All Things Equal...

Autumn officially begins today (9:21 pm local time) as the equinox means that the sun enters the southern hemisphere and our days will now be shorter than our nights.**  And so we begin our 6 months of darkness.  Our 6 months of cold.  Our 6 months of reflection.

But for this one day, we are balanced, and as we celebrate the balance of light and dark in our world, we can contemplate balance in other ways.  This is a good time to think about our time... do we make enough time for our families?  For our pleasures and for our work?  Can we balance our fun side with our responsible side, our hedonistic side with our industrious side?  Our social side with our reflective side?

And, on a purely physical note, do we do enough yoga (or whatever) that we can stand on one foot without falling over?  That's important too.

**Actually, that's only sort of true... We measure sunrise and sunset times by the time the sun first comes over the horizon (rise) and when the last bit disappears behind the horizon (set).  There will still be longer than 12 hours between those times until Sunday, when we have equilux (equal light).  On the equinox, it's 12 hours between when the sun's midline appears on the horizon and hits that point again at night.

Another interesting thing about the equinox -- they are the only days when the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west (not southwest or northwest...)