If you’ve been walking or driving due east at sunrise in the past few days, you may have noticed the sun rising almost directly ahead of you in alignment with your eastbound road. Same for due west at sunset. We’ve been on the approach to the equinox.
Spring, by the almanac, begins this evening. It is the vernal equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere, and it comes at 6:45 pm here in Lake Worth, which is Eastern Daylight Time. It is a time of balance, with the amount of daylight and darkness in approximate balance currently in both hemispheres of the globe. For the Southern, autumn is beginning, and for us, spring.
By traditional reckoning of time, this day is a midpoint: spring began with Imbolc at the start of February, and with the solstice we are at the midpoint of spring, well on our way toward May Day and the traditional start of summer. We are also now midway between the year’s longest night (Winter Solstice, or Midwinter) and its longest day (Summer Solstice, or Midsummer). Tomorrow, day will overtake night in the Northern Hemisphere, and we will continue on this path of lengthening days until Midsummer. The constant pendulum of nature at work. And yet for now, balance.
Image: Spring by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Oil on canvas, 1573, [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.