#Spring Archives – THE PAGE TURNS

I asked Google Gemini to draw me an original picture of the warring hemispheres, but the one it “created” seems to have a credit. Let’s thank Novesiom! for this one.

I was going to write a one-sentence, spring-themed message, wishing everyone a happy equinox and pointing out that Melbourne is probably experiencing roughly what we’re feeling in Northern California. Then, it turned out much of what I knew about the equinoxes was wrong.

The earth is not round.
It doesn’t move in a circle around the sun.
Day and Night are not equal to each other.
The North is not treated the same as the South.

Since I was This Old when I learned The Truth, I will share it with you, appropriately, on the northern vernal equinox, i.e. today, March 20th, 2025. There will be science, although I will not discuss the ecliptic because I have hard time visualizing it. I promise there will be no arithmetic. There will be geometry. And you might find yourself wobbling a little, which will be in keeping with the situation.

Vivaldi Spring and cherry blossoms — Spring is the ideal time for Vivaldi, photo & music from Youtube

I had a lovely post on tariffs all mapped out for this week’s essay, but then the sunrise came up pink and the Dailypost word turned out to be “Quartet” and I looked at the daffodils on the kitchen counter, and all I could think about was Spring! Spring! Spring! We’ve sprung into a new season–officially last week in northern California, the northern United States, the northern hemisphere of Terra Firma. Everyone knows there are four of everything that make up the universe: seasons, elements, states of matter, humors, food groups. Is four some sort of natural requirement?

Maybe only Two Seasons. Or, How about Six?

We are humans; we like to divide things. It seems pretty obvious that there would be at least two seasons, since the winter and summer solstice create natural divisions in a calendar. There is a point of time where the days get longer in most of the civilized part of the world, and another point where days get shorter. Western civilization evolved to recognize four separate seasons, with the other two categorizes recognizing the equinoxes, those times when the day and night are roughly equal before transitioning to slightly longer or slightly shorter. Continue reading “A Quartet Convenient but not Required”