin Dailey: to me, summer.
Pema Pera: yes, no snow for you in Brasil, I take it :)
Eden Haiku: Yes, how do you call this solstice in Rio then? It is the 20th this year, I just checked.
Eden Haiku: Do you call it the summer solstice?
Marvin Dailey: yes
Eden Haiku: A different reality ;-)

Calvino Rabeni: Funny there is no objective term for it
Calvino Rabeni: Independent of which hemisphere you are in
Marvin Dailey: how so?
Calvino Rabeni: you call "it" summer solstice, I call "it" winter solstice
--BELL--
Calvino Rabeni: but "it" has no name
Marvin Dailey: but what is this "it"?
Eden Haiku: Pema, is the sun getting closer to the earth at the solstice in the Southern hemisphere as well?
Calvino Rabeni: The position of the earth and sun relative to some framework greater than which hemisphere the observer is in
Pema Pera: not closer, Eden
Calvino Rabeni: I assume that such a designation is formalizable in some way
Calvino Rabeni: THere is not a complete symmetry in the orbit
Marvin Dailey: yes, it makes the day larger in southern hemisphere an shorter in northerm hemisphere
Pema Pera: it has to do with the fact that the rotation of the Earth, the direction of the poles, makes an angle with the orbit of the Earth
Marvin Dailey: but in the middle of the year the contrary happens.
Pema Pera: would be easiest to draw on a blackboard :)
Eden Haiku: Should have listened to my science teachers more ;-)
Marvin Dailey: ㋡
Eliza Madrigal: :)) Eden
Calvino Rabeni: the solstice has a different time difference from apogee in north and south versions
Calvino Rabeni: So in a sense there are two of them per year with that difference
Eden Haiku: This year, we almost did notb feel the darkening of the light in my area.
Pema Pera: the north pole is turned away from the sun during North winter, and more toward the sun during North summer -- it
Eden Haiku: WE had wonderful sunny skies all November and December, mostly,
Marvin Dailey: i never feel it here in Rio de Janeiro.
Pema Pera: it is the other way around for the South pole
Marvin Dailey: it seems the same all year long, since we are closer to equator
Pema Pera: do you have a rainy season, Marvin?
Marvin Dailey: not exactly
Marvin Dailey: summer is when it rains most...
Eden Haiku: But you had flood recently didn't you?
Marvin Dailey: but we coulb be long time o rainy days on other seasons...
Marvin Dailey: yes
Marvin Dailey: we had...
Marvin Dailey: it usually occurs in summer
Eliza Madrigal has similar conditions in Miami... few cold days and rainy Summers :) Lots of Brazilians, too :)
Marvin Dailey: ㋡ yes
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eden Haiku: Floods in Florida recently too isn'it Eliza?
Eliza Madrigal: I'm not sure Eden, not so much where I am fortunately
Eliza Madrigal: It will rain for Christmas though
Eliza Madrigal: A little odd while others are in snow :)
Eden Haiku: Oh no white Christmas for you.
Eliza Madrigal: Alas, no
Marvin Dailey: here in Brazil, we suffering with floods only in southerm part of the country... we it is colder.

Eden Haiku: Wiil you still be in Japan for Christmas Pema?
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Hana! :)
Eden Haiku: hello Hana.
Eliza Madrigal: Nice to see you
Pema Pera: hi there, Hana!
Hana Furlough: hello everyone!
Marvin Dailey: Hello!! ツ Hana
Pema Pera: I'll be in Japan till mid January, Eden
Pema Pera: Christmas is just a normal workday here though
Pema Pera: the first several days of January is the big vacation period
Eden Haiku: Do they celebrate Christmas over there? In a small scale maybe? I had a catholic japanese pen pal when I was a teenager,,
Pema Pera: not really, in any formal way at least
Pema Pera: although they play Christmas songs over and over and over again in coffeeshops
Marvin Dailey: :D
Eliza Madrigal: ohhh of all things to keep
Pema Pera: "I saw mammy kissing Santa Claus"
Pema Pera: etc
Eliza Madrigal grins
Eden Haiku: yes...of all things...;-)
Hana Furlough: lol!!
Eden Haiku: Universal...
Pema Pera: and Christmas eve somehow became a big dating evening
Pema Pera: who knows why :)
Hana Furlough: wow it's snowing in 2nd life, too!
Eden Haiku: ;-)
--BELL--
Marvin Dailey: here in Brazil, in big cities, i think Christmas is not a religious date anymore.
Marvin Dailey: people talk about anything but Jesus and his legacy.
Eden Haiku: The return of the light was also celebrated in pagan times, before Christ. We are returning to pagan times maybe ;-)
Pema Pera: even though we now created a lot of light ourselves . . .
Pema Pera: so much that we can't really see the night sky in the cities
Eliza Madrigal nods
Eden Haiku: In the Course of Miracles, remember: turning on the light and all darkness is dissolved.
Pema Pera: kids growing up in a city may have never seen the Milky Way . . . .
Eden Haiku: The Milky Way: such a poetic name...
Pema Pera: they call it the Silver River in Japan
Eden Haiku: The milk of human kindness,
Eden Haiku: Silver River, oh that is beautiful!
Eliza Madrigal: Ahhh, now that's pretty, too
Eliza Madrigal: I do enjoy the twinkling lights about at this time of year, and actually it is the only time I feel the urge to go to mass.. too tired by midnight though :)
Pema Pera: is mass at midnight, for Christmas?
Eliza Madrigal: Christmas Eve
Eden Haiku: It used to be.
Eden Haiku: Now they often do it earlier.
Eliza Madrigal: I wasn't raised Catholic, but often was out with friends and we'd have to go :) Became a pattern :)
Pema Pera: nice idea, celebrating the return of the light at midnight!
Eden Haiku: We planned to go at a very old church nearby (18th century, that is old here).But i don,t know if they still have it at midnight.
Eliza Madrigal: I love it.. a very particular feeling... as are Sunrise services in Protestant churches...
Eden Haiku: They used to have 3 masses one after the other , the last one finished around 3 o,clock a.m.
Pema Pera: wow!
Eden Haiku: And then people would have family reunions after that. In my grandparents' time
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eden Haiku: Tough people;-)
Eliza Madrigal: hehe..resilient :)
Pema Pera: in the olden days, for farmers there was not much else to do in December, I guess . . . .
Eden Haiku: I remember falling asleep on my aunts's fur coats after the midnight mass. Loved their pefrumes!
Eden Haiku: Yes, that was the big trip!
Eliza Madrigal: Nice to see you all. I've got to go. Have a lovely rest of the evening/day
Pema Pera: bye Eliza!
Eden Haiku: Going to mass in a sleigh with heated bricks to warm your feet up!
Eden Haiku: Bye Eliza!
Pema Pera: I'll have to get going too -- lunch calling
Hana Furlough: bye eliza!
Eden Haiku: Bye Pema Have a nice lunch!
Hana Furlough: bye pema!
Avastu Maruti: good bye my friend
Marvin Dailey: bye, Pema
Pema Pera: bye everybody
Eden Haiku: I wil be going too. Bye everyone!
Hana Furlough: and me as well
--BELL--
Hana Furlough: goodnight all!
Marvin Dailey waves...
Calvino Rabeni: Good night Marvin!