Coming soon! An equal day and night!

Did you know that on the vernal equinox (and on the autumnal equinox) day and night are nearly equal all over the world? This is because on these two dates, the sun is directly above the equator. The word equinox comes from the Latin aequus which means equal and nox which means night.

Our earth makes one revolution or orbit around the sun in a year’s time. As the earth orbits the sun it stays tilted and this is what gives us seasons.

In Christianity, Easter is on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This is why Easter falls on a different date on different years. The Eastern Orthodox church uses the old Julian calendar.  That is why the Eastern Orthodox Pascha (Easter) can fall on a different Sunday from the western church.

The vernal equinox falls either on March 20 or 21 and the fall equinox falls on September 22 or 23. This year’s equinox falls on March 20. The reason the equinoxes do not always fall on the same date each year is because of that extra day we need to put into our calendar every four years. The earth takes about 365.25 days to orbit the sun, but our year has 365 years.

Are you ready for Spring and warm weather? I love spring because I love to garden. I already have sprouts soaking up the “sun” under my grow lights.

I tell about my love of gardening in my memoir, Searching for the Sacred, My Life on a Homestead. You can purchase it here.