This year the moment of equal day and night happens on Monday, March 20th. Although climate chaos has altered weather patterns everywhere, the seasons remain consistent. Twice a year the day and night time are equal in length. Daylight increases in the Northern Hemisphere and lessens in the Southern.
The word equinox dates to the 14th century, but celebrations of this event can be traced to the Romans, Mayans, Egyptians, and Saxons. (For examples, see www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places/…equinox-around-world-001464.)
Though records of sky observations exist from about 8,000 years ago, some humans noticed the changes even before these formal breakthroughs. How awesome to imagine someone’s early “Aha!” What an awakening and cause for celebration! One wonders if early celebrations included thoughts of rebirth and if they had religious significance.
WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING
Our early ancestors could not have pictured what we know is happening: our sphere, rotating to create day and night, is also hurling around the sun, 90 million miles away. Earth revolves around the Sun at a speed of about 18.5 miles, or 30 km, a second. It was happening aeonseons before humans evolved to observe it.
Definitions of the spring equinox correctly state that it is “the time when the sun crosses the plane of the Earth’s equator resulting in equal parts of light and dark.” But this incorrectly implies that the sun has moved to this position. Our awareness shifts when we realize that Earth has reached the point in its journey around the sun when its equator is in line with the sun. We’ve known that for centuries, yet it is still a hard concept to remember!
The image shows Earth when it reaches this mid-point, but be sure to remember that our sun is about 110 times the diameter of Earth.
Many religious groups use this time to honor special events in their history that relate to newness. The theme of rebirth and resurrection are present in the Christian tradition of Easter, celebrated this year on April 16th. In the Jewish faith, Passover begins April 10th. Early Pagans in the Germanic countries celebrated planting and the new crop season. Many Persian countries, with roots in Zoroastrianism, celebrate hope and renewal with the festival of No Ruz – which means “new day.”
By all means participate in whatever celebrations are held by the religion of your choice to honor specific events in its salvation history. This is sacred time, deserving our deep prayerful participation. But also remember why the celebrations take place at this time of year.
You might also wish to honor the equinox with this brief memorial, perhaps with new insights into your religious traditions:
1. Begin by being very conscious that you are held by gravity whether you are sitting, standing, or lying down. Imagine your place in your bioregion and its size. Continue extending awareness of your “place” until you feel embedded in your hemisphere and this entire planet. Our spherical home is relentlessly rotating East. Try to sense that movement. If you can see the sun, remember that it is not moving; you, with Earth, are traveling. Integrate your special religious remembrances into this history.
2. Keeping in mind Earth’s rotation, check this image. It shows Earth’s size relative to our sun. We know we travel completely around the sun each year. Far from being close, Sun is about 90 million miles away, and its light takes eight minutes to reach us. Once each year, when our double trajectory is just right, we experience the spring (or autumn in the Southern Hemisphere) equinox. Recall that our sun is a star.
3. Ponder Walt Whitman’s poem, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
No matter what time of day it is, stars are around us. Enter into the feeling of this poem. Look out (not necessarily up!) to wonder, to marvel, to be aware of the equinox mystery and our place in the cosmos.
4. End this memorial as creatively and meaningfully as your imagination allows!