Summer Solstice Marked With Fire, Druids, Magic, More

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                                              Spring Equinox Marked With Fire, Druids, More     






Teotihuacán,
Mexico,
March 21, 2004
National Geographic

--On the vernal equinox, visitors bask in spring's first sunlight atop the Pyramid of the Sun in the ancient pre-Aztec city of Teotihuacán—one of many annual equinox celebrations worldwide.

In 2009 the vernal, or spring, equinox falls on Friday, March 20. The spring equinox is the first day of the solar new year and one of two days each year when day and night are equally long—at least in theory (vernal equinox facts).

The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world—smaller than only the Pyramids of Giza, Egypt, and Cholula, Mexico. It has served as a gathering place for meteorological events since its creation about 2,000 years ago.

--Chris Combs

—Photograph by
  Jaime Puebla/AP 

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Sun Pictures
London

--A member of the Ancient Order of Druids society marks the vernal equinox with a horn blast near the Tower of London.

The Tower Hill ceremony is perhaps eclipsed in the public mind by the Druidic summer solstice ritual at Stonehenge. But spring also has an important role in Druidic tradition: Alban Eilir, the equinox celebration shown above, is one of several Druidic spring festivals.

In addition to horn-blowing, the Alban Eilir ceremony also features whiskey, olive oil, a hazelnut, and fire.

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Istanbul,
Turkey



--Honoring a rebel leader, thousands of Turkish Kurds protest--and mark the Nowruz spring festival, in part by jumping over fires.

Nowruz (Farsi for "new year"), a festival of Persian origin, celebrates the arrival of spring with outdoor gatherings and feasts.

In Turkey, Nowruz was banned until 2005, and the celebration has become imbued with Kurdish nationalism.

In Iran, Nowruz celebrations typically include visits to relatives and friends as well as the act of knotting a handkerchief and asking a stranger to untie it—symbolically seeking help for your misfortune.

In Afghanistan, seasonal foods such as haft mewa (dried seven-fruit salad in syrup) are served, and farmers parade through cities to encourage agricultural production.

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Warsaw,
Poland


--Traditionally costumed figures parade on stilts as part of the Polish celebration of the vernal equinox.

Another Polish equinox custom is to carry an effigy of Marzanna—a goddess associated with winter—from house to house, then strip it, set it aflame, and drown it.

Though originally performed on the fourth Sunday of the Christian period of Lent, the Marzanna drowning is now carried out by children on the first day of spring—the vernal equinox.

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Near 'Aqrah,
Iraq


--Torch-bearing Kurds gather in the countryside to celebrate Nowruz in Iraq, where the Persian vernal equinox celebration is marked by fire, dancing, music—and journeys into the wilderness.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, the traditional Kurdish celebration had been banned. In 2003 Iraq's new Shiite leaders declared the day a public holiday.

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Kabul,
Afghanistan


--Driving a tractor over an Afghan wrestler is one way to celebrate the spring equinox festival of Nowruz—as shown at a ceremony in a Kabul stadium

Until 2001 the public celebration of Nowruz was banned by the ruling Taliban.

Present-day celebrations of Nowruz in Afghanistan feature tournaments of buzkashi, a game in which horseback riders play a polo-like game with a headless goat carcass.

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People raise their hands, some holding torches, to catch the first sunlight
at the Teotihuacán Archaeological Site in Mexico City on the vernal equinox
(or spring equinox) in 2004.

The vernal equinox in 2009 falls on Friday, March 20.

Photograph by
Jaime Puebla/AP









                                           Vernal Equinox 2009: Facts on the First Day of Spring






John Roach
for National Geographic News
March 20, 2009

—The vernal equinox, or spring equinox.

But don't be fooled by the old rumor that on the vernal equinox the length of day is exactly equal to the length of night.

The true days of day-night equality always fall before the vernal equinox and after the autumnal, or fall, equinox, according to Geoff Chester, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

"Exactly when it happens depends on where you are located on the surface of the Earth," he said.

By the time the center of the sun passes over the Equator—the official definition of equinox—the day will be slightly longer than the night everywhere on Earth. The difference is a matter of geometry, atmosphere, and language.




(Video: Equinox Balances Day and Night.)

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Geometry, Atmosphere, Language of the Vernal Equinox



If the sun were just a tiny point of light and Earth had no atmosphere, then day and night would each be exactly 12 hours long on a spring equinox day.

But to begin with, as seen from Earth, the sun is nearly as large as a little fingertip held at arm's length, or half a degree wide.

