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Clocks. Don’t they rule our lives, with their infernal, incessant tick-tock (and, of course, that annoying, incessant silence if they're digital)?

A sundial is the nicest way I know to tell the time. There are many different kinds of sundials, too. There are the classic ones you see in gardens, and ones that are like a bit of wood sticking out from a wall. There are ones shaped like hoops that have little holes poked in them so the sun shines through onto the inside of the hoop at the bottom. There have been sundials that at a certain hour of the day allow the sun to shine through a magnifying glass onto a fuse on a toy cannon that explodes. Now there’s an idea for uncommitted suicide bombers.

Here’s a very simple kind of sundial that is cheap and easy to make, and you’ll be able to throw your noisy (or silent) clock away. I don’t know if this contraption has a name, but I call it a spotdial and you may too. I installed one at my flat at Avalon when I lived there about ten years ago, and it took about half an hour even for me to set up. And it goes like … this:   

Basic equipment

Get a small mirror about the size of a playing card or a cigarette packet. Baptists and liberals might prefer to measure against a folded $100 bill. The mirror I used was a budgie cage one which costs about a dollar at supermarket, eight or nine bucks at a pet shop.

You’ll be affixing this mirror to the sill on the outside of a window on the sunny side of your house – the larger the window, the better the spotdial. In the Northern Hemisphere, your sunny side will be the south side. Mine is on the north, because I live in the Southern Hemisphere. (If you are not sure which hemisphere you live in, you live in the Northern Hemisphere, between Canada and Mexico.)

Start doing this job early in the morning. I’ll explain why later. You’ll need a spirit level for this next bit, the kind that carpenters use, because you need to get the mirror level. If you haven’t got a spirit level, you can make a pretty good one easily with a bottle. Fill the bottle with water, just leaving a bubble of air. If the bottle has straight sides, when you lie it down the bubble should reveal the horizontal by floating to the centre. If it doesn’t work, there’s an easy solution. Go and buy a spirit level. They make very small ones that can be shoplifted very cheaply. 

Mount the mirror

Using your level, mount the mirror horizontally on the window sill in a sunny spot. The best way to do this is somehow. Now, race inside and observe with delight the spot of light on the ceiling of your room. If there’s no spot, you didn’t open the curtains.

Open the curtains.

If there’s still no spot, it’s night time. Maybe afternoon. Because spotdials are best in the morning in most places, and lousy at night, at least in the Southern Hemisphere. I know because I tried, and they stink, so don’t even bother. They’re best in the a.m. because by noon the sun is high in the sky, and our aim is to cast a spot of light on your ceiling, so the angle of reflection matters. Or refraction or something.

Keep paying attention, this is very technical.

No, it’s reflection. For sure.

Now, assuming you have a spot of light above your head, you will find that the spot travels across your ceiling. I just know some astronomer is going to write and say that, in point of actual fact, the ceiling travels across the spot, and they’ve known this since Mephistopheles or John Calvin or some other Greek, but you know what I mean. Now, climb on a chair and every 15 minutes mark with a pencil the centre of the spot. Oh, I forgot to put this at the beginning. You will need at least one serviceable chair. Get the chair.

Next, pencil the time every quarter hour on a spot: 8am, 8.15am, 8.30 and so on. To do this you will need at least one serviceable clock. I should have said before as well: don’t throw your clock away until you’ve finished your spotdial. (I’m going to rewrite this for New Scientist.) Now you will have a row of pencil marks on your ceiling. The landlord class must be swept aside from history and made impossible. Most successful spotdiallers have at least an elementary reading of Marx.

At your leisure, you can mark those spots any way you like, as you now have a clock on your ceiling that really works. I got some gold stars from a stationer’s shop, and they looked cool. And it wasn’t just me – my visitors seemed to like them too. You can insert your own wisecrack here if you like.   

Seasonal changes

Because of the different path of the sun each day, your spots will change through the year. Remember this fact. Just think “acne” or “snow leopard”. So here’s what you do. On one of the solstices, let’s say the solstice this December 22, which is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, mark your spots. They will slant across your ceiling. Then on the next equinox, which will be about March 22, when the sun is rising in the middle of its annual progression across the horizon, mark them again. Your line of spots will be straight down the middle.

Do it again on the next solstice, June 21, and you will have another slanting line but on the other side of the room. Then at the equinox on September 22, do your stuff and you will see that the spots are in exactly the same places as they were at the March Equinox. Stop and consider what made this so.

So every three months for one year you will draw a line of spots, and you will have three lines because the two equinoctial ones are identical. Your ceiling should look something like this but without the writing: 

  
Some sort of parabola or something is now happening in your living room, and you can’t get one of those at Ikea for love nor money.

If you have artistic talents you will quickly see many possibilities arise from your basic solar template. For example, you could lie on your back like Michelangelo and paint your ceiling like the Sistine Chapel. Then you could tell the time by angels, cherubs and rude bits of human anatomy. (“What’s the time dear?” “Umm, it’s a quarter past Adam’s willy.”) You can make your ceiling a galaxy of celestial bodies, or a garden of flowers. It’s up to you. New Agers can combine both motifs – stars and flowers, all in a fetching pastel shade of purple.

Other things you can do

The flat at Avalon in which I lived was on a headland overlooking the ocean, so without any buildings or trees to cast shadows, my spotdial was a beauty. Another thing I had was a disk of glass with a medieval sun face painted on it, in translucent yellow paint, hanging in that same window. On one of the equinoxes, when the sun always rises due east, I woke up before the dawn to do my deed.

At precisely the moment that Old Sol popped his head over the horizon and shone through my glass sun’s face, casting a golden spot on the wall opposite the window, I marked the spot in pencil. Later, I hung a watercolour on the wall, one that I had done of the Zodiac, with a sun at its centre. I positioned this sun so that the first light of the two equinoxes would thenceforth shine brightly on his face. 

It could also be done for either solstice. In fact, like the builders of ancient monuments such as Stonehenge, and the Egyptian, Mayan and Aztec pyramids, you could illuminate some part of your room, such as a shrine, or your collection of Mariah Carey CDs, with the first light of the longest day of the year (circa December 22 or June 21, depending which side of the Equator you inhabit). Having a personal shrine illuminated by the mystick orb could change your life, so let your imagination run free with this innovation. Invite your friends for a sacred breakfast. Chant to the neighbours! Dance naked with the Robertsons! Sacrifice an unwanted pet! Celebrate life!!

If you do make a spotdial on your ceiling, or one of these other gizmos, let us all know. I’d be delighted to publish your photo in the daily Almanac and at our Scriptorium. Have fun!

I haven’t tried this, but you could probably get a magnifying glass and rig up the cannon thing, as well. If you do, share it with us, will you? Especially if there are any accidents – God forfend.

Index of articles on folklore and other topics

Wheel of the Year

Aries  Taurus  Gemini  Cancer  Leo  Virgo  Libra  Scorpius

Ophiuchus  Sagittarius  Capricornus  Aquarius  Pisces

Spring Equinox/Ostara   May Day/Beltaine   Summer Solstice/Litha   Lammas/Lughnasadh

Autumn Equinox/Mabon   Halloween/Samhain   Winter Solstice/Yule   Brigid/Candlemas/Imbolc

External links

Sundial at Wikipedia

Jantar Mantar (Jaipur, India), the world's largest sundial

Sundials on the Internet

Sundials and shadow clocks (animation)

Sundial site of Frans Maes

Sundials in the news