Explaining the Sun & Moon

After dinner, my wife and I walked across the street and sat on a bench to watch the sun set over the far shore. All was quiet. The boats in Three Mile Harbor had returned to their slips. The sailors had gone home. Other than where the sun was hiding behind the trees over the far shore producing a slowly fading orange glow, the night was closing in. Only the Moon, a single curving sliver of silver high above, provided light. Though it wasn’t much.

I looked up at it, briefly. Sparkles of it were reflecting off the water. Soon, I knew, it would travel further to the far shore and finally, as the sun did before it, disappear over the horizon.

Recently, I learned that shards of pots from thousands of years ago had been found in the wetlands where the harbor ends. That  place is called Soak Hides Dreen, where primitive people once softened animal skins in the salty brine. In my mind, I imagined them there, busy doing that.

“I wonder what it was like 5,000 years ago,” I said to my wife.  “How it was.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

They wouldn’t be sitting on any benches then. They’d be sitting on big boulders. There’d be no marinas, no lawn upon which our benches sat, no houses across the street, in fact, no street. But there would be the same Moon. Up there. Catching the fading sun’s reflection and, briefly, getting brighter as the sky darkened.

And I, as leader back then, would have to describe it all to my followers.

“As you see, the Moon up there is a curving silver object.  It’s sharp to the touch at both ends.”

“And it just stays up there?”

“No. It moves. It will come down, as the sun did, behind the trees on the far shore. It’s way beyond it. So far beyond, no one has ever gone there.

“And then, tomorrow night, another silver object with sharp points, a slightly larger one, will cross the sky and come down behind the trees.   Then, the next night, another one, larger still.”

“Who is doing this?”

“A God.”

“The same one each time?”

“No. Each one, a different God. Soon, there will be a big collection of Gods and slivers beyond the trees. And the slivers, sticking in the ground, will all slowly go dark. Until darkness prevails.”

“And the collection of Gods and slivers will just grow and grow?”

“No. When they get to a certain number, they will come back the other way in darkness and get beyond the hill behind us. But nobody ever sees them do that. Because it’s dark. Then they’ll do all this again.”

Neither of us said anything for a while.

“I do think, however, that their crossing back must happen on the one night when no other moon appears. We see that every once in a while. You know that. It’s dark that one night. So that’s when the Gods and slivers creep back.”

“Are the Gods doing this for us?”

“No, not at all. We are just among the many creatures down below they wish to give light to. At least a little light. It’s really kind of dim. And then that one night, no light at all. As I said.”

“Do they fight with one another?”

“No. They’re too busy doing what they have to do. Though they might jostle one another from time to time.”

“So that’s everything.”

“Not quite,” I tell her. “There was this one God working along with the others, who felt the amount of light they were bringing was insufficient. Not bright enough. And indeed, half the time, there was no light at all. It was just darkness. A whole 12 hours. Nobody was doing anything then.

“So one day on his own he figured out how to make a really, really bright light during that darkness period, much brighter than those silver slivers.”

“He invented the sun?”

“Yes he did. He went off and did it.”

“And the others were upset with this?”

“Not at all. They had their one thing to do over and over and they were too busy doing it. They did notice the sun followed the same path, though.  Though not at the same time. So what if it was better? After the moons were done, they’d watch this great orange disk rise up from atop the hill behind us, to journey across the sky so much better than they could do. If anything, they were in awe of it.”

“And the Sun God?”

“He’d be standing behind it, steering it. It had a little handle in the back he could hold on to as it went. You couldn’t see him back there. Indeed, nobody ever saw him back there.”

“And he would steer the sun to set over the trees where it is too far to go?”

“Yes. And it would get dark again. Which was a cue for the next moon parade to begin.”

“And where would the Sun God go?”

“In the tunnel.”

“There’s a tunnel?”

“Yes. Nobody has ever seen it. But it’s there. The tunnel goes from over there,” I pointed across the water to the far shore, “into the ground and then under everything, under the harbor and where we are, then to the top of the hill behind us where it would open back up. He’d come out. Still with the sun. A tight fit.”

I pointed again to what was behind us.

“Then when he’d seen the last of the moons get beyond the far trees to stick into the ground, he’d take the sun up to once again bathe everything in this wonderful light the others could not get from those old moons, and he’d drive it once again across the sky to beyond the far shore.”

We both stared across to the far shore again.

“Thanks for telling me about this,” she said. Then, after another pause, she continued “and you’re sure we don’t need to worship all these Gods?”

“Correct,”  I said. “They’re gonna do all this if we worship them or not. It’s just what they do.”

“Good to know,” she said.

We sat in silence a little longer, then got up and crossed the street and went into our house. The sliver was setting. It would soon be very dark. Might be a good idea to get some sleep.