Thursday, September 22, 2016

Autumn Equinox


OK - so my calendar says today (September 22nd, 2016) is the Autumnal Equinox. That alone is sort of ‘odd’ (pun and oxymoron most definitely intend) because my calendar is printed in the USA, where we almost NEVER use that (base) word, ‘Autumn’. Here, we stumble around (oops!) calling that period of year ‘Fall’. But, I digress - as frequent readers know all too well. So, to return to the more germane word in the title, ‘Equinox’  

My 1950s grammar-school Latin classes (taught by Mr 'Doughy' Baker) suggest that I might expect an equal measure of daylight and 'nightlight' today.

My schooling has also mislead me on some other terminology - specifically ‘mid-day’. Yes, ‘mid-day’ is always conventionally thought of as being at noon - you know, ‘when the big hand points to 12 and so does the small hand’. For those who are clueless regarding analog time-pieces, that’s when your digital device reads 12:00:00. Well, today, (at least where I live), I’ll have to wait 55 minutes more – until 12:55:00 for ‘mid-day to occur - because my iPhone tells me that sunrise was at 6:51 am and sunset will be at 6:59 pm. I wonder what time mid-day will be where YOU live.      

Oh well, had I 'googled' it, I would have read that 'Equinox' is not exactly what I (and ‘Doughy’) had been led to believe. I should have noted the section entitled ‘Why ‘Equinox’ in the following revelation: 


I note the reference to the main Mayan temple at Chichen Itza, Mexico. I visited there once, a few years ago, but didn’t see the snake – but then, I was NOT there on the equinox. Strangely, I HAVE been in Ireland on an equinox, but also saw no snake there either – oh that’s right, St Patrick didn’t build a Mayan temple there.

Perhaps I am suffering from too much sun (it is forecast to be 90F / 32C later today) on this day in which there should be only a half-measure of it.