According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac,in 2014, spring began with the vernal equinox on March 20 at 12:57 P.M. EDT. This is the season that brings increasing daylight, warming temperatures, and the rebirth of flora and fauna.
Yet today the world from Kiev to the Ukraine seems to be descending into violence and darkness and only Crimea blooms into Russia like a garden of roses—thanks to Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Still, Syria is at war and more blood is flowing from Kiev to the Ukraine. The most awful battles I’ve ever seen may continue ravaging spring’s Garden of Eden. And it seems we will be evicted from it as from grace.
The vernal equinox
The word equinox is derived from the Latin words meaning “equal night.” Days and nights are approximately equal everywhere and the sun rises and sets due east and west. But it seems that we will have a perpetual equinox. Wednesday was the eighth anniversary of the Iraq War, from 2003 to 2011 and beyond, with a million dead, nearly as many wounded. The killing still goes on there. In what spring will it stop?
But the sun also rises
Yet, at the equinoxes, the tilt of Earth relative to the sun is zero which signifies that Earth’s axis veers neither toward nor away from the sun. Thus the vernal equiinox brings the increasing daylight, warming temperatures, and the rebirth of flora and fauna that beautify the world.
However, the tilt of Earth relative to its plane of orbit called the ecliptic plane, is always about 23.5 degrees. See your local sun rise and set times—and how the day length changes!
But why doesn’t the vernal equinox (equal night) on March 20 have the same number of hours for day and night? The Almanac’s former astronomer, George Greenstein, had this to say: “There are two reasons. First, light rays from the sun are bent by the Earth’s atmosphere. (This is why the sun appears squashed when it sets.) They are bent in such a way that we are actually able to see the sun before it rises and after it sets.
“The second reason is that daytime begins the moment any part of the sun is over the horizon, and it is not over until the last part of the sun has set. If the sun would shrink to a star-like point and we lived in a world without air, the spring and fall equinoxes would truly have ‘equal nights.’” What a marvelous thing the sun and creation are. And what beasts most humans have turned out to be. But then, you can stand an egg on its head and it will stand on its own.
One spring, a few minutes before the vernal equinox, several Almanac editors tried this trick. For a full workday, 17 out of 24 eggs stood standing. Three days later, we tried this trick again and found similar results. Perhaps 3 days after the equinox was still too near. Try this yourself and see what happens!
Signs of spring
Spring is also the time when worms begin to emerge from the earth, ladybugs land on screen doors, green buds appear, birds chirp, and flowers begin to bloom. The vernal, or spring, equinox signals the beginning of nature’s renewal in the Northern Hemisphere.
You can track when the seasons change by recording animal behaviors and the way that the plants grow. Listen to the new sounds and observe what you hear and see. Yet, what I see is the same old, same unending violence among men of ill will, in sharp contrast to what nature is trying to accomplish, killing not creating.
How do you know that spring is coming?
Traditionally, one looks for the appearance of birds, the greening of trees and plants and budding flowers that fill people with a lovely feeling beauty as well. But all I see on media reports are National Guards getting stronger to contest the power of others. I see these guards, stinging like giant bees to exact pain, exacting their own sanctions against innocent people.
Their guards’ armor is made up of brick bats, metal shields, helmets that make them look like large, horrific insects, bats, vermin, snakes wielding Molotov cocktails, swine in large numbers pounding individuals at a time to preserve their violent advantages and intimidate others to succumb to their barbarity.
And yet we have men in Washington, D.C., American politicians who think this is all fine and dandy. Let’s bring on more sanctions. Let’s protect the monsters of this winter of their discontent and punish the innocent for their innocence. Let not the weak inherit the earth but inherit humiliation, beatings, death, like the Libyans, Egyptians, and Syrians. Let the twisted cross be their emblem not the flower, the sun, the nascent branch. Let the tree of life by hacked apart, thrown into the eternal fires of a hellish revolution led by troglodytes, neo-Nazis, fascists, terrorists, the Muslim Brotherhood, flesh made putrid from killing. Yes spring is coming, but in name only as thermal vortexes still abound.
Let the rites of this spring be even more dissonant and pounding with bombs than Stravinsky’s kettle drums. Let life refuse to rise from the ground, the trees into the sun. Let the devils that hide in the shadows of this murderous dance for death rise. Let the cannons light the stages of countries’ battlefields. Let the wolves of Afghanistan howl, the drones of Pakistan pounce.
Let the liars of Congress and the Oval office, the McCains, Obamas, secretaries of war push for more rings around Russia and China. Let this spring and its minions be eaten by the dinosaurs of a new Ice Age, which is where mankind seems to belong. Let life end and the void endure until it spits out another Big Bang, destroying this lovely earth and leaving a giant cinder to recreate creation one more time and perhaps one more spring, one more vernal equinox will give us a sense of life not death again.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
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Darkness hovers over the arrival of spring
Posted on March 21, 2014 by Jerry Mazza
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, in 2014, spring began with the vernal equinox on March 20 at 12:57 P.M. EDT. This is the season that brings increasing daylight, warming temperatures, and the rebirth of flora and fauna.
