Today is the spring equinox. To be precise, it will happen tonight at precisely 11:49 p.m., eastern standard time.
I thought it seemed kind of early this year and, in fact, that is right.
This is the first time since 1896 that the spring equinox fell so early in the calendar. Of course, this also happens to be a Leap Year, which may (or may not) have something to do with it. Safe to say that we will not see one fall this early in the calendar again during most of our lifetimes.
It was back in the late winter/early spring of 1993 that I first really began to pay attention to the seasonal equinoxes. I was a skinny young kid of 18 years old, not far removed from high school, when I began my college career at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey. One thing that I wanted to do was be a part of something that meant something to me, that might help make the world a better place in some small way. I also wanted to make new friends at college. Joining the Environmental Club allowed me to do both at the same time.
One of the thing that I personally learned was to try and start paying attention to, and enjoying, the small things in life. In particular, things like marking the changing of the season, and celebrating the natural changes, which obviously includes the equinoxes. It is a lesson that sucked me in slowly, but which, somehow, stayed with me through my life.
So today, as another break from the onslaught of horrible news, particularly concerning Covid-19, I wanted to acknowledge the spring equinox.
It was a mild winter, one of the mildest in memory. Now, spring is here, the season of renewal, of new life and new hope.
That sounds like something that we can all use a little more of these days, does it not?
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