The Fall Equinox

Yesterday we had our second equinox of 2018.  Because of that equinox, today is the first day of fall (autumn) for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere.  For those who live south of the equator our fall equinox is their spring equinox.  The word “equinox” comes from the Latin word, “equinoxium, which means “equality between day and night.”  That means that yesterday we supposedly experienced 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night.  It all has to do with the rotation of the earth and the movement of the sun.  I’ll leave the full details of this magnificent, like-clockwork movement  of our planet and the far distant wonder known as the Sun, for Neil deGrasse Tyson and other scientists to describe and explain. 

Our ancestors knew something about all of this stuff long before science came along.  They knew enough to build massive monuments and temples that marked the seasons of the year.  These monuments and temples were their calendars.  

Stonehenge in England is one such monument.  Giant slabs of stone are the only remaining remnants of this mysterious temple, but we know that these great stones are aligned to mark the yearly passage of the sun, which allowed predictions of eclipses, solstices, equinoxes and other celestial events.  The main pyramid at Chichen Izta in Mexico is an Aztec temple with four staircases carefully angled so that when equinoxes come, a “snake of sunlight” appears to slither down the stairs.  There are temples on the Mediterranean island of Malta and in New Delhi, India, the stones of which are perfectly aligned so that the rising sun of an equinox is framed between them.  When visiting Stonehenge I could not decide what was more wondrous and amazing—the massive stones set in order to catch the equinoxes,  or the human minds that figured out where each massive stone should be placed in order to do that!

This morning I am struck by the fact that while we may know (or we think we know more) about equinoxes and other stuff than those who built these temples of the sun so long ago, we know little about the people themselves.  Some have even suggested that the expertise to build such monuments came from outer space!  Why is it, that knowing so much (or thinking we know) we do not know much about the Druids, or where the massive rocks came from to build Stonehenge and the pyramids of Chicken Izta?  It is a humbling experience to realize that I “do not know” and others “do not know.”  It is a religious experience, too, for it inspires a sense of wonder.