Boing!

I don't know if you hear it, but yesterday at 11:02 UTC Spring sprang. Looking outside, you probably wouldn't know it otherwise, if I hadn't have told you. Some of us were thinking it's today, others were sure it was tomorrow. I mean, none of us is far off, it's always around this time, but the astrophysical time-masters have been tracking the data and if anyone knows just when what out there is supposed to be somewhere, they're the ones to ask.

We made it! Winter is officially behind us.

Of course, when I look out the window and when I think about being outside, I'm not thinking spring, official or not. That's the thing about something being "official". I'm not sure it means a lot out here in reality where just about everything of significance is anything but "official".

Really, when my kids were born, that were some of the greatest moments of my life, but none of those births were "official" until they had been registered. Or when their birthdays come. It's past midnight, and anyone and everyone can -- and should -- wish them a Happy Birthday, even though it's not "official" till at least their birth time comes around, but hey, who's counting? The same is true for anniversaries, both happy and sad (such as weddings, engagements, and, yes, even deaths). What is real, and when we choose to remember is necessary and important, and it's never really "official".

Things have certainly changed since the times when I grew up -- as well they should have, some of it for the better, of course -- and I have to admit that one of the things I hear less about these days than then is how "official" things are. When I say that winter is "officially" behind us, it really doesn't carry that authoritative tone that it did when I was young. That's good I think. Part of the consequence is that a lot of young people have less respect for authority than we were encouraged (required?) to have. I don't think that's a bad thing.

You see, in my day, people were shown (not necessarily given) respect by virtue of their position: the policeman, the pastor or priest, the teacher, the mayor or governor or ... oh, the list goes on. These were, and are, of course, "official" personages. But, most of those people today are people somewhere around my age, and I have to say that associating respect and position just doesn't cut for me. It didn't do a lot for me then, and absolutely nothing for me now: each and every one of these officials have shown us quite clearly that money and power and advantage were more important than what their "official" position actually required. So we have scandal after scandal after scandal and it doesn't strike us as odd that there is nothing respectable about scandals. It is now up to each and every "official" person to show, demonstrate, and prove that s/he is worthy and deserving of our respect.

Yes, it's "officially" spring, but it's not acting like it. So, I'll keep waiting.

Spring ahead

Did you know that there is not just one season called spring? No, I don't mean that there's a spring in the Northern Hemisphere and half a year later there's one in the Southern Hemisphere. We've got a tilted earth and there's simply not a whole lot we can do about that. This is what we might call the beginning of cosmological spring, for that's how our particular corner of the universe has been put together.

No, I'm talking about the "other" spring ... the meteorological spring. For whatever reason, whoever came up with our calendar simply refused to acknowledge that the seasons, like the signs of the zodiac, and all that stuff nobody likes to think about anymore all start around the 20th or 21st of their given months. Spring "officially" starts at the spring equinox, that day/time, if you will where we have equal periods of light and dark (more or less ... it's not all that precise). In the spring, the sun is making it's yearly journey north (for those of us upon this side of the world), and at some point, it crosses the so-called celestial equator, whereas in the fall, at the autumnal equinox, the sun is heading south again ... like lots of us in the North would like to do in the winter. That whole snowbird idea was around a long time before we thought of calling it that. Oh yeah, this year it will "happen" on March 20, 2013 at 11:02 UTC (or just after 5 am for those of you in New York).

When you stop to think about it, we're pretty much out of touch with nature and the natural cycles of things. I mean for millennia, literally thousands of years, day began when the sun came up; it ended when the sun went down and that's when night started, which ended when the sun came up again ... well, you get the picture. Actually, if we really wanted to get technical (which I don't) the sun doesn't rise or set at all, the earth turns and it looks as the sun is rising or setting. Some metaphors sit very, very deep. Others not so much. So now a "day" begins and end at "midnight" (which is the completely wrong word when you think about it), and months start on their first, but the actual seasons, well, they still follow pretty much the same old pattern

Pretty much. Weather people, regardless of how chaotic their subject matter may inherently be, are still trying hard to force a bit of order onto that chaos, so they've come up with meteorological seasons. It's simple: March, April and May constitute spring; June, July and August make up summer; fall consists of September, October and November, and winter runs from December through February. Very neat, very orderly, very much out of rhythm, but, hey, who's paying all that much attention anymore?

So, in a sense, spring has already sprung. It sprang ahead of itself. It's already spring, winter's over, aren't we glad? I suppose, but it doesn't feel that much like spring yet. I'd say winter is dragging his feet. I wonder if the sun has some heavy burden that's slowing him down? Oh well, for some of us, we've still got almost a week to go.

Time to celebrate?

It might be advisable to get out of the hole for a moment. There are plenty of things to explore there, and we can get back to it whenever we please. It may have escaped your notice, but we've got the big spring thing going on, and I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention it.
Yes, for some it's Easter, of course, for others it is Passover. The close affinity of the two religions gives us the overlap.

Like Christmas, believe it or not, just when these holidays fall is also related to cosmological events. You will recall we have two solstices (when the sun is farthest and closest to the earth, the longest day and longest night, that is, the beginning of summer and the beginning of winter). You will also be happy to know we have two equinoxes as well, that is, days when the days and nights are of equal length. These occur when the sun crosses the equator going north (spring) or south (fall). Spring just recently sprang, so things are looking up. If you're not clouded in at night, though, you may want to check out the moon, because it is waxing (getting larger) and on Friday (the 6th, for most of us) it will be all filled up. We'll have our first full moon after the spring (that is, vernal) equinox. The first sabbath thereafter is when the holidays occur.

It's all very logical, isn't it? Perhaps. Just as I mentioned between the years, we moderns don't handle these kinds of things very well. It all seems to arbitrary, doesn't it? Well, actually, no ... at least not to one who is still aware of the fact that we humans, whether we like it or not, are still a part of nature and still very much influenced by it. When the moon is full, the tides are higher and water flows more strongly. When spring arrives, the plant realm awakens from it's winter sleep and things start to bloom. And our hibernating animal cousins awaken as well.

For anyone who wants to take it seriously, let's face it, this is precisely that point in the year when we get a new lease on life. That's reason to celebrate, isn't it?