One of the great adherents to the observation and veneration of the Sun was the Roman Emperor Hadrian.  When he restored the Pantheon in the second century AD, it conveyed a clear message to Roman citizens, echoing the assertion of Akhenaten almost fifteen hundred years before him: the Sun is the physical manifestation of our God.  A half-century earlier, Nero had set the pattern when he built an octagonal room with a dome, which was inspiration for the Pantheon.  He designed this dome with an ‘eye’ or oculus that used Sunlight to mark his important anniversaries on the walls.  Originally built by Marcus Agrippa, whose name is still shown on the triangular porch façade – the only remaining part of his effort - the Pantheon was destroyed in the fire of AD 80, restored, burned again thirty years later, and then was completely rebuilt between AD 118 and AD 128 by Hadrian.  It was he who completed the forty three metre wide dome, with its open hole or ‘oculus’ at top, which today remains the largest unsupported and unreinforced concrete dome in the world.
 
Visitors to the building could essentially tell time by observing the position of the shaft of light from the oculus, which crosses above or below the entry at noon.  Furthermore, the beam hovers directly above the door at the March and September equinoxes, both moments of ceremonial importance for ancient Romans because it was then that emperors -many of whom cultivated an association with the Sun deity - were considered closest to the heavens and gods.  The midday Sun on April 21 – the date commemorating the founding of Rome, as declared by Hadrian - spotlights anyone who stands in the open doorway of the Pantheon.  The emperor would have entered the Pantheon at that very moment each year, the bright halo around him acting as a striking confirmation of his divine power and the glory of Rome.  Emperors before Hadrian had focused their attention on the Sun, but it was Hadrian who demonstrated that he drew his authority from the solar source and could command in its name.  As with the Egyptian pharaohs, his subjects believed he controlled its influence here on Earth.
 
Credit for Images at top of page:
(L) http://www.romanhomes.com/your_roman_vacation/quarters/images/pantheon-aerial-view-h14-m5-t.jpg
(R): http://www.digital-images.net/Gallery/Scenic/Rome/Scenery/Pantheon/pantheon.html

Since the nineteenth century a number of occultists have asserted that there is a Grand Central Sun at the centre of our galaxy – thousands, or some even say millions, of times larger than our Sun. The theory is that our solar system completes an orbit around this centre once every 26,000 years, and some have referred to it as being the star Alcyone in the Pleiades. More recently mainstream science has poured cold water on this claim by saying there is a black hole in the centre of our galaxy. Now of course on-one has ever seen a black hole, and it is difficult to peer into the centre of the Milky Way because we are situated well out on what is essentially a flat disc, embedded inside it, with bulky celestial matter blocking our line of sight. Admittedly it would be more comforting to think there would be a central source radiating light outwards, rather than unappealing and as yet unproven hole of darkness sucking everything in.

Plato is often quoted (or misquoted) on websites as putting forward the concept of a physical Central Sun. I would like to reiterate his position as I described it in my article The Eye of the Sun-Runner (http://www.solarancestor.com/the-eye-of-the-sunrunner.html ): He tabulates the ‘Simile of the Sun,[1]’ demonstrating that in the Visible World the Sun is the source of growth and light, granting us the faculty of sight and visibility to objects of sense, while in the Intelligible World the Sun-behind-the-sun is the source of reality and truth, granting us the faculty of knowledge and intelligibility to objects of the mind and thought. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks believed the sun we see is just the physical form of a higher ‘Intelligible or Spiritual Sun.’ Philo of Alexandria called it: “The Sun of the sun, the Intelligible object behind the object comprehensible by sense, and from invisible fountains he supplies the visible beams which our eyes behold[2]."

For spiritual seekers and those in the process of shifting to higher consciousness, it is important to focus on the invisible, ‘Intelligible’ Central Sun. Having said that I, for one, would be delighted to learn that there is a greater physical parent to our own Father Sun.
 

Credit for Image at top of page: http://www.myastrologybook.com/MilkyWayInfraredAPODJan302000.jpg

References: 
[1] Plato, The Republic Translation by Desmond Lee, Penguin Books, 1955
[2] Philo, The Special Laws 1, LI (279)

This past week has seen some remarkably beautiful Sunrises and Sunsets where I live in Queensland Australia. And once again the term ‘Green Flash’ has been mentioned on television. ‘Green Flashes’ and ‘Green Rays’ are optical phenomena that sometimes occur right after Sunset. When the conditions are right, a green spot is visible above the upper rim of the disc of the Sun. The green appearance usually lasts for no more than a second or two. Occasionally, the Green Flash can resemble a ray shooting upward from the point of Sunset. Green Flashes occur because our atmosphere refracts the light from the Sun.

