When is the Spring Equinox? Why does it mark the start of spring?

THE equinox is celebrated around the world and marks the start of spring. But what is it?

Pagans, revellers and druids greet the sun at Stonehenge

When is the equinox? 

The spring equinox, also known as the vernal equinox, is set to take place on Sunday March 20 2016. 

The date marks the official start of spring, according to an astronomical calendar based on the Earth's orbit of the sun. 

Another equinox in September marks the start of autumn as the nights become longer than the days.

What is the equinox? 

The equinox is an astronomical event in which the sun crosses the celestial equator - the projection of the Earth's equator into space.

On the date of the equinox, both day and night are around the same length around the globe. Afterwards, the day is longer than the night. 

The word equinox is derived from the Latin equi, which means equal, and nox, which means night. 

How is the equinox celebrated? 

Druids and pagans mark the equinox by gathering to greet the sun at the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge in Wiltshire. 

The equinox is a significant solar festival in the pagan calendar and is associated with fertility and renewal. 

It also helps mark Easter, Passover and the Persian new year known as Nowruz.

What is the equilux?

On the date of the equinox itself, the length of day and night are only nearly equal.

The equilux is the date when day and night are exactly equal and took place on Thursday March 17 2016.

It always occurs a few days before the spring equinox and a few days after the autumn equinox.

When do the clocks go forward? 

Britain's clocks will go forward at 1am on the last Sunday of this month, March 27. 

The changing of the clocks means an hour less in bed. It marks the start of more the daylight in the evenings, but less in the mornings. 

By ALICE FOSTER
Full story in the Daily Express

If you wish to visit Stonehenge at Sunrise on the Spring Equinox and do not have tranport.  Solstice Events U.K are offerimg their usual transport / tour service from London and Bath.

Follow us on Periscope for live coverage on the Stonehenge Equinox #Stonehenge

The Stonehege Tourist Guide

Visit Stonehenge, the UK's Ancient Fertility Temple.

Do you want to add another person to your family? If you're trying for a baby or you've been experiencing fertility problems, why not have a holiday near Stonehenge and take in the magic and mysticism of the area?

The History of Stonehenge
Stonehenge, one of the most iconic monuments in Britain, dates back more than 4,500 years to around 2,500 BC. It was built in stages, the latest of which was constructed in about 1,500 BC so its construction spanned both the neolithic and bronze age periods.

For centuries the ancient stones have ignited debate and controversy as to what they were actually used for. There was the suggestion that Stonehenge was a Druid Temple but this is inaccurate as it began to be built 2,000 years prior to the Druids, although modern-day Druids flock there to perform ceremonies. Recent discoveries of hundreds of pieces of bone of various ages dating back more than a thousand years suggest that the monument could have been a temple celebrating the dead, surrounded by a burial ground.
As death and birth are inexplicably linked - both are transition stages for the soul. Near-death experiencers often describe being in a dark tunnel and travelling towards a bright light, a situation that has certain parallels with birth, where the baby moves through the birth canal, to be delivered into a world of brightness and colour far removed from the murky, all enveloping darkness of the womb.


A Celebration of Marriage of the Gods
Professor Meaden, an archaeologist from Oxford University, suggested that Stonehenge may have been used to celebrate the marriage of the pagan Sky God and the Great Goddess. He postulated in his book, 'The Stonehenge Solution' (1992) that the horseshoe arrangement of the inner stones symbolised the womb of the Great Goddess, the Heal Stone represented her body and in order for the Sky God to have physical union with her, the sun's rays had to pass the Heal Stone. Meaden argued that immediately after an unobstructed sunrise, the Heal Stone eclipsed the sun, creating a long shadow that represented the phallus of the Sky God. This long, phallus-shaped shadow eventually extends to the Altar Stone, a stone he believes should have been named the Egg Stone as a representation of the female ova. As the morning arrives, the mica containing stone sparkles in the sunlight, symbolising ejaculation as the phallic shadow disappears. Essentially, this once annually natural spectacle symbolised celestial intercourse. Visitors still gather around the stone circle during the summer solstice to witness this sexually charged fertility ritual.


The Stone Circles: An Analogy with Female Genitalia?
Anthony Perks, a Canadian Researcher, suggested that the stones were laid out in the shape of the human vulva. When a baby's head crowns during childbirth, the vulva is moulded into a circular shape due to pressure from the head - the same shape as the outer ring of stonehenge. All of the stone arrangements could be sexual symbolism. The outer circle could also represent the labia majora, the inner circle of trilithons, the labia minora and the altar stone could be symbolic of the clitoris. The empty centre of the stone circle may represent the birth canal - the opening to the world. At the recently discovered Woodhenge - a wooden version of Stonehenge - the body of a child was discovered buried in the central circle with its skull split in two, a sacrificial offering that would suggest the analogy of the central circle with the birth canal is correct and the child may have been a gift to 'Mother Earth'.


