Spring Equinox

Today is the Spring or Vernal Equinox, when there's a perfect balance between day and night -- it's also considered the first official day of Spring. The days of light will be plentiful in the Northern Hemisphere until the Autumn Equinox on September 23rd when the balance occurs again, and the days begin to darken once more. This happens because the Earth is spinning like a top tilted at 23.5 degrees as it encircles the Sun, which causes seasonal changes in sunlight levels. When our friends in Australia are enjoying more sunbeams, we in America spend more time in shadow -- and vice versa.

The Spring Equinox is celebrated in many traditions as a time for fertility, regeneration and rebirth. For Christians there is Easter's message of resurrection, which is intermingled with egg hunts and the Easter bunny, fertility symbols from the holiday's pagan roots. In Greek mythology, Persephone is returned from the underworld, and her mother Demeter celebrates by allowing Spring to unfold again. The seasonal restoration of the Sun and its power to grow life has been honored since ancient times. At the Megalithic site Loughcrew Cairn T in Ireland, a beam of light makes its way through the stone passages at the Spring Equinox sunrise to illuminate a stone inscribed with solar images.

On a symbolic level, this is a time to grow the ideas that were conceived in the cozy dark of winter. It's also the season for sowing seeds for what you'd like to reap during the fall harvest. There's a little solar power now to fuel your dreams, as the Sun enters the first degree of Aries -- so go ahead and take that crucial first step and see what happens.