Canícula

We are in the midst of canicula, those summer days when the sun bakes the fields and nature slows down, overwhelmed by the high temperatures.

Apparently, the term canicula comes from the Canis constellation, to which Sirius belongs, the brightest star in the sky. In ancient times, the beginning of the hottest season in the Northern Hemisphere coincided with the moment when Sirius appeared on the horizon with the sun, adding its heat to that of the sun and producing the canicular rigors, according to the beautiful but inaccurate explanation given by our ancestors for this phenomenon. Today we know that canicular heat is actually due to the high angle at which sunlight hits us in the summer. Although this is at its maximum at the solstice, around June 21 in the Northern Hemisphere, the highest temperatures of the year usually arrive a few weeks later, already in July, and extend more or less until mid-August, when the sun is no longer high enough to compensate for the nighttime cooling and temperatures begin to drop, heading towards autumn. Due to the high thermal inertia of the oceans compared to the land surface, thermal changes in maritime areas are slower than in continental ones, which heat up and cool down more quickly, with July generally being the hottest month in inland areas and August on the coasts.

Today, due to the precession of the Earth’s axis, the alignment of Sirius with the sun no longer occurs in the first half of July but later, but the term canicula has stubbornly resisted the whims of the laws of physics and continues to be used to refer to the time of year when the heat is strongest.

Despite the suffocating heat of canicula, which invites inactivity and lethargy, if we are attentive we can admire a nature that is both modest and beautiful, with a mature and discreet beauty, very different from the brazen spring, which spares no colors and smells to attract attention. These are days of tanned fields, of vultures lazily flying without hardly moving their wings, of dragonflies and damselflies hovering aimlessly over the river waters. Days when cicadas, stridulating at full throttle, become the sound owners of the mountains, with their monotonous, unattractive, and almost infinite song.

Andrés Chazarra

Season 4. Chapter 16	Chicharrera
Recording date	July 2022
Duration	2:39 minutes
date of issue	August 3, 2022
Location	Armallones, Guadalajara, Castilla la Mancha. España
Image and sound	Ernesto Cardoso. Daniel Agut
Edition	Ernesto Cardoso
Opusculum	Andrés Chazarra
Music	Doctor Turtle
Song	Las slate of the roof