About three decades ago, in Earth years, an extraordinary event took place on a little known world, located on the far side of what you people quaintly call the ' Milky Way Galaxy'.
Tesselmon has had few visitors until relatively recently, so what is now referred to as the 'Miracle of Tesselmon' was previously unknown to anyone but the most adventurous.
On a remote plateau, high up in the mountainous region known as the 'Timorimor Massif', is a small group of cycads. Like countless others before them, they have been carried here as seeds on the warm summer winds from the distant equatorial forests; but unlike those other hopefuls, they have taken root and prospered. Annual rainfall is very low at this latitude. That in itself would preclude these seeds even germinating, let alone growing as vigorously as they have, because cycads need water - lots of water. In fact, they normally prefer a warm, moist soil, in partial shade, none of which is available here. There are few other trees on the plateau. It's mainly carpeted in a short, tough grass, which grows slowly - at less than half an inch a year. So why are we bothering to tell you this? Well... Either by celestial design, or by pure, blind coincidence, the five cycads have grown in a vee formation that predicts the precise point on the horizon at which Tesselmon's star rises on the first day of the summer solstice.
For many years, in fact, ever since they were first discovered growing there, a religious procession has taken place a few days before the solstice. Upwards of a thousand people make their way up the narrow pathway that winds its way up the sheer rock face, playing musical instruments - principally flutes and pipes - and singing songs, praising the 'goddess' (nature) and thanking her for the blessing of the cycads. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this event. Within a week or so of the solstice, the prevailing northerly winds begin to swing around to the south, bringing warmer, moist, air to the higher latitudes. This is 'the planting time'. Fields sowed within a week of the solstice will bring forth their harvest a few months later, offering the opportunity of a second, bonus, harvest well before the winds turn northerly again and bring in the first heavy snows. So great has been the impact of being able to accurately predict the coming of the rains on the people, it is difficult, bearing in mind the fact that the cycads should not even be growing there, not to imagine some divine intervention, here. Whatever is the true story behind the miraculous appearance of the cycads, the people here fervently believe they have been placed there by none other than the goddess, herself. We leave you, the reader, to draw your own conclusion.
