Life
Spring is Not Sprung
02/09/07 18:11
One of the things that everyone seems to bemoan these days is how out of tune with nature we humans have become. We yearn romantically for the (imagined) days of our ancestors, when sun rises, lunar phases and all the rest timed our daily existence. Ah, what a blissful life - no stress, alarm clocks or TV schedules.
While there isn`t anything we can do about the march of progress and time, we certainly can stop making it worse for ourselves by setting ourselves up for all the out of synch problems, let alone the disappointment of the freeze and frost that will kill all those cute baby plants the nursery foisted on us this last weekend because we were all so drunk with joy at the arrival of spring.
So here`s the facts, folks: Spring DOES NOT begin on September 1st. Sorry, but just because the grass is riz and the jasmine is blooming - and even the sun is shining (for a second here in Cape Town) - that doesn`t make it Spring. No, September 1st is just the day that the public swimming baths open, which I`m sure is where the ridiculous made up date of Spring comes from. Hey, no surprise that repressive old government we had tried to control Time along with everything else. They did, after all, spend a lot of energy trying to tell us what was natural (by legislating their definition of UNnatural, of course!)
Of course, Spring begins at the Spring Equinox, when else?! For those who don`t know, that`s around September 23rd. That`s the day the day starts getting longer than the night because - and this is the real point - the sun returns to the Southern Hemisphere. It`s also an important date for astrologers, more of which at some other time …
So if you`re really concerned about getting back in touch with nature, save Spring Day for Spring, celebrate on the Equinox Day and don`t let some grey NP bureaucrat dictate your natural cycles from the grave and kill your premature seedlings!
While there isn`t anything we can do about the march of progress and time, we certainly can stop making it worse for ourselves by setting ourselves up for all the out of synch problems, let alone the disappointment of the freeze and frost that will kill all those cute baby plants the nursery foisted on us this last weekend because we were all so drunk with joy at the arrival of spring.
So here`s the facts, folks: Spring DOES NOT begin on September 1st. Sorry, but just because the grass is riz and the jasmine is blooming - and even the sun is shining (for a second here in Cape Town) - that doesn`t make it Spring. No, September 1st is just the day that the public swimming baths open, which I`m sure is where the ridiculous made up date of Spring comes from. Hey, no surprise that repressive old government we had tried to control Time along with everything else. They did, after all, spend a lot of energy trying to tell us what was natural (by legislating their definition of UNnatural, of course!)
Of course, Spring begins at the Spring Equinox, when else?! For those who don`t know, that`s around September 23rd. That`s the day the day starts getting longer than the night because - and this is the real point - the sun returns to the Southern Hemisphere. It`s also an important date for astrologers, more of which at some other time …
So if you`re really concerned about getting back in touch with nature, save Spring Day for Spring, celebrate on the Equinox Day and don`t let some grey NP bureaucrat dictate your natural cycles from the grave and kill your premature seedlings!