It’s autumn

Today, Sunday, Sept 22, at 8:34 a.m., summer, keeping to a strictly-kept celestial clock, packs its balmy bag and departs to make room for autumn.

The equinox — from the Latin aequus, or equal, and nox, night — will bring shorter periods of sunlight, lower temperatures and the natural world of plants slowing down to prepare for winter.

An equinox is when, “The sun,” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, “crosses what we call the ‘celestial equator,’ an imaginary extension of Earth’s equator line into space. The equinox occurs precisely when the Sun’s center passes through this line.”

This event bringing shorter days and longer nights continues until the winter solstice, when the Earth experiences a slow procession of longer days.

That Old Farmer speaks about how ancient civilizations noted and celebrated the beginning of autumn: “At Machu Picchu in Peru, an ancient stone monument called Intihuatana — which means ‘Hitching Post of the Sun’— serves as a solar clock to mark the dates of the equinoxes and solstices. In Mexico, the Mayans built a giant pyramid called Chichen Itza. On the equinoxes, it looks as if a snake made of light slithers down the pyramid’s steps.”

Every year at the equinox, those proclaiming themselves to be Druids, pagans and, supposedly, many who were up all night for a variety of reasons, gather at Stonehenge in England to celebrate the season turning the page.

We’ll close with some thoughts by John Keats:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core …

Happy autumn to all!