Close to the sun
Solar Flares and Human Behavior
Article by Sydney Rankin, art by Leyla Kramarsky
Back in Oregon, when I called into the forest, no one responded. Sometimes rain and moss dripped and whispered back.
I spoke to the moon often, outside in my yard after my family was asleep. I laid in the grass at the park where there was a soft hill. The sky was a secretive, misty grey. The road was a gravelly charcoal grey. I had come to find the grey nice, like a blanket. The rain reminded me that the ocean was close. And I had friends, but they were spread far out into the woods. It was a 20 minute drive or more to reach them. Their houses were yellow lights in the dark, small pinpoints on a hilly, damp landscape. My car was a solitary space. My room with its light smooth walls was a solitary space. There was so much quiet in my house. Blank quiet.
Arriving in Colorado from Oregon last year, I instantly got a headache. At around 3pm on move-in day, I cried, overwhelmed. I lay on my newly made Twin XL dorm bed, and the fuzz of my blanket was stifling. The air was hot and thick with my own anxiety, and even the two roaring Target fans could not cool me down. My parents went to get me my favorite drink from Dutch Bros, a Red Raspberry Rebel, to cheer me up. Every single day in Oregon, I would drive under grey drizzle next to masses of dark green trees to get my Red Raspberry Rebel. But, when I guzzled it down on the 4th floor of Mathias, it tasted like shit.
I used to complain about the rain in Portland. It was too cloudy, too grey, not enough Vitamin D. But living in the Colorado sun, I found that the rays made my head pound.
For months after my arrival, I was sunburnt. No amount of spf could save me, no matter how much sunscreen I slathered on.
A Russian scientist named Alexander Chizhevsky theorized that human behavior, on a mass scale, is influenced directly by the activity of the sun. He says that the amount of solar flares emitted impacts the actions of communities, people in power, and individuals. Historical events come in cycles, and so do bouts of stronger or weaker solar flares.
He posits that in periods of maximal solar activity, humans go the most loco. We are most likely to incite mass uproars, revolutions, protests; as well as most likely to do ecstasy, have mass raves… the extremes of every bodily motion and energy. His reasoning for this is the excessive sun energy that our bodies don’t have a place for. At the top of the food chain, humans are consumers of energy, and we soak up wavelengths from the tiniest of plant cells all the way to juicy bovine steaks. We are used to taking in the energy of natural organisms. So, when the sun pumps more flares toward us, our personal illusion is that we can take it; we shield ourselves with Gwyneth Paltrow’s best-selling Goop sunscreen, and we stay in air-conditioned rooms. But the sun is doing more than heating us, it is supercharging us. We cannot hide from the sun or the chaos it instills in us.
I can’t describe these effects better than Chizhevsky himself:
“rapidity of excitation from the unified psychic center”
“sharp changes in the psychological composition of the masses”
“The sound of the people’s voice is revealed”
“the entire human spectrum of…. immoderation, passion [and]…. insanity dominates”
“epileptic delirium”
At an average elevation of 6,800ft, Colorado has the highest mean altitude of any state.
While we aren’t by any means one of the highest places in the world, in the United States, we are the closest to the sun.
Living here in this harsh sunlight among these jagged cliffs and plateaus, the drivers are aggressive. People expect me to have more energy. I only cry with others, it’s harder to conjure those depths alone now. Things come to light here; my loudest laughter, my anger, my sensitivity. There’s always a passionate person I can call up for a conversation and a laugh. I can’t hide my light. When I try, I begin to feel dim, because speaking to people here will recharge me more than alone time. People zap me. I speak up more. I have to. I used to be afraid of fighting. I thought a fight was a friendship-ender. I thought that love meant no fighting. I thought that love meant no boundaries. Now I yell “that wasn’t cool!” Now I see fighting as a friendship-beginner. We will know each other so much better afterward. What a relief, I know where I end and you begin.
Yelling, but then apologizing afterward, is advised. Pushing myself to my limits seems inevitable. We can run the race in Kansas and then we can drive back 7 hours and then we can party so hard that we fall over.
Here in the Rockies, we’re closest to the sun. The only thing, well, the best thing, to do for fun here is to climb even closer. So much information fills our minds while colors and bright studio-lighting fills the trees. The light falls perfectly on your face, it’s surreal. Bright green grass, bluebird sky. Yellow and purple residential homes, wind-chimes and weather-vanes glinting in the daylight. Even when the leaves have fallen, there is still the fiery orange sky at sunset. When you arrive here, you face yourself. Whatever vibrations are flowing silently outside your skin will be supercharged by the white sunlight. Your aura is exploding, like it or not.
If it scares you, lean in.
When you leave this place, the stark contrast of a coastal valley will have you reeling.
When I called into the forest in Portland, there was no one listening. Because in a forested valley, a leafy blanket muffles your noise, there are miles between you and your friends. It is darker because the sun does not kiss you there. The forest will cloak you and so will the raindrops. We are showered and showered and we can swim but we cannot yell.
Here, we are almost sitting on top of a mountain. There are trees but they do not temper our noises. The aspens help pass along what we say. You ascend and your voice ascends.
You might think you want silence, at first. You might think you want a break from the clamor and the singing. No, what you want is to join the song. That’s why you’re here, you know that.