Yesterday was the autumnal equinox – the fall date when the number of hours of daylight and darkness are equal.  Or so they say.  But, in reality, we had twelve hours and ten minutes of daylight yesterday. Today it will be light for twelve hours and six minutes, and so it goes.  The length of day and night will not be equal until Tuesday.

The reason, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac is that  On the equinoxes, the very center of the Sun sets just 12 hours after it rises. But the day begins when the upper edge of the Sun reaches the horizon (which happens a bit before the center rises), and it doesn’t end until the entire Sun has set. Not only that, but the Sun is actually visible when it is below the horizon, as Earth’s atmosphere refracts the Sun’s rays and bends them in an arc over the horizon. According to our former astronomer, George Greenstein, “If the Sun were to shrink to a starlike point and we lived in a world without air, the spring and fall equinoxes would truly have ‘equal nights.’”

I thought Mr. Greenstein’s comment about “a world without air” was interesting.  I’ve often noticed other discussions involving ‘equality’ and its companion concept, ‘fairness,’ have the effect of sucking the air right out of a room.  Yesterday’s meeting concerning water rates here in Oysterville was a case in point.

Everybody professes to support fairness in such matters but, of course, fairness depends largely upon your point of view.  (Are you considering the view from the  sun’s center or from the earth’s horizon?)  In the matter of our water situation, it comes down to full-time residents versus part-time residents and how much each household should pay – not only for what water they use but, perhaps, for the assurance that there will actually be water available no matter what.  It gets complicated just like the equality issue in the matter of daylight.

Thoughts of Stonehenge and Druids come to mind.  It seems clear that those ancient people understood the equinox.  I wonder what their thoughts were about equality and fairness and what would they think about water rates.  And how did they move those stones into place, anyway?