the year turned round in a somewhat predictable way and they really wanted to know why. But they had no telescopes and not enough math to figure out what was going on. “They reasoned that powers greater than they were must be responsible. And what were these powers, they asked? If they could answer that, maybe they could get some control over them and maybe they could make sure their crops would always grow again and their cattle would be fertile. Well, they thought hard and started coming up with all sorts of answers. You will know some of them from studying mythology. The Pueblo Indian story about the Blue Corn Maiden. The Winter Katsina god lures her into his house because he has fallen in love with her. He seals the windows with ice and the doors with snow. There will be no more spring and no more new growth unless somebody can rescue her. “That story might remind you of the one from Greek mythology about Persephone and the pomegranate. Persephone falls down a great crack in the ground and is held prisoner by Hades, the god of the underworld. The whole world stays winter until, at last, he agrees to release her as long as she promises to come back to him at the end of the summer. There’s lots of stories with that shape, but lots of other story lines, too. There are monsters who must be vanquished and lovers who are being kept apart and must find their way to each other before the seasons can move on. “Then humans gradually began to look more closely at the physical world. They began to stare at the stars and the sun and do the numbers. They learned about astronomy and geology and the scientific method. Because of science, today we know about the vernal equinox and why we have seasons. “Let’s take a look, shall we? I’m going to need a couple of volunteers so you can visualize this properly. I’ll be asking these volunteers to be traveling about 100 million miles out into space. Who’s ready?”
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