23/09/2019

Equinox 2019 - The Balance

I'm mostly ignorant of the solstice and equinox mysteries and rituals through the millennia. I haven't even watched the sun rise on Stonehenge, the most famous and popular of the prehistoric stone circles, though I have, on ordinary days, stood in the middle of a few in Ireland that were maybe three or four thousand years old and I am known to burn a candle in the dark of a solstice eve.

2019 Autumn Equinox PST
View from here - Autumn Equinox 2019

Today I read up on the difference between the meteorological and astronomical beginnings of the seasons. According to the meteorological calculation, each season always begins on the same calendar day. For example, in the northern hemisphere, autumn always begins on September 1.

OTOH, the astronomical calculation marks the beginning of the seasons by the relationship of the earth to the sun. There are spring and fall equinoxes (equal night/day) and the winter and summer solstices (longest/shortest night/day).

So today, 23 September at 07:50 UTC, the sun was directly over earth's equator. In the northern hemisphere this is the astronomical autumn equinox and beginning of Fall. In my current time zone that means the moment when light/dark were equal the world over occurred at 12:50 AM PST. I was asleep.

So . . . Happy Equinox 2019. Enjoy the balance. Let go. Rest a moment as the gears change. Now spring begins in the Southern Hemisphere and Autumn here in the north.

Autumn Equinox and already Alley's special morning sunny spot is fading so much sooner that it did.
Autumn Equinox and already
Alley's special morning sunny spot is not lasting as long.



4 comments:

Mr. Donut said...

This is a nice one. I feel like I learned something. I also feel like I forgot something, simultaneously. The balance.

asha said...

Heh. Yeah. The old add something - lose something equation. I know it well. The trick is to at least add something.

Roy said...

I'm familiar with the add/loss thing from attending training courses on fiber-optic thingies at the phone company. Eventually I was able to streamline the whole process by deflecting new technical details entirely, before they could even reach my brain, thus preserving the Jetsons and Flintstones trivia along with a handful of important telephone numbers.

asha said...

Roy, sounds vaguely familiar. I say vaguely as that's generally the state I'm in when I'm doing the add/loss thing. I especially like "deflecting technical details entirely". I realize it's a trivial process for most but ... at the moment I'm halfway along setting up my printer so I can print a micro kid's book I'm doing and trying my best to deflect the entire experience before I start yelling at inanimate objects again.