I love the sphere (and the North)

The sphere has always been my favourite shape. Early on in my life I had a plastic sphere, about the size of a beach ball, that was hollow. Its entire surface had holes of various shapes - triangle, square, star, diamond - and correspondingly shaped mini-three-dimensional objects. The objective was to take one of these shapes, find the right hole, and put it inside the sphere. This is how I first learned that every shape came from a sphere.

When I was reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson a number of years ago, I discovered that the universe is spherical (this may not be the consensus today - I've heard theories of western saddles, potato chips and snakes, amoung others). Bryson said wherever you are, you're at the centre of the universe. He also said that if one wanted to walk "across" the universe, that you'd just end back where you started. The same goes for Earth. It's a sphere. Although, my days are spent traversing on the surface, not in its depths.

And, on this surface, we've projected our thoughts - lines and shapes in the form of architecture, planning, maps, and latitude and longitude, amoung many other things.

I remember learning about latitude and longitude in grade school. My teacher quizzed the class by giving us coordinates, and we'd have to find the place on the map, and vice versa. I did really well. But it wasn't that hard. I think everyone did really well.

And that's the thing, these lines are helpful. They hover above any geography, and acknowledge the overall form of the Earth. I know, thanks to these lines, that the Prime Meridian is at zero degrees longitude, marking the place where every new day breaks. I know that the equator is at zero degrees latitude. It's the hottest region on our planet because it gets the most consistent, direct sunlight. The further North, or the further South one goes, the more seasonal weather exists because of Earth's tilt and its changing relationship with the Sun.

When these things we're originally explained to me and my classmates, I thought it was a direct expression of reality. I believed that there was a real, barber-shop-looking pole traveling through the Earth, from the North to the South. I believed that time started at zero degrees longitude. Now that I'm older, I realize that these are constructs. The new day could start anywhere. The equator, though, and the Earth's relationship to the Sun, is less debatable. And these regions of ice, North and South, I'd say less debatable, too. Although, have you ever seen an "upside down map." South could be North, and North could be South.

I've been living in the North for the past year and a half, and while I'm not in the far extremes of ice and snow, I have sensed that the North is becoming a more prominent fascination in our collective minds.

Obviously the environmental movement has a lot to do with it. It's cool to be green, but we don't want the ice to melt, right? Global warming impacts are most felt, and seen far North, or far South, because the landscape is clearly disappearing. We see images of polar bears swimming, or huge ice cliffs breaking and falling into the ocean. Ice has become the face of climate change.

But I think there's also a spiritual reason. Personally, I often become fascinated with particular geographies. Mongolia, recently. Hawai'i, often. Arizona, last year. To me, it doesn't necessarily mean I need to physically travel there. These places become an archetype for me, a lens to explore certain aspects of myself and where I am.

I think our perception of the North represents something within us all. It represents a wild, untouched landscape. Melting ice, rising waters. Mystery. Darkness. Wonder. Isolation. Enchantment. And, back to the sphere: The North and South are the regions where the longitudinal, or time, lines all intersect, making it exist outside of our construct of time, and congruent with celestial time. The atmosphere is also closer the the Earth, making it seem like it's a place where Heaven and Earth converse.

A man told me last year that remembering is the act of bringing together that which has been scattered. No wonder the North is the direction associated with wisdom.

I really think (and hope) that we're moving into a time of enchantment with the world again. Where our sense of time is more cyclical and celestial, where we always keep our ancestors in mind as much as our future, where the rational mind falls into the dark place, and emerges like northern lights.