- There's no refuge from change in the cosmos,
but we're not really good at processing time passing.
It's very mysterious.
It's very confusing.
Throughout time, we earthlings have all
sort of come to the same points in the year,
and the same points in life to mark.
Disparate cultures, who had no way of communicating,
found the same moments
to create ceremonies and traditions around.
Birth, coming of age, death-
and also the solstices and equinoxes.
So many of our rituals and traditions
are about processing change
and coming to terms with who we are
on this little, particular planet.
My dad, Carl Sagan, was an astronomer
and together with my mom, Ann Druyan,
they really communicated wonder and awe
about the natural world as revealed through science.
And they found ways to carry on traditions
to connect to our place in the Universe
without compromising what they really believed
about the world and what we're all doing here.
So many of our celebrations around the world
are tied to four points in the year,
which are a function of how we move around our star,
and the axial tilt that the planet has.
So, our planet rotates on its axis,
but we do it at a little angle-
it's about 23 degrees and change.
And because of that, we have seasons.
Without it, we would still have weather,
but we would not have seasons.
And the length of days wouldn't change.
Here in the Northern Hemisphere,
our summer solstice is around June 20th,
and at that same time,
it's the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.
Six months later, we switch.
The points in between those extremes are the autumn
and spring equinoxes.
Holidays like, for example, Easter, Passover, Nowruz,
are all tied to the spring equinox.
So many holidays around this time of year are connected.
Rebirth, resurrection, and this theme
of overcoming darkness.
There's this underlying story that says,
"Wow, that was close.
That looked really bad.
We almost didn't make it,
but now it looks like it's gonna be okay."
And we see that in so many different places
around this time of year, so many different traditions,
because that's spring itself.
There's so much symbolism in traditions and ceremonies.
They're almost like these performance art pieces.
And I don't mean that in a negative way-
it's beautiful!
It's this way we can communicate
these larger ideas that everyone understands.
I'm a secular,
but I do love community,
and I love getting together to carry on traditions.
Those of us who are secular or agnostic or atheist
or some combination of those things,
we still need ways to mark time.
In the wintertime, when it's really cold and dark,
we have all these traditions in so many cultures
to make ourselves feel joy
and create light for ourselves;
just around this idea that when the sun sets early,
we need more light.
There's something about that that's very profound.
So, talking about the winter solstice,
because of the axial tilt,
the days are gonna start getting longer little by little.
It'll be summer before we know it,
and no matter whether we believe in it or not,
no matter what anyone does,
it's definitely happening and the light is returning.
It's coming back for sure.
And that's something to celebrate.
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