"Making daylight saving time permanent, Orthodox leaders say, would disturb their community rituals and create logistical problems..."

"... for Jews who work or attend school in the winter, when sunrise and sunset — which coincide with morning and evening prayers — would occur an hour later. For those who work secular jobs, praying nearly an hour later than usual would make it difficult to arrive at work on time, they argue."

The NYT reports, in "Why Some Orthodox Jews Oppose Permanent Daylight Saving Time" (gift link).

The sky at 4:40 in the afternoon.

We skipped the sunrise. The cloud cover was 100%, so we wouldn't have seen the sun (or the blood moon), and anyway, it was raining a little. We took the morning off, but we got out in the afternoon. It wasn't quite sunset, but the sun was low at 4:40. It's there in the photograph... behind that demonic profile.

And here's Meade's view (from a little earlier in the walk):

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Sunrise.

No, that's yesterday's sunset. Photographed by Meade out in the middle of the frozen lake. Here's this morning's sunrise:

Not so glorious. But we were there, and the photograph commemorates that tiny event.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

Meade walked across Lake Mendota today and sent me sunset photos from somewhere near the middle.

It was about 5:05 in the afternoon:

Open thread in the comments. Write about whatever you want.

"Winter’s short days and long nights aided my first attempts at becoming nocturnal. My husband bundled up and came with me on night walks."

"Friends gathered for an evening snowshoe. As the globe turned toward spring, though, the sun’s rays became stronger and the days stretched on. I stayed in.... But I grew restless and started heading out for night hikes.... A few weeks in, I was running along Lake Ontario when I stopped to watch the sun dip below the horizon. I became obsessed with that transition, stopping to watch it whenever I could. It slowed me down enough that I began noticing how a day ends in stages... 'civil twilight'... 'nautical twilight'... '[a]stronomical twilight'.... The sun wasn’t setting.... I was the one rotating away, a fleck on the back of an enormous spinning globe. Once I sorted out my relationship with the universe, my perspective changed. The fading light made me feel small and out of control — which was exactly why I loved it...."

Writes Claire Cameron, in "Skin Cancer Made Me Nocturnal. It Was Illuminating. How the earth’s rotation taught me to find peace in the face of death" (NYT).

I like the way this essay never mentions sunblock, as if slathering enough lotion all over — and over and over — could give a sun-vulnerable person the power to cavort in blazing full sun like a model in a beach vacation ad. 

The writer — whose father died of melanoma when he was 42  — is doing what I do and avoiding the sun. She's doing sunsets. I do sunrises. It's the same idea. I also do a second walk most days. I simply find heavy shade. That doesn't work when the leaves are down, but that's when it's cold and there are layers of clothing.

The spiritual dimension of dusk and darkness is there for anyone to dip into, but it is different when you feel driven into it by a very real threat of death from skin cancer. 

Sunset — 4:28.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

At the Sky High Café...

... you can talk until the crack of dawn.

But these are sunset pictures today, Christmas Eve Eve. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

At the Thursday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

(Photo by Meade/sunset/November 10th.)

Sunrise, midday, sunset.

6:50 AM:

1:10 PM:

4:38 PM (photo by Meade, from November 10th):

The sun got eclipsed in the middle of the day yesterday, but it also rose and set. Did you see that?

We did. From the front seat of the F-150, in Covington, Indiana, at 7:27 a.m. Eastern Time:

From the back door of the camper in Farmer City, Illinois, at 7:29 p.m. Central Time:

There is the rare peak event but also the beauty of the everyday.

As I'm writing this, searching for the right way to frame the profundity that feels just out of reach, Meade suddenly bellows, comically, "Well, what's next on our bucket list?"

I ask his permission to quote him, and he says yes and "You know I said that ironically."

"Yes, I wrote 'comically.' Don't worry. I won't let them think you said that seriously."

