Long Day's Journey Into Night

Tonight will be longer than today.

For some people the equinoxes are a time for religious rites, but as fond as I am of neopagans, I'm not spiritual enough to join them. I wish you all a happy Sabbat of Mabon, but I'll pass on the invitation to the bonfire.

Astronomers say that the equinoxes signal the beginning of autumn and spring, but that really doesn't make sense, because different parts of the world have identifiable seasons of different lengths. The equinoxes and solstices are arbitrary points on a continuum; you could just as easily say that autumn starts on September 15, winter starts December 15, and so forth. In the U.S. in general, autumn begins the Tuesday after Labor Day, and I'm more inclined to cite the first day of classes for the Fall semester as the first day of the season.

But I still feel obliged to mark the equinoxes.

Mostly it's because I like to sit out on the front porch in the evenings, and the earlier and earlier setting of the sun encroaches on that. Fortunately I live in the far west of my time zone, so sunset is still a belated 7:30pm. I can eat supper or read a book or draw for a while after work before the light fails. For now. But in the coming weeks I'm going to lose that, and around equinox is when I start to really notice just how quickly the light is fading.

I've also been noticing that sun has fallen behind my wake-up time. I'm lucky that my relatively late starting time at work and my short commute allow me to sleep until 7:00am, but I've been finding that harder to wake up for already. The sky is starting to lighten by the time the clock radio starts playing NPR's Morning Edition, but the sun isn't up yet. So I'm up for the sunrise, and I'm up for the sunset. From now until about six months from now, "daytime" will be just a subset of "my day".

I'm also a borderline SAD sufferer. Seasonal Affect Disorder is what sends people into depression in the dark months (even without help from the winter holidays), and I've noticed that sunlight (or the lack thereof) definitely affects my mood. The autumnal equinox is kind of an early warning that tougher times are ahead. It's largely symbolic and arbitrary. But since we're talking psychology, the impact of it is signficant.

But at least the weather is still fairly warm and usually sunny, and my less-than-full-time job allows me to get out of the building and experience some of the afternoon daylight that remains. I've replaced a bunch of the old light bulbs in my house with somewhat brighters, more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, so I'll be able to keep my living space light for less money. So maybe the main thing to depress me this winter will be the holidays themselves.