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Today is the first day of Spring, hooray! Later on today, we will be getting more snow, boo!
This is what I got from Wikipedia when I googled the term equinox; my recolllection of the word was that today would be of equal length both day and night, but I thought that there may be more to it then that, so that’s why I looked it up and here is what Wikipedia had to offer:
An equinox occurs when the plane of Earth’s Equator passes the center of the Sun. At that instant, the tilt of Earth’s axisneither inclines away from nor towards the Sun. The two annual equinoxes are the only times when the subsolar point—the place on Earth’s surface where the center of the Sun is exactly overhead—is on the Equator, and, consequently, the Sun is at zenith over the Equator. The subsolar point crosses the equator, moving northward at the March equinox and southward at the September equinox.
Mankind has been celebrating the promise of nature’s renewal for thousands of years and after the brutal winter that we have had, I could see why some of those early celebrations were intense. My favorite mythology , the Greeks, couldn’t wait for Persephone’s forced winter exile in Hades to end and for her to rejoin her mother Demeter, so that Demeter’s joyous radiance would warm the Earth and reawaken Mother Earth from her long slumber.
It may be weeks before I see any greenery, but just knowing that with each passing day our side of the earth will be tilting ever so closer to the sun makes me very, very happy. I’ll be feeling like a sunflower in no time, following the rays of the sun and basking in their warmth.
laurieanichols 