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Seasons
March 21st, 2018
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I have a pet peeve about the seasons and their start date. I've
written about this on my web blog [0] before, but the topic
deserves more attention on gopher. Today is March 21st, 2018, and
yesterday was the halfway point of Spring, not the first day.
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The equinoxes and solstices are mid-point measurements of the
solar seasons. The vernal equinox and autumnal equinox are the
dates when the day and night are of equal length. This is an
appropriate date to count as halfway between Summer and Winter. It
is an appropriate date to be the mid-point of Spring or Autumn.
It's logical. It's measurable.
The Winter Solstice, the date of the longest night, is an
appropriate marker for the middle of Winter. Again it makes sense.
The Summer Soltice, the longest day, you know... the thing
literally called "Mid-Summer" in A Mid-Summer's Night Dream. Do
I need to finish?
So what the hell, why is everyone else on Earth a big dummy
determined to piss off tomasino? I think they're lazy. The big
four seasonal days are easy to remember. Who remembers Imbolc or
Beltane or Lammas or Samhain except Wiccans and celtic cosplayers?
It's easier to just summarize everything down to the four days we
know and pretend they're the start of the season. We'll give the
decision some extra bull-shit creedence by saying it aligns better
with a meteorological season (aka, Spring is fucking cold).
I don't buy it, though. We have days for this stuff already and
they are set for a reason. Stop being lazy.
Need another example while I'm ranting? How about good old
Groundhog's day? Imbolc by another name! February 2nd, Candlemas,
the first day of Spring. It's still celebrated by an esoteric
tradition with no real purpose other than to piss off a sleepy
rodent. We literally pull that dude out of his hole and hold him
up to forecast whether we're going to have "6 more weeks of
Winter". Here again we're talking about weather, not seasons. The
season is over. You just celebrated the first day of Spring
without realizing it.
Are you following me here? This is not some little nit-picky thing
that one or two news stations screwed up but a world-wide shift.
It gets me really peeved!
END RANT
Do you have something like the Seasons which eats you up inside
that you need to rant about on gopher? I wanna know about it so
I can join you in righteous anger.
Bring it on, and happy mid-spring. |