a wobble-versary--OR--why i like marking the passage of time

in celebration of july 31, the anniversary of the day my husband and i got married, this week’s blog posts will be about the ways we mark the passage of time.

it seems that 2012 is a big deal for earth. apparently, the earth wobbles when it turns. it wobbles really very slowly, so one complete wobble takes somewhere around 26,000 years. it seems that 2012 marks the completion of one cycle of an earth wobble, which means we're now back in the same place wobble-wise we were 26,000 years ago, but slightly moved over. if i understand it correctly, this means we’re in essentially the same orientation, but things look a little different now. the stars are not quite in the same places they were 26,000 years ago.

three things about this wobble idea remind me why i like marking time:

one || time is so much bigger than me. 

we’re talking about the earth over 26,000 years. i can’t really grasp the huge-ness of that, given that i can’t even really get a handle on the huge-ness of 50 years of marriage, or 20 years without my father, or 80 years of a life. it’s good for me to be reminded that time is so much bigger than me.

two || even very small changes over a long period of time can result in big shifts. 

there’s a bunch of conversation about what the wobble-versary and the shifting stars mean astrologically and for our north star and for our civilization. anniversaries do this for us, too. they remind us that even very small changes over a long period of time can result in big shifts.

three || it's good to re-evaluate and celebrate where we were, where we are now, and all the stuff that happened in between.

and, of course the wobble-versary makes us want to know what was happening 26,000 years ago, when this wobble first began. it was about the time that the neanderthals met with extinction and people started making tools like harpoons, needles, and saws for the first time. anniversaries make the opportunity for us to re-evaluate and celebrate where we were, where we are now, and all the stuff that happened in between.

i’m curious: how do you feel about anniversaries (or wobble-versaries)?