Vernal Equinox

Yesterday was the vernal equinox, one of the two times in the year when the day and night are of equal length. A gentle reminder that no two days are ever the same length, that the year is made up of days which are lengthening or shortening depending on the phase of the relationship with the sun, the relationship between light and darkness. Six months of days shortening, six months of days lengthening, with no finish, no stasis beyound the endless round of lengthening and shortening and these two turning points, the equinoxes, and their dark halves, the solstices, the shortest and longest days and nights. Seen in these terms the nights are just dark days, halves of time, unobserved and overlooked, like a watch ticking in a coat pocket. It is almost a romance, this long-term and tender agreement between earth and sun, a romance made up of moods and phases, perhaps good days and bad days, calm days and angry days. The whole of a spring journal should revolve around the equinox, but living in a world of electric light and time I am so out of touch with the passing of days and nights that it has become an academic enquiry, not a conscious awareness. How many of us live an awareness of moon-phases, sun-journeys? And this equinox is marked by fierce winds, rains, skies sharpened by the wind; a fine moon last night, a skyful of bright stars and fast clouds.