The Arrow of Time

I used to play among these tall grasses with my imagination running wild, pretending to be a warrior princess--nearly a decade before Xena hit the air. When I wasn't running, I'd often sit near the little lake by the railroad tracks, or wander through the abandoned greenhouse. Here, I learned to be a poet and a philosopher, a dreamer and a lover of nature. I'd watch the prairie dogs yip as the red-tailed hawks swept across the field, sometimes to catch a snack from the birdfeeder in my backyard. Sometimes, on hot summer days, I'd drag an inner tube down to lazily float down Big Dry Creek.…
Today, the sun is rising to its highest point over the northern hemisphere. It is the longest day of the year--the summer solstice. But do we notice? Outside of a glance at the calendar, marking the official start of summer, it's just another day. Did the residents of Rochester Creek notice the solstice 2000 years ago? When they carved these elaborate images into the face of the rock, were they considering the passage of time and the rotation of seasons? Were they librarians, recording useful information, such as astronomical or biological details? Or were they shamans, performing religious…