Yet today the world from Kiev to the Ukraine seems to be descending into violence and darkness and only Crimea blooms into Russia like a garden of roses—thanks to Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Still, Syria is at war and more blood is flowing from Kiev to the Ukraine. The most awful battles I’ve ever seen may continue ravaging spring’s Garden of Eden. And it seems we will be evicted from it as from grace.
The vernal equinox
The word equinox is derived from the Latin words meaning “equal night.” Days and nights are approximately equal everywhere and the sun rises and sets due east and west. But it seems that we will have a perpetual equinox. Wednesday was the eighth anniversary of the Iraq War, from 2003 to 2011 and beyond, with a million dead, nearly as many wounded. The killing still goes on there. In what spring will it stop?
But the sun also rises
Yet, at the equinoxes, the tilt of Earth relative to the sun is zero which signifies that Earth’s axis veers neither toward nor away from the sun. Thus the vernal equiinox brings the increasing daylight, warming temperatures, and the rebirth of flora and fauna that beautify the world.
However, the tilt of Earth relative to its plane of orbit called the ecliptic plane, is always about 23.5 degrees. See your local sun rise and set times—and how the day length changes!
Find last spring frost dates.
But why doesn’t the vernal equinox (equal night) on March 20 have the same number of hours for day and night? The Almanac’s former astronomer, George Greenstein, had this to say: “There are two reasons. First, light rays from the sun are bent by the Earth’s atmosphere. (This is why the sun appears squashed when it sets.) They are bent in such a way that we are actually able to see the sun before it rises and after it sets.
“The second reason is that daytime begins the moment any part of the sun is over the horizon, and it is not over until the last part of the sun has set. If the sun would shrink to a star-like point and we lived in a world without air, the spring and fall equinoxes would truly have ‘equal nights.’” What a marvelous thing the sun and creation are. And what beasts most humans have turned out to be. But then, you can stand an egg on its head and it will stand on its own.
One spring, a few minutes before the vernal equinox, several Almanac editors tried this trick. For a full workday, 17 out of 24 eggs stood standing. Three days later, we tried this trick again and found similar results. Perhaps 3 days after the equinox was still too near. Try this yourself and see what happens!
Signs of spring
Spring is also the time when worms begin to emerge from the earth, ladybugs land on screen doors, green buds appear, birds chirp, and flowers begin to bloom. The vernal, or spring, equinox signals the beginning of nature’s renewal in the Northern Hemisphere.
You can track when the seasons change by recording animal behaviors and the way that the plants grow. Listen to the new sounds and observe what you hear and see. Yet, what I see is the same old, same unending violence among men of ill will, in sharp contrast to what nature is trying to accomplish, killing not creating.
How do you know that spring is coming?
Traditionally, one looks for the appearance of birds, the greening of trees and plants and budding flowers that fill people with a lovely feeling beauty as well. But all I see on media reports are National Guards getting stronger to contest the power of others. I see these guards, stinging like giant bees to exact pain, exacting their own sanctions against innocent people.
Their guards’ armor is made up of brick bats, metal shields, helmets that make them look like large, horrific insects, bats, vermin, snakes wielding Molotov cocktails, swine in large numbers pounding individuals at a time to preserve their violent advantages and intimidate others to succumb to their barbarity.
And yet we have men in Washington, D.C., American politicians who think this is all fine and dandy. Let’s bring on more sanctions. Let’s protect the monsters of this winter of their discontent and punish the innocent for their innocence. Let not the weak inherit the earth but inherit humiliation, beatings, death, like the Libyans, Egyptians, and Syrians. Let the twisted cross be their emblem not the flower, the sun, the nascent branch. Let the tree of life by hacked apart, thrown into the eternal fires of a hellish revolution led by troglodytes, neo-Nazis, fascists, terrorists, the Muslim Brotherhood, flesh made putrid from killing. Yes spring is coming, but in name only as thermal vortexes still abound.
Let the rites of this spring be even more dissonant and pounding with bombs than Stravinsky’s kettle drums. Let life refuse to rise from the ground, the trees into the sun. Let the devils that hide in the shadows of this murderous dance for death rise. Let the cannons light the stages of countries’ battlefields. Let the wolves of Afghanistan howl, the drones of Pakistan pounce.
Let the liars of Congress and the Oval office, the McCains, Obamas, secretaries of war push for more rings around Russia and China. Let this spring and its minions be eaten by the dinosaurs of a new Ice Age, which is where mankind seems to belong. Let life end and the void endure until it spits out another Big Bang, destroying this lovely earth and leaving a giant cinder to recreate creation one more time and perhaps one more spring, one more vernal equinox will give us a sense of life not death again.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.