Life, Writing, Weirdness

I’ve always felt like I had a closer connection to the actual turning of the seasons than what is, realistically, an arbitrary calendar whatever the historical reasons for its adoption and modification over centuries and millennia might be. It makes more sense to me to organize the year around actual tangible physical events. We can argue the words tangible and physical if you like, but the fact of the matter is that humans figured out where the four primary points of the calendar were before there was a recorded history, almost certainly tens of thousands of years before there was a recorded history. Noting those four moments is a psychological connection to thousands of generations of my ancestors. If I squint, it’s a psychological connection to all of human history.

Now, substantially off the equator as I am, Equinox doesn’t mean I get to receive exactly equal amounts of day and night. I do get approximately equal day and night, though. Yes, geometrically it should work out, but atmospheric refraction messes things up a bit and the further away from the equator you get, the more you depart from the even split. At my latitude, I’m getting about twelve hours and nine minutes of daylight (sunrise to sunset) and the balance of time is in the darker hours.

In more practical terms, today marks the halfway point between the shortest and longest days of the year. We’re a quarter of the way around the wheel and the days are still getting longer. Even with our Climate Change stalker never far away, I can look forward to less snow and more sun ahead (as long as I stay in the northern hemisphere, that is).

An interesting note (to me at least), is that the Spring Equinox was essentially snubbed by the Gregorian Calendar. Today used to be the first day of the year (roughly – the official date somehow became March 25^th), and had been for something like 1500 years. I really don’t understand the change, though. A Catholic Pope decided to restore an even earlier Roman pagan tradition of aligning the new year to the month named for Janus who, among other things, was the god of beginnings. Not the western god and certainly not the Catholic god, but a Roman god. Yes, a top-tier Roman god, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. The only connection I really see is that officially the Catholic Church is the Roman Catholic Church. So, an appeal to ancient tradition meant to make the church seem older than it actually was? Seems a little suspect to me, but Pope Gregory XIII didn’t actually consult me. Or anyone else, probably, considering the history of the church in question. Maybe it was just a way to put his own personal stamp on absolutely everything. After all, we still call it the Gregorian Calendar.

But I digress.

Today is the Vernal Equniox (calculated to be 10:46 am EST, astronomically speaking) which, culturally the west mostly considers the first day of spring. Select your tradition of choice and celebrate it if you can, however close it comes to today’s actual date. Or at least step outside or open a window and smell the new spring air, any potential weather or allergies permitting.

Be well, everyone.