Sunrise is defined as the moment the top edge of the sun appears to peek over the horizon. Sunset is when the very last bit of the sun appears to dip below the horizon.

The vernal equinox, however, occurs when the center of the sun crosses the Equator.

Plus, Earth's atmosphere bends the sunlight when it's close to the horizon, so the golden orb appears a little higher in the sky than it really is.

As a result, the sun appears to be above the horizon a few minutes earlier than it really is.

Therefore, on the vernal equinox day, the daylight hours are actually longer than the length of time between when the sun crosses the horizon at dawn and when the sun crosses the horizon at sunset.

"Those factors all combine to make the day of the equinox not the day when we have 12 hours of light and darkness," Chester said.

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Vernal Equinox Special Nonetheless



The length of day and night may not be equal on the vernal equinox, but that doesn't make the first day of spring any less special.

The fall and spring equinoxes, for starters, are the only two times during the year when the sun rises due east and sets due west, according to Alan MacRobert, a senior editor with Sky & Telescope magazine.

The equinoxes are also the only days of the year when a person standing on the Equator can see the sun passing directly overhead.

On the Northern Hemisphere's vernal equinox day, a person at the North Pole would see the sun skimming across the horizon, beginning six months of uninterrupted daylight.

A person at the South Pole would also see the sun skim the horizon, but it would signal the start of six months of darkness.

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Pope Shuffles Vernal Equinox



Another equinox oddity: A rule of the calendar keeps spring almost always arriving on March 20 or 21—but sometimes on the 19th—MacRobert said.

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII established the Gregorian calendar, which most of the world now observes, to account for an equinox inconvenience.

If the he hadn't established the new calendar, every 128 years the equinox would have come a full calendar day earlier—eventually putting Easter in chilly midwinter.

"It begins with the fact that there is not an exact number of days in a year," MacRobert said.

Before the pope's intervention, the Romans and much of the European world marked time on the Julian calendar.

Instituted by Julius Caesar, the old calendar counted exactly 365.25 days per year, averaged over a four-year cycle. Every four years a leap day helped keep things on track.

It turns out, however, that there are 365.24219 days in an astronomical "tropical" year—defined as the time it takes the sun, as seen from Earth, to make one complete circuit of the sky.

Using the Julian calendar, the spring and fall equinoxes and the seasons were arriving 11 minutes earlier each year. By 1500 the vernal equinox had fallen back to March 11.

To fix the problem, the pope decreed that most century years (such as 1700, 1800, and 1900) would not be leap years. But century years divisible by 400, like 2000, would be leap years.

Under the Gregorian calendar, the year is 365.2425 days long. "That gets close enough to the true fraction that the seasons don't drift," MacRobert said.

With an average duration of 365.2425 days, Gregorian years are now only 27 seconds longer than the length of the tropical year—an error which will allow the gain of one day over a period of about 3,200 years.

Nowadays, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory's Chester, equinoxes migrate through a period that occurs about six hours later from calendar year to calendar year, due to the leap year cycle.

The system resets every leap year, slipping a little bit backward until a non-leap century year leap nudges the equinoxes forward in time once again.

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                                  A festival of the unusual kind at Chichén Itzá, Mexico






BY ANTON ANDERSSEN,
ETN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
| MAR 20, 2009


Upon the arrival of the Equinox (March 20, 21 and September 21, 22) thousands flock to the Yucatán peninsula of México to witness an amazing phenomenon – the sun's rays project a diamond-back rattlesnake of light and shadow onto the ancient and mysterious Temple of Quetzalcoatl pyramid at Chichén Itzá.

The earliest archaeological remains found at Chichén Itzá date from the 1st century , the time when the three Magi followed the star to Bethlehem. Ancient people had keen understanding of astronomy. The architecture of Temple of Quetzalcoatl encodes precise information regarding the Mayan calendar, engineered to encompass an amazing 25,920-year cycle. The Maya were mathematical geniuses; they counted in base 20, calculating equations that would take up an entire page if written in modern numbers.

The Maya correctly calculated the end of the 25,920-year cycle to fall on the winter solstice, December 21, 2012. On this date, spectators standing before the temple pyramid will witness a beautiful architectonic-celestial show of cosmic and mathematical precision. Venus will appear to arise from the pyramid’s apex on that day, while an astonishing cosmological alignment of the earth, sun and the plane of the galaxy takes place. A simplified explanation of the alignment can be seen at youtube.com/watch?v=cGPcjMe6Qlw

Chichén Itzá is the ideal site not only for those who enjoy astro-archaeology, but also for those who embrace history and the charm of ancient civilizations. Chichén Itzá is one of the most impressive testimonials to the Maya, whose rituals of magic coexisted with its prodigious star-gazing culture, making it a captivating, magnificent and treasured destination.

