During the Han Dynasty in China, which occurred between 206 B.C. – 220 A.D., residents lit firecrackers and hung red banners to scare away the mythical beast Nian (pronounced “nee-awn”) whilst feasting and honoring the ancestors in an effort to mark renewal of life and good fortune. In the Egyptian New Kingdom, which occurred between 1550 B.C. – 1070 B.C., temples placed statues of gods in direct sunlight during Wepet Renpet (pronounced “weh-pet ren-pet”), which was considered the Opening of the Year, tied to the star system of Sirius and the annual flooding of the Nile River which symbolized rebirth and prosperity, with moonlight, starlight, and sunlight all treated as divine energy. In the Neo‑Babylonian Period which occurred between 626 B.C. – 539 B.C., the Akitu (pronounced “ah-key-too”) festival renewed cosmic order and the kingship of monarchs with grand spectacles of parades with deities, solemn ritualistic purification rites, and vows resembling the modern day tradition of New Year’s resolutions. In Ancient Rome after the Julian Reform in 46 B.C., January 1st was a time to exchange gifts and feast, recognized as New Year’s Day, in honor of Janus (pronounced “yah-noose”), the Roman god of beginnings, whose dual faces gazed both backward and forward simultaneously which embodied transition. Finally, amongst the Celtic Druids of the Iron Age which occurred from 800 B.C. – 100 A.D., solstice fires and feasts were held to celebrate the rebirth of the sun, with Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”) marking the threshold between harvest and winter and when it was believed that the spirit world and natural world were capable of overlapping and bleeding into eachother
Tag: starlight
The Reason the True Age of the Universe Can Be Definitively Proven
The discovery of the speed of light provided a satisfactory explanation as to why the world becomes dark at night. This is immensely important as the further a star is from an observer, the longer it will take for light to arrive from that point, to the observer themself. If the universe was infinite in its age, all of the light ever created would have had time to reach the Earth which would cause the night sky to be ablaze with starlight, photons emitted from every single possible part of the universe. This clearly is not the case so it is abundantly evident that the universe must have had an origin point. Scientists use the term “observable universe” as it’s entirely possible and likely that matter exists outside of what can be observed predicated upon the theory that as the universe expanded, light from this matter would have to travel increasingly larger distances to reach an observer. Because of constant expansion, this light has not yet had the chance to reach the Earth and perhaps never will, causing it to be outside of an observers field of vision and therefore unable to be proven in its existence using current methods and technologies