Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The First Part of Coven Is ...

Apparently March 1st was the start of spring. Who knew? Clearly not the actual weather, which I at least believe should have some say in the matter.

I had thought that winter ended on the vernal equinox (around March 20th here in the northeastern United States.) There is however more than one way to define the seasons. My rule of thumb was based on an astronomical definition. But it is not the only result that you can get when you use the stars to determine the seasons.

The vernal equinox is determined by the angle of the sun and the amount of solar radiation reaching a given area (a.k.a. insolation). But daytime temperatures lag behind insolation by several weeks because the earth and sea, like most of us on a cold winter morning, have what is called thermal latency, and just take a long time to warm up.

Signs of spring -- crocuses popping out of the earth, woodpeckers drumming on the neighborhood trees, clamorous goose migrations, Major League Baseball training camps, "Important Tax Information" in the mail - normally show up before 3/20. This is probably why users of the Celtic and East Asian calendars (all of whom are huge baseball fans) consider the vernal equinox to be the midpoint of spring, not the beginning.

Half of my lineage is Celtic. There is probably even a dyad or two of druids in my family tree. But I had no idea that a Celtic calendar even existed - other than the Boston one of course. It does.

Or did anyway. Lots of them.

It is a solar/lunar almanac that begins each of its twelve months on the same phase of the moon, and is used by some Neo-pagan Wiccan cults to schedule their rites -- some of which relate to the coming of spring.

But now my wife Mars tells me that the TV weather prognosticators no longer will have nothing to do with this stargazing stuff. Raised to believe in Doppler radar rather than the heavenly theories of Nicholas Copernicus, they want hard data -- or at least computer models expressed in bright, day-glo colors. So they base their view of the four seasons on the average monthly temperatures.

Just like in the astronomical world there are four meteorological seasons, each one three months in length. The three warmest continuous ones are summer. The coldest trio is winter. Spring and fall fill in the gaps.

As a result, the seasons can start on different dates in different places. In the northeast it has been decided that meteorological spring starts on the first of March and concludes at the end of May.

Personally I find this all pretty confusing. And being a gardener I want to be able to accurately plan winter's end and the onset of my favorite season. Otherwise how do I know when to get my false hopes up?

Fortunately I live in Wethersfield, Connecticut on the banks of our state's eponymous river and home to our town's eponymous cove. And it is the condition of that small, sheltered bay that I use as my official arbiter of the seasons.

The cove is a popular launching and mooring spot for small recreational boats. In the summer scores of fishing boats, bowriders, and runabouts bob placidly on the barely perceptible waves, while dinghies and kayaks paddle among them.

In winter the water freezes deeply enough to have supported an ice harvesting industry earlier in the town's history. Today the cold, hard surface holds up small bands of ice fisherman, whose hunched bodies sit on upturned milk crates waiting for some unseen underwater action.

Around this time of the year the cove becomes part water and part thin ice. The percentages of each vary from day to day as the nighttime and daylight temperatures bob below and above freezing. Ultimately the remaining ice melts, the water wins, and the cove rises.

More water from more thawing up north runs downstream and overflows the banks of the cove. It wanders across the boat launch, up onto the entry road, and sometimes beyond -- shutting down several neighborhoods. On rare occasions some of the waterfront house are partially submerged.

Eventually the flooding subsides and access to the cove is restored.

Then it is time for The High Priestess Mars-ita to garb herself in her diaphanous, ceremonial Ostara dress and lead her adoring acolyte to Cove Park, where we will surreptitiously start a bonfire, sing the Pentagram Chant, light some sage to remove the negative energy, and officially declare that the real spring is really here.

And if the stars are aligned we should be back home in time to catch the Celtics on ESPN.

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