Situated 172 miles south from Chichén Itzá lies México’s only eco-archaeological park - Xcaret, known 500 hundred years ago as the Mayan Port of Polé. It was here that the Itzá clan began its conquest of the Yucatán peninsula around the year 918 AD, arriving on the shores with sumptuous feathers, incense, jade and golden ornaments.

The Maya journeyed here from all over the Yucatán peninsula to purify their bodies and souls in the spring-waters of the cenotes, after which they sailed by canoe to Cozumel to worship the Moon goddess, Ix Chel. Today, visitors can experience the mystical aura by frolicking in the ancient sacred Mayan waters at Xcaret.

The best way to immerse oneself into the ancient splendors of Polé is to take Xcaret’s archaeological site tour, where an expert guide fully explains the culture and history of the Maya. Our visit to the Yucatan fell on a particularly fortuitous week when the regional populace celebrated “The Day of The Dead” at Xcaret. Thousands of participants constructed elaborate altars and tributes to their deceased ancestors and relatives. The living believe that at this time, the deceased come back from the dead and commune with their families. Family members prepare for the departed spirit’s return by gathering items onto the altar of which the deceased were particularly fond, like tequila, cigarettes, corn tortillas, games and tzempazuchitl flowers. Some Mexicans planned to meet their dearly departed by holding picnics directly atop the grave sites at local cemeteries, as we were told by Anet, a hostess at the entry gate. While there are no actual burial sites at Xcaret, hundreds of tombstone shrines from all over the lands are reproduced in painful detail, and erected upon a towering “Bridge to Paradise” that dominates Xcaret’s complex. Shaped as a spiraling marine shell, this permanent exhibit commemorates the ancient ancestors who used the shell as a horn to communicate with the gods through the wind, represented by their breath. At the foot of the shell, local groups prepared traditional tamales in earthen pits, from which emanated clouds of smoke, lending the site an ethereal ambiance.

Xikin-ch’o, the sculptor at Xcaret, contributes to the exaltation of Mayan art and culture via the massive stone carvings found throughout the site. Thousands of indigenous species of plants thrive in the botanical gardens displayed along leisurely, meandering paths, leading to and between an aviary, aquarium, stables, Spanish Missionary chapel, sun-drenched beaches, Mayan ruins and a butterfly atrium.

Our beautiful guide, the very much alive Viangy Rocha Jiménez, escorted us the entire day through the vast expansion of Xcaret. Viangy’s wealth of knowledge about the indigenous people added true substance to our archaeological tour. She was our godsend explaining the exotic Mayan buffet, which is housed in a traditional Mayan structure made from wood and palm leaf roofs. The scrumptious buffet presented the opportunity to enjoy out of the ordinary regional cuisines accented by indigenous herbs and spices.

The climax of the Xcaret experience begins at dusk, when 300 performers gather on the majestic Gran Tlachco stage to salute indigenous and provincial cultures at the “Espectacular”, a thrilling spectacle for the five senses, celebrating the best traditions, history and mysticism of México. As guests approach the amphitheatre, fire lights up the Valley of Scents where Mexico’s Mayan warriors and priests guard the way. A journey backward in time retells the ancient and colonial history of México through elaborate costumes, song, dance, and reenactments of ancient fire-based sport.



Photos of Xcaret can be viewed at
http://hartforth.shutterfly.com/5033

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2009 MAYAN EQUINOX CEREMONY IN CHICHEN ITZA, YUCATAN, MEXICO






 Equinox Purification Ritual at Hacienda Chichen
 

March 21st, 2009 in a unique Mayan mystical and holistic experience celebrated at Yaxkin Spa's Zumpul-che, a Mayan Sacred Cave and holistic sweat-bath gear to prepare to harmonize inner-energy with the Cosmic influences of the Spring Equinox. A Mayan celebration of union with Mother Earth and the Cosmos offered by the Mayan Elder Priests and Wisemen (Mayan Shamans) at the Sacred Ceremonial Site they keep within the Mayan Jungle Reserve at Hacienda Chichen Resort. 

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Happy Summer Solstice everyone!  Though, let's get real, it was a pretty mild winter compared with last year.