03/18/2019
The Spring Equinox is the celebration of the first day of spring. The Spring Equinox 2019 is Wednesday, March 20t at 5:58 PM
What Is the Spring Equinox?
Equinox literally means “equal night.” On the Spring Equinox, the Sun is positioned directly over the equator, which makes day and night equal in length all over the world, only on the equinox. There’s another equinox, the autumnal equinox, that occurs on either September 22nd or 23rd of each year. In 2019, the Autumnal Equinox will be on September 22. Like the Spring Equinox, the Autumnal Equinox is a day where day and night are of equal length, and marks the beginning of autumn.
The Spring Equinox is the beginning of spring, and has been celebrated for thousands of years. The first day of spring has been celebrated at least since the time of the ancient Egyptians, and we know that the Persian holiday Nowruz (the Persian New Year) is also celebrated on the Spring Equinox. Nowrux, the Persian New Year celebration that takes place on the Spring Equinox, lasts for 13 days and has been celebrated for at least 3,000-years, originally as part of the Zorastrian religion.
March 20, 2019 will be more than just a celebration of the start of spring: it is literally the changing time of the seasons, thanks to the position of the sun.
Besides the astronomical significance of the Spring Equinox, this time of year has been a major time for tradition and ritual since the beginning of recorded history. Even before people had an understanding of the reasons behind the changing seasons, changes in temperature made the equinoxes important events.
Plenty of rituals and traditions sprang up around the coming of spring for the Spring Equinox. Early humans must have welcomed the coming of spring because it meant easier access to more food. Ancient Egyptians, the earliest people that we know celebrated the Spring Equinox, built a monument called the Great Sphinx that pointed directly to the rising Sun on the day of the Spring Equinox.
Because spring is a time of rebirth (with plants growing, warmer temperatures, blooming flowers, and other forms of new life) most of the rituals and traditions synonymous with spring have had to do with fertility.
The Spring Equinox has long been associated with ritual and tradition. Many contemporary Christians celebrating Easter don’t know they’re celebrating an event in nature that has long been a part of pagan or at very least non-Christian ritual, but even the name Easter has roots in pagan beliefs, specifically the pagan season on Ostara and the pagan goddess Iostre.
If you’re not a religious or spiritual person, you can still use the Spring Equinox as a time of personal rebirth. Spring cleaning is a good way to get your house in order for the coming year, a time to organize your life and make new plans for the next year. If nothing else, the Spring Equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere) means temperatures are warming up, and it is time to prepare for longer days, summer vacations, and other annual warm-weather traditions.
Injoy the beauty of Spring its all around us for us to notice and observe and be one with it all
May you be blessed and happy
Namaste
