Syzygy

Turning off lights on Earth Hour, I go to the terrace.

I admire the beauty of the full moon, thinking about the billion-year-old firefly that lights it, standing on Earth.

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EARTH HOUR

Earth Hour, organized by World Wide Fund for Nature, is a global grassroots movement uniting people to take action on environmental issues and protect the planet. Engaging a massive mainstream community, Earth Hour was famously started as a lights out event in Sydney, Australia in 2007.

It is an annual event held towards the end of March every year when people across the globe turn off their non-essential lights for one hour as a commitment towards a better future.

Yes, it makes a difference.

SYZYGY

Syzygy isn’t something that’s related only to astronomy. I browsed to find details on the word’s origin and got to know that the term got associated with astronomy only after a century of its origin.

➟ Initially, in English, it was applied to conjunctions. I’m unaware of how they used it. Also, there is phonetic syzygy used in poetry, which has slight differences to alliterations.

➟ Then, it was used in astronomy to denote a roughly straight-line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system.

➟ In zoology, a syzygy is used to denote the pairing of chromosomes; the association of two protozoa end-to-end or laterally for the purpose of asexual exchange of genetic material; or, the conjunction of two organs or organisms by close adhesion and partial concrescence, without loss of their identity, also the thing so formed, or the resulting conformation.

➟ Syzygy also has usage in mathematics. As the basis of modern algebraic geometry, there exists a fundamental theorem called “Hilbert’s syzygy theorem”. It is about polynomial rings over fields.

Meaning:

• concrescence – growing together of parts originally separate.

References:

• Earth Hour – FAQs
• Word Wide Words – Syzygy – Origin & Usage
• Dictionary Focus – Syzygy in zoology
• Wikipedia – Hilbert’s syzygy theorem

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Special thanks to ‘Kitty Verses’ poem on Light for the inspiration to the prompt on Syzygy!

The photograph above is close to my heart. I was randomly clicking on the full moon in 2013 and got to see light in the form of a tiny heart in it.

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This is in response to the ‘Weekend Writing Prompt’ by Sammi Cox. The word prompt for this week is ‘Syzygy’, and the challenge is to limit a piece of prose or poem to exactly 30 words.

Going by the rules, the prompt word can even be in the title, not having to count towards the word-count total.