We're anti-bucket-list people, but we put a lot effort into doing a bucket-list thing. It was the last chance for the experience of a lifetime, and we drove 6-and-a-half hours each way to grab it. The sunrise and the sunset were captured spontaneously. And I'm only seeing that bird just now, symbolizing all those things that we see and don't really see.

ADDED: I had a few typos in the original draft of this post. Talk about seen and unseen. Corrected. And now I'm seeing the ghostly, spontaneous bird in the sunset clouds.

"In cold weather, I feel more alive..."

"This is, without a doubt, my soul season, especially the time leading up to the long darkness of the polar night, because, with the darkness looming, you just naturally soak up the moments even more. Every day feels special, especially in the golden hour, the burning rays of the setting sun."

"Awe has typically been a difficult emotion to evoke, said lead author Alex Smalley, but feelings of awe can improve mood..."

"... increase positive emotions and decrease stress. Smalley’s research has shown that people can 'experience these bumps in awe and aesthetic appraisal and beauty' when looking at a sunset or sunrise. We have, as Western populations, become very disconnected from the natural world...."

From "Why we should all be gazing at more sunsets/People find sunrises and sunsets to be the most beautiful and awe-inspiring weather, research shows. Here are tips on how to see them" (WaPo).

The article doesn't even consider the best tip, the one I follow and the one depicted on "Joe Pera Talks With You"...

... a ritual of encountering every sunrise, accepting the day's offering, anywhere from solid gray to melodramatic phantasmagoria. I wouldn't try to calculate the chances of achieving a state of awe. You're going to head out to an occasional sunrise with the thought of dosing yourself with some awe? 

Here's Smalley's study: "Beyond blue-sky thinking: Diurnal patterns and ephemeral meteorological phenomena impact appraisals of beauty, awe, and value in urban and natural landscapes" (Science Direct):

Sunset — 5:44, 5:51.

Photos by Meade.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Sunrise/sunset.

Snow erased the line between the water and the sky at sunrise:

Those are my photos from this morning. Later, Meade went out and caught the sunset:

Sunrise — in the rain on the road near Dodgeville, Wisconsin at 7:29.

We were returning from our excursion through the Driftless Area — after spending the night in Wyalusing State Park. This is the view not from some special overlook but from our personal campsite. That's how scenic it is at Wyalusing. That's the Mississippi River and, on the other side, Iowa. It was 6:05, and the sun was setting:

I've curated 5 TikTok videos for you tonight. Let me know what you like.

1. Awaiting the first sunset since April.

2. A wasp cut of a cold cut.

3. "No, it's Baron of Bad News."

4. Baron Ryan on the age-old subject, Nothing is something.

5. "Be absolutely miserable, but change nothing...."

My new collection of TikToks goes all the way to 11. Let me know what you like best.

1. Such an intense night.

2. Far away and then very close. 

3. Emmanuel! Do not do it! Don't do it, Emmanuel!

4. You let a marshmallow guilt-trip you.

5. A pretty arty song about shame.

6. I can't not show you the man in shorts when he's in Wisconsin... and these are the shorts.

7. I will take my shirt off before executing you/I don't think I need that, personally.

8. The history of pants raises the question why anyone is wearing pants today.

9. Finding it so much easier to talk to the dog.

10. No. We do not think you're sexy.

11. New advice from the certified vibesmith.

At the Sunset Café...

 

... you can talk about whatever you want.

The photo was taken — by Meade — at 5:56 p.m.

Icy Lake Mendota in the morning and afternoon.

It finally warmed up enough to do the sunrise run...

... about 30° at 7:27 when I took that photograph. 

Later, we drove out to a place in Madison that I'd never even noticed before, Governor's Island:

 

This is land that had belonged to a governor in the 19th century, that became the Wisconsin Hospital for the Insane, later called Mendota Mental Health Institute. It's where Ed Gein lived out his last years. 

We enjoyed our sojourn around the beautifully scenic location. It was about 40° at 3:20, and we walked out onto the Lake Mendota ice... just a little way...

At the Sunset Café...

... you can write about anything you want.