2022 Vernal Equinox

TIMING THE 2022 VERNAL EQUINOX

The 2022 Vernal (Northward) Equinox, Start of Spring, Aries Ingress

The moment of the Spring Equinox in several time zones

For the ritually oriented and the curious, here are 2022 Spring Equinox times for Greenwich and the USA.

Sunday, March 20, 2022

3:33 pm UTC (GMT)

London 3:33 PM GMT

Dublin 3:33 PM GMT

(Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts in Europe, Sunday, March 27, 2022)

Washington DC 11:33 AM EDT UTC -4 hours

Minneapolis 10:33 AM CDT UTC -5 hours

Salt Lake City 9:33 AM MDT UTC -6 hours

Phoenix 8:33 AM MST UTC -7 hours (no DST)

Los Angeles 8:33 AM PDT UTC -7 hours

Hilo (Hawaii) 5:33 AM HST UTC -10 hours


The Vernal Equinox, also known as Ostara, or Eostre, or Eastre, is named for the Germanic Goddess of spring and dawn. When the Sun's path along the Ecliptic crosses the Celestial Equator (the plane of Earth’s equator extended into space) from the South to the North we have the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring, zero degrees of Aries. [GRAPHIC] The longer nights of the winter season are now in equal balance with daylight. From this point, the length of daylight increases. It is the beginning point of the Zodiac that astrologers use for measure. 

Ostara, Germanic goddess of Spring

All points in the eight-fold year (defined by the astronomical measure of solstices, equinoxes, and the midpoints between those) are marked by human celebrations, holidays, and holy days. Those coincidental celebrations are not accidental but knowingly or circumstantially correspond to the astronomical. There are holy days with the Jewish and Christian calendars (also with Chinese, Hindu, and other systems of reckoning) that combine New and Full Moons with solstices and equinoxes. For example, the Full Moon after the Spring (Vernal) Equinox is Passover. The Sunday following that Full Moon is Easter (the preceding Friday is Good). For the Persians, the Equinox is New Years, Noruz. 

Ostara by Johannes Gehrts

Some astrologers chart the Vernal Equinox (Aries Ingress) and derive information about at least three and at most twelve months following. Other astrologers favor the Winter Solstice (Capricorn Ingress) for the twelve months following that event. Many mundane astrologers will chart all four, Solstices and Equinoxes, and utilize those charts for a sense of the three months that follow each. The chart for the first day of Spring is said to be in effect, for the year until next Spring. It is considered especially strong until the Summer Solstice chart "comes in" in June. Tropical zodiac positions are always measured from the Vernal Equinox.

Happy Spring!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz3lqVv0vCE

“The Mummers' Dance” is a single by Canadian Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt from the 1997 album “The Book of Secrets.” The song refers to the seasonal Mummers Play performed by groups of actors, often as house-to-house visits.

[Verse 1]

When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair

When owls call the breathless moon
In the blue veil of the night
The shadows of the trees appear
Amidst the lantern light

[Chorus]

We've been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay

[Verse 2]

Who will go down to those shady groves
And summon the shadows there
And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms
In the springtime of the year

The songs of birds seem to fill the wood
That when the fiddler plays
All their voices can be heard
Long past their woodland days

[Chorus]

We've been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay

[Verse 3]

And so they linked their hands and danced
Round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
When all the shades are gone

A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
It is a sprout well budded out
The work of our Lord's hand

[Chorus]

We've been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay

We've been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay



A technical point:

In tropical astrology, degrees are measured from the always-receding Vernal Equinox; each year the Vernal Equinox occurs 50.23 seconds of a degree EARLIER than the year before. This amounts to approximately 5 minutes of a degree every 6 years. Thus any point (a fixed star, for instance) that is, say, at 5 degrees and 10 minutes of tropical Aries in a given year, 6 years later will be at 5 degrees and 15 minutes of tropical Aries, BECAUSE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THAT POINT AND THE VERNAL EQUINOX HAS INCREASED, and tropical positions are always measured from the Vernal Equinox. This is why precession corrections are added, not subtracted, as time goes on. -- Diana K Rosenberg writing in ISAR Email letter Volume 336, May 15, 2005