These phenomena may be observed from any altitude and at any latitude; although at the equator the flash rarely lasts longer than a second. They are best seen at an unobstructed horizon, such as over the ocean, and are more likely to be seen in a still, clear sky when more of the light from the setting Sun reaches the observer without being scattered - in other words, a ‘boring’ Sunset. It might be expected that a blue flash would be more likely, since that is refracted more than the other colours, and the blue component of the Sun's light is the very last to disappear below the horizon - but it gets scattered and absorbed by particles in the atmosphere, with the remaining light ending up at the other end of the spectrum – yellow, orange and red. With slight magnification, a green rim on the top of the Solar disc may be seen on most clear-day Sunsets, although the flash or ray effects require a stronger layering of the atmosphere and a mirage, which serves to magnify the green from a fraction of a second to a couple of seconds. A Green Flash also may be observed in association with the Moon and bright planets at the horizon, including Venus and Jupiter.

While observing at the Vatican Observatory in 1960, D.K.J. O'Connell produced the first colour photographs of a Green Flash at Sunset.  With an unrestricted view of the horizon, Green Flashes are regularly seen by airline pilots, particularly when flying westwards as the Sunset is slowed. If the atmosphere is layered the Green Flash may appear in a series - at extreme angles a secondary flash can be seen, and at least one observer claims to have witnessed a triple Green Flash.

Just like rainbows, auroras and solar halos, the beauty of Green Flashes awaits those who go out and look for them.
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Credit for Picture at Top of Page
Image courtesy of http://cdn.fiboni.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/green-flash03.jpg?a0f395

Recently Australian ABC television aired an episode of the science program Catalyst, which demonstrated through tests that getting bright Sunlight outdoors can prevent shortsightedness or myopia, and may even slow the progression of existing cases[1]. There are a number of factors in being outside, as opposed to getting bright artificial indoor light, that could offer a protective effect. There's UV radiation, vitamin D from sunlight, and even the opportunity to stare into the distance. With the Sun, it's the brightness of the light that makes all the difference. Any time spent outdoors is beneficial - whether being physically active or not active is irrelevant in terms of providing the protective effect, according to the tests.

The reason bright light helps is due to the way our eyes adjust to day and night. Our vision is received via receptors called cones and rods at the back of our retinas. When you go out at night, you go to what's referred to as your rod vision, your black and white, grainy scale vision. This allows the eye to take as much light as possible and generates an image out of it, but by doing so you lose that fine detail. During the day, cone cells in our eyes give us incredible detail, colour and high definition images. To switch from our rod cells to our cone cells requires a neurotransmitter called retinal dopamine, the release of which is triggered by light. During the day when you go out into the Sunlight, what happens is that dopamine levels go up, turning off the rod pathway so that the dopamine system stops the signal being diffused anymore and allows very fine tuning of the system, and that's what allows us to see fine detail. It's this release of dopamine that appears to be one of the key signals to stop eyes from elongating.

What is this elongation all about? As you get older, your eyeball grows longer and your focus gets shorter. But these days it's a phenomenon happening to more and more children as well. Their eyeballs grow abnormally into an elongated shape causing light rays from the distance to focus in front of the retina rather than on it, resulting in a blurred image. When you look at faraway objects, the lenses of your eyes bend parallel rays of light at an angle so that a sharp image is created on the back of your eye. To look at near objects, the internal lens needs to get rounder to bend the rays at a more acute angle. As you get older, your lens loses flexibility and its ability to curve more. That's why reading gets harder and harder. But when you're myopic, it's the distance that becomes blurry.

Although a well-lit room might feel nice and bright, the reality is it's very dim compared to daylight. A well-lit classroom is usually between around 500 to 1,000 lux, nowhere near bright enough to trigger the amount of dopamine needed. What the eye needs is three hours a day at 40,000 lux. 40,000 lux in Australia would be the equivalent of either a winter's day or a cloudy day. In Europe, that can actually be the intensity you see even in a summer's day.

In China, a three-year trial was carried out, where 40 minutes were added to the school day so the students could be out in bright Sunlight, resulting in a 25% reduction in new cases of myopia. At another trial in Taiwan they had 80 minutes a day and they got 50% protection.

Being afraid of Sun damage is no reason not to give your children outdoor exposure. Even with the standard protection (hats, sunglasses etc) they'll still be getting enough light into their eyes because of the huge difference between indoor and outdoor lighting.

Just another way that the Sun meets our physical needs, when we let it in.
 
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Credit for Picture at Top of Page
Image courtesy of Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/en/wire-rack-head-technology-human-1311162/

References:
[1] Reference: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4450296.htm