The Spring or Vernal Equinox signifies the time of equal days, equal nights – the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice. It is the point in time when the Sun crosses the equator creating equal days and nights everywhere and marking the return to the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s a welcome time of year here for plants, animals and humans alike, as we instinctively feel that warmth and light creeping back into our roots and bones.
Etymologically the word Equinox comes from latin aequinoctium: aequus “equal “ + nox “night”. The Old English word was efnniht.
The Equinox also follows on from Imbolc on the first of February, and somehow that last part of winter drags on longer than the first half, we may feel like we have had enough of the dark and cold by now, and so we welcome the early signs of Spring like crocuses and Daffodils with their bright sunny faces reminding us of the sun’s return. Imbolc is the festival that celebrates and blesses the Springs and so it’s fitting that we now celebrate the start of Spring. Spring itself is short for spring of the year, the time when plants begin to rise, it also refers to the sunrise, waxing moon and rising tides; the act of springing, appearing, beginnings, birth, origin.
