We hold these truths to be self-evident,
— from the Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
Sun enters Aries at about 1:15 am EDT on Tuesday. That is the Vernal Equinox. It is a big deal precisely because it happens every year, not in spite of the fact. There are other self-evident facts that not only coincide with but are also defined by an equinox event. All of those truths direct us to the concept of equality renewed, restored and re-affirmed. That’s the nature of life on Earth, for you and equally so for everybody else. It’s not staid repetition, it’s dynamic evolution, advancing the truth one step at a time to a greater level of awareness. It is also understandable one step at a time.
The truth started about 4.5 billion years ago when something knocked a chunk off our planet, tilting the axis of Earth’s rotation. The chunk became the Moon which functioned to stabilize that inclined rotation. Light and gravity combined with that inclination to create an engine circulating the winds and waters equally over the planet, making life possible.
After life gained a foothold, the circulation propelled by Sun, Moon and Earth connected all living things. Somewhere in your body is a molecule of water once hosted by a dinosaur. Sometime today you will inhale molecules of gas that have been shared by billions in your lifetime. While the existence and motion of molecules is not self evident, the Sun’s apparent motion is plain to see. An equinox is central to the solar cycles that are equally available to everyone.
The Sun’s apparent motion across the sky during the course of a day is the result of our planet’s rotation. The length of a day is a combined product of the tilted axis and the position in our orbit around the star at the center of our solar system. The more your part of Earth is tilted towards the light, the longer your day is. Being tilted away means fewer daylight hours. Twice a year, Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted neither away from nor towards the Sun and all of our planet’s surface is equally exposed for an equal amount of time. Not surprisingly, the Sun is directly over the equator at that time and that is self evident by where it rises and sets.