I’ve always been fascinated by both natural science and culture, so equinoxes and solstices have always intrigued me. Today at 1:26pm Eastern Time is the Vernal Equinox. When I was a kid I had a hard time remembering if the vernal one was in the spring or fall. Then I realized the other one is Autumnal. That squared it up for me.
So today is the first day of spring, the day on which the sun crosses the equator. Did you know the Sun is actually farther from Earth during the time when it’s summer in the northern hemisphere? It’s warmer because the angle’s better.
Many many cultures in human history have attached spiritual significance to the equinoxes and solstices. For some reason Man thinks those are significant times I guess. What intrigues me is how widespread it is. Every culture has some odd thing it thinks is important, but when most or all have the same thing, I start to wonder why.
Here are some interesting facts:
- "Vernal" means
- Of, relating to, or occurring in the spring.
- Characteristic of or resembling spring.
- Fresh and young; youthful.
- The plural of equinox is equinoxes.
- Close to an equinox, day and night have nearly the same length (12 hours) everywhere on Earth.
Interesting bit of info. You don’t suppose our Creator has something to do with everyone having a similarity now do you!?! I personally don’t think “the big bang” had that much intelligence going for him!
What’s really wild is what happens at the north pole.
If I understand it correctly, the entire year is just one big long day. Winter is “night”, Summer is “day”, and the equinoxes are sunrise and sunset.
And I thought the Autumnal Equinox was just a celebration of my birthday! Sometimes the world celebrates it a day later – this year the earth is on track with me 🙂