Beginnings (11)—Civil Twilight

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series "Beginnings."

This is the second in a linked pair of posts on civil twilight.  
Click here for the first post ("Endings")                                        

[a] Rural twilight

You didn't really think I was going to forget the morning, did you? Civil twilight has two dimensions—a fade to darkness as well as a lighting of the stage (it is gradual, like an energy saver light bulb). For those of you who have spent significant time in the wee hours, you know the images. Looking out into the darkness, all you can see (I am assuming a semi-rural vantage point for the moment) are the distant lights of a large city, if one is close enough. But things begin to change when the sun reaches eighteen degrees below the horizon (astronomical twilight), then twelve degrees (nautical twilight), and then civil twilight begins—about thirty minutes of it—when the sun is six degrees below the horizon.

[b] Light on Mt.Tai

Only the late sleeper thinks that light begins with sunrise. There are twisting, colorful shafts of light for up to two hours before the sun peeks above the horizon. What sunset is to the Hawaiian Islands (and I mean "tourism" and "commodification" here every bit as much as I mean "aesthetics), sunrise is to Mt. Tai in China's Shandong Province. It is the "eastern mountain" of the cluster known for over 3,000 years as the "five peaks" (五嶽).

[c] Lone pine light

From the perspective of Chinese cosmology, time begins again every day on the eastern peak, and that fuzzy calendrical idea has become the stuff of...marketing. Watching the sun rise on Mt. Tai is a growing industry, and every day, all year 'round, thousands of people stand shivering (it is cold in January...and in July) as they watch the glimmers of light appearing over the flat, Shandong plain. It is a thing of beauty, to be sure, but equally a thing of cosmic regeneration—at least in the bookish sense of early Chinese philosophy.

[d] Repast

But like the time just before dark, the half-hour just before sunrise is about more than aesthetics. All over the world, the day is starting up again, following the ancient rhythm of rest and labor that even a 24/7 global economy cannot shake completely. For every patron of a late-night Thai food stand near the Broadway watering holes (or Grand Slam special eater at 3:00 a.m. at Denny's...anywhere, even in Tokyo), there are tens of thousands times more people asleep in bed, following a "natural" circadian rhythm.

[e] Start-up

As the Thai food eater tucks into bed, the last sound she might hear is the chirping of birds. After that, strains of light start to appear on the horizon, and early risers start their days. The time before full sunlight is filled with a different kind of energy than we saw with dusk in the "endings" post yesterday. There is a gradual re-booting going on, and it comes in the forms of chugging engines, creaking docks, clanking milk pails, and (let us not forget) those start-up sounds of computers and cell phones.

[f] Van Gogh morning

If you were an anthropologist of morning, you might notice sounds more specific to this time of day than most others—showers, toasters, coffee makers, and the distinctive tone of morning radio and television. No less than in the thirty minutes before complete darkness every evening, there is a sense of urgency. In almost every case, it is more pronounced than at night, when most people (aside from cyclists, farmers, and campers) have temporal options, and a day of deadlines has passed...until tomorrow. The urgency of morning is etched into our society, and can be found in novels, poems, plays, artwork, advertisements, and menus (to name only a few).

It is a beginning in the precise definition of this Round and Square series—a profound (and daily) challenge of getting stuff started after a period of calm. Light and sound (they are related in more ways than you might realize) have everything to do with it.

Oh, and the lambs like it, too.

[g] Morning spring

[f] Urgency

Endings (3)—Civil Twilight

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series "Endings." 
 

[a] Waning light

One of the world's greatest endings is played out every single day in a complex blend of sameness and difference—sunsets are always the same...and different every day. Think about it. Sunset is etched into our lives through language and nature, metaphor and culture. The sunset of life is not the same thing as the sunset of a career, and neither is remotely close to Sunset Strip or Sunset Boulevard.

I am interested enough in sunsets that I return periodically to Claude Lévi-Strauss's evocative description of a sunset aboard a ship from Marseilles to Santos.  It has the kind of odd, literary, and self-absorbed quality that gives Tristes tropiques its peculiar charm, and makes it one of my favorite books. It goes on for seven pages, and is a monument to a momentary concatenation of observation and ego. In an odd sort of way, it also serves as Lévi-Strauss's first fieldnote, but that is a longer story for you to learn from Claude himself. Take a look if you have...thirty minutes.

Lévi-Strauss, "Sunset"

[b] Ocean light

There is another kind of "thirty minutes" I wish to examine here, though. Everyone understands it, but relatively few people have thought deeply about it and its implications (I do hope that is beginning to sound familiar to readers of this blog). Its technical name is "civil twilight," and it generally refers to the period from sunset to about thirty minutes after sunset. Civil twilight has its own kind of beauty, but it goes far beyond aesthetics. It is the beauty of squeezing in just a little bit more, of rushing a little, of trying to get just one more thing done.

Civil twilight is a time we all recognize with a quickened pace and often a sense of mild urgency—at least at some points in our lives. If you grew up on a farm, you know exactly what I mean. From chores to work in the fields, the thirty minutes between the setting of the sun and the (almost) utter blackness of the sky is a time of opportunity...and hurry. If you have been camping, you know well that you need to have the tent up, and you probably have noticed the sequential dimming of after-light as you pounded stakes into the ground. It wouldn't hurt to have the campfire going, too. Did you bring a lighter? Don't look at me.

[c] Civil Twilight

In precise terms, civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the geometric center of the sun is 6° below the horizon. It is followed by layers of darkness of most relevance to sailors, nautical twilight (6-12°) and astronomical twilight (12-18°). At these times, if you're finishing the milking, you'll just think it's dark. If you're on a ship, you'll notice. Feel free to check out some times on the chart below.

Civil twilight chart

You may want to do a few searches of your own for civil twilight definitions and times. Just be aware that you are likely to get a South African band if you don't refine your search (trust me).

[d] Civility

Cyclists of all skill levels—especially those who work during the day—live with civil twilight calculations. I have often thought of my rides through the Wisconsin countryside through the lens of "racing civil twilight." Ten minutes after dusk, I usually can hardly tell whether or not the sun has actually set; ten more minutes, and I had better be nearing home; after that, it's just plain dark. My wife remembers civil twilight on the farm during summers in Iowa. When she first mentioned it to me, I was sure she was going to talk about chores and work that had to be done before the natural light was gone. Instead, she told me about how she remembered the way the lambs jumped and frolicked from sunset until it was dark. It was like they added a little kick to their repertoire in the fading light.

There are so many literary references to this period that it is hard to know what to choose. T.S. Eliot alone gives almost a half dozen possibilities, and Shakespeare is chock full of them. I like a more recent example that was referred to me by Elizabeth Makarewicz, a student in my "Calendars and Almanacs" class, where we discuss civil twilight (on-and-off) all term long.  James Harrison's introduction to a varied collection of writings done in middle age has a beautiful title, and every author should think twice before becoming "prematurely autumnal" (a nicely crafted image).

Just Before Dark

[e] Just before dark

Carl Sandburg, Dreams in the Dusk

Dreams in the dusk,
Only dreams closing the day
And with the day's close going back
To the gray things, the dark things,
The far, deep things of dreamland.

Dreams, only dreams in the dusk,
Only the old remembered pictures
Of lost days when the day's loss
Wrote in tears the heart's loss.

Tears and loss and broken dreams
May find your heart at dusk.