It's official! Today is the much awaited Vernal (Spring) Equinox...marking the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Because the sun is positioned above the equator, day and night are about equal in length all over the world during the equinoxes (the other equinox is in the Fall in September).
Reasons for the Seasons
These brief but monumental moments owe their significance to the 23.4 degree tilt of the Earth's axis. Because of the tilt, we receive the Sun's rays most directly in the summer. In the winter, when we are tilted away from the Sun, the rays pass through the atmosphere at a greater slant, bringing lower temperatures. If the Earth rotated on an axis perpendicular to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, there would be no variation in day lengths or temperatures throughout the year, and we would not have seasons.
It is no wonder this shift in seasons has been celebrated by people from the earliest civilizations to the present! From even the first nudge of warmth from the golden sun we are all ready to shrug off the heavy cloak of Winter and stretch up to reach out and drink in the radiant promise of Spring! Yeah Spring!!
Enjoy this day...this spark of life a new season can bring! Get out and move, or stay-in and stretch...just do something wonderful & seize the moment!!
Namaste...Abby
