Spring Equinox
Spring Equinox is 03/20/21. As mentioned before I am super freaking excited for the change of season. I realize that just because the spring equinox has passed doesn’t mean we won’t still have winter weather it just usually means that the worst of the weather is behind us. I feel like I weathered (pun intended) winter better than usually this year (thanks probably to a relatively mild winter) but I’m still excited to be done with winter. Spring always brings the excitement of the new growing season. I love watching sprouts, well, sprout and see all the amazing changes that happen in plants from coming out of dormancy to flowering and producing fruit. It’s just such an amazing experience. Plus you just don’t have to be cooped up inside anymore and there’s always fresh air. I just love spring.
What Is Spring Equinox
Spring equinox is also known as the vernal equinox. While for the northern hemisphere it marks spring, in the southern hemisphere it marks autumn. The equinox happens when the day and the night are the same amount of time, 12 hours each. If you are more interested in astronomy, the equinox is when the Earth’s axis doesn’t tilt toward or away from the sun. If you stand on the equator the sun will pass directly overhead. The equinoxes are the only two days a year that the sun rises due east and sets due west. While most people I know are excited for spring and acknowledge the equinox, they don’t really celebrate it. Is the equinox something more or just a passing of time to mark the change in season? Or is the change in season itself worth celebrating? Well it all depends. It is believed that ancient civilizations such as Mayans from Chichen Itza and those that created Stonehenge celebrated the equinox. This is assumed because of the monuments that they created that seem to celebrate specifically the equinoxes. There are also several current holidays that start on or near on the equinox. There is Nowruz and Cimburijada. In Japan they celebrate Shunbun no Hi and Higan by Buddhists. Many modern Pagans celebrate the spring equinox as well. If you take into consideration holidays close to the spring equinox you will find even more celebrations around the world. Obvious, to my neck of the woods, is Christian celebration of Easter. There is also Qing Ming in China and Holi in Northern India.
A New Beginning
With all of these celebrations it really seems important that we acknowledge this time and take a moment to reflect. I know that my goal for this blog is to help make a positive impact on the world around me and to help others do the same thing. So as I am writing this I am thinking what is the point of all of this? How can we use spring equinox and the celebrations surrounding it to make a positive impact on the world around us? Well the simplest and easiest thing that I can think of is to learn about the different celebrations. One of the most important things that we can do is learn about each other and what is important to us. Oftentimes people misunderstand each other or make assumptions about each other. Learning just a little bit more about people’s backgrounds and what is important to them can go a long way in making a difference. The second thing that I would recommend is focusing on the meaning of the celebrations. For example, Nowruz is translated to mean new day. Cimburijada is The Festival of Scrambled Eggs. They use the festival to celebrate the changing of seasons. Higan is celebrated at both equinoxes but is meant as a time to slow down and evaluate your actions. To me, I see a common thread of taking a moment to slow down and make conscious actions toward our goals and appreciate what is to come. Reflect on what you want, what your goals are and how you can achieve them. If your goal is to help remove garbage from ground, maybe try to organize a group of likeminded people to make a bigger impact. If you want to focus on providing food for your community, try to organize a couple of community gardens. Increase literacy, try to create a little free library near your home or support your local library. Increase community within your neighborhood try organizing an event to bring everyone together. There are so many different ways that we can help; we just have to be creative and be brave enough to try. I know of two separate organizations that have been started locally where I live. This first is a group called Trash Squirrels; they organized about 9 months ago. This past week they hit their tipping point, they had 100 new members this week alone, more than tripling their numbers. They organize events where people go and clean up trash around the town. They make a competition to see who can find the craziest/most creative piece of trash. One of their collection events they collected 43 pounds of garbage, and this was before they saw their membership increase. We had another person in our town recently start a shoe exchange. People can donate their gently used shoes and take whatever shoes they need. Again this is a service that was started about nine months ago. It has grown so popular in the last couple of months that they have received shelving donations to help organize all of the shoes. They have also partnered with another organization that can take shoes that are much more loved and recycle them. Both of these organizations started as a person with an idea and some perseverance. Don’t give up if something takes a little while to get going. The spring equinox is here and it’s just waiting for us to celebrate the beginning of something new. To refocus and take aim to tackle our goals. You can do this. We can do this, together.
As always, stay positive and much love
Additional Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox
https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/vernal-spring-equinox
https://www.ef.edu/blog/language/8-best-spring-traditions-around-world/
https://www.unitedplanet.org/blog/2013/04/01/spring-equinox-celebrations-around-the-world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz
http://www.sarajevotimes.com/traditional-cimburijada-in-zenica-marked-the-first-day-of-spring/