Every Year, Thousands Flock to Stonehenge

Stonehenge's connection with life cycles and fertility is one of the reasons why it attracts couples wanting to start a family. Of course, there's no evidence that visiting the stone circles would help you conceive but soaking up the energy and ancient wisdom of your ancestors may help relieve stress and help you to keep a positive outlook, factors in themselves that can increase pregnancy rates.
The site also attracts pagans and those with 'New Age' philosophical beliefs, but just about everyone - even famous guests like President Obama - love the atmosphere and mystery surrounding Stonehenge.  Why don't you give it a try?

Stonehenge Tourist Guide

Stonehenge solar calendar: The science behind leap years and how they work.

Most of the time, a year is made up of 365 days. But this year, just like 2012, and the year four years before that, has 366. And that vital extra day, a leap day, is (partly) what keeps our calendars in working order. (RawStory)

Summer at Stonehenge. Andrew Dunn, CC BY-SA

As users of a solar calendar, we rely on the sun to tell us how long a year is and when each of the four seasons begins. It was devised to match our farming habits and as a reliable – and visible – guide to the passing of time. The sun’s position on the horizon as it rises and sets moves over the course of a year, further south in the winter, and further north in the summer. This significant change is used to mark midwinter or midsummer at famous locations such as Stonehenge and New Grange.

But as a very specific measure, one year, better described as a tropical year, is defined as the time between one spring equinox and the next being 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds. This period is often rounded up to 365 and a quarter days – although even the Greek astronomer Hipparchus realised over 2,000 years ago that this was a generous approximation – and so to keep our years aligned and reassuringly predictable, a leap day is added to the calendar every four years to allow for the accumulation of those otherwise overlooked four extra quarters.

Moving seasons

If we kept every year at a fixed 365 days, the months would gradually shift with the sun until in 750 years’ time, June, in the northern hemisphere, would fall in the middle of winter. Planning for the future would gradually become more and more complicated, and religious traditions with a seasonal element, such as Christmas and Easter, would become hopelessly out of kilter. So there has been a considerable motivation for cultures to keep their calendars precise and predictable – and establishing a workable system was a considerable demonstration of power by the rulers of historic empires.

The current length of each month and therefore the length of a year dates back to the Roman dictator Julius Caesar. This “Julian” calendar included leap days but they instead occured every three years. When Augustus – Julius Caesar’s heir –became emperor he corrected this mistake and celebrated his power and understanding of celestial movements through monuments such as the giant sundial of Augustus. This huge meridian sundial once stood on the Campus Martius in Rome, its calendrical functionality a constant reminder of Augustus’ greatness.

But the Julian calendar was not perfect either, since the year was in fact just a little bit shorter than 365.25 days. Pope Gregory corrected this mistake in his Gregorian calendar of 1582. As well as adding a leap day every four years, he also opted to lose three days every 400 years. This was a Catholic decision, which Protestant and Orthodox calendars resisted for some time. Greece was the last country to accept the Gregorian reform in 1923.

More time needed

The modern result of all this squabbling is our current system of adding an extra day every four years. To adjust for the uneven precision of the fraction, every 100 years we also skip this rule and drop the extra day. Then, every 400 years we skip the skipping rule and have an extra day again. Yes, it’s complicated.

The year 2000, for example, was a leap year, since it was divisible by four. But since it was also divisible by 400, the dropping of the extra day every 100 years was not carried out. This long-term solution creates an average year length of 365.2425 days, still slightly off the required target of 365.2421897 days, making even this complicated modern arrangement incorrect by one day over a period of just under 4,000 years.

This error is part of the reason why we sometimes include leap seconds at the end of June or December. However, this is not done in a regular fashion and is determined by the deviation of the calendar by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. Since this adjustment is so small it is influenced by the general slowing down of the Earth’s rotation and the complex system of all the solar system bodies upon Earth.

So not only are leap years the result of millennia of mathematical work, they are also the consequence of rulers imposing their will on people’s day to day lives, and the gradual understanding of our place in the universe. Controlling calendars means controlling the rhythms of a culture – which is something for all of us to think about on February 29.

Daniel Brown, Lecturer in Astronomy, Nottingham Trent University (RawStory)

The Stonehenge Tour Guide