{"id":241,"date":"2017-03-01T23:48:59","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T23:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/?p=241"},"modified":"2023-01-10T17:37:50","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T01:37:50","slug":"spring-crafts-and-the-equinox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/spring-crafts-and-the-equinox\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring (Vernal) Equinox"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Spring (or Vernal) Equinox occurs in March. The word&nbsp;equinox&nbsp;comes from the Latin&nbsp;aequus&nbsp;(equal) and&nbsp;nox&nbsp;(night). Twice a year, the sun crosses the celestial equator going from south to north and the earth&#8217;s two hemispheres are receiving the sun&#8217;s rays equally. Night and day are approximately equal in length, but are exactly equal in length at the equator&#8211;where the sun is directly overhead at noon on each equinox. &nbsp;The next day, the days get longer (Vernal Equinox) or shorter (Autumnal Equinox).&nbsp;This happens on March 19, 20 or 21 and September 22 or 23, respectively.&nbsp; Traditionally, the equinox marks the beginning of Spring or Fall.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>The equinox has been recognized for thousands of years.&nbsp; The early Egyptians built the Great&nbsp;<a>Sphinx<\/a>&nbsp;so that it points directly toward the rising Sun on the day of the vernal equinox.&nbsp; In Japan, a week of Buddhist services, the Higan, recognizes each equinox.&nbsp; The Iranian new year is celebrated during the March equinox. &nbsp;It&#8217;s also World Storytelling Day and World Citizen Day. Many Middle Eastern countries celebrate Mother&#8217;s Day on the Vernal Equinox and at Chich\u00e9n Itz\u00e1 in Mexico, the sun creates the illusion of a snake winding down the steps of the El Castillo pyramid on each equinox.<br><br>This year, the March equinox will happen all over the world at exactly 6:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time on March 20!<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Spring (or Vernal) Equinox occurs in March. The word&nbsp;equinox&nbsp;comes  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[530,534],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrations","tag-easter","tag-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3704,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/3704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}