Spring is upon us … or at least it is for the 88% of the human population that lives North of the equator and more specially for the roughly 60% that live at or above the Tropic of Cancer. Today marks the end of the 3 days of the vernal equinox ( the point at which nights and days are of equal duration ) for 2014. On Wednesday the 19th, in The San Juan Capistrano Mission in California, they celebrate the Return of the Swallows as the American Cliff Swallow arrives from Goya, Argentina after a 10 000 km migration! On Thursday the 20th, this was carried over by the World Sparrow Day.
But the 20th that alternates with today as the equinox day also held the International Francophonie and UN French language days although I fail to see how this relates to Spring; the UN’s International Day of Happiness might be more like it? It was also, please don’t laugh, the International day of Astrology! For the pagans of Germanic origin, It was the day of goddess Ēostre or Ostara /Oz Tara from which the English Easter name comes. Linguists believe that her anme was inherited from H,ewsos / Hausos, a goddess of dawn dating back to the Indian Rig-Vedas. It has always surprised me how modern dreamers will easily fall back two millenia to say Celtic deities all the while forgetting that they could have gone almost as much back again to 1, 700 BC as long as they were at it? Oh well! Fantasy for fantastic beliefs, the 20th was also the new year of the weird cult of Thelema founded by Aleister Crowley. More importantly, at the end of the day ends the Baha’i fasting period under the name Naw-Ruz but marks the begining of the year as Nowruz or Nevruz for the people of Persian descent : Iran of course but also Zoroastrians and Kurds. If this seems of light consequence, do consider that the following newsworthy countries all abide at least partially by the Persian calendar : Iran ( nuclear deal ) , Iraq ( civil war-like ) and Turkey ( Erdogan’s scandal ridden semi-dictatorship ) as well as both Pakistan and India despite their differences. So do Afghanistan ( no comment ) and all of the other -stans ( Turkmen-Taijiki-Kazakh-Kyrgyz and Uzbek ) as well as Azerbaijan? As if that was not enough, the Sufis, Ismailis, Alevis and Alawites brands of Islam do so to so that you can add Syria and many parts of the Caucasus and Russia, including the brand new Crimea one! The Ouigurs/Uyghurs of China also count in so add the most populous place on Earth in the list? Placing the New Year on the first day of Spring certainly makes sense and the Persian calendar has been used for over 3, 000 years so Happy New day of Light / No rooz or Nasavarda all!
And as if to show the new hope is alive indeed, today March 21st is Mother’s Day in most of the Arab Word, Youth day in tunisia, Harmony day in Australia, Human Rights day in South Africa and Elimination of Racial Discrimination day internationally. To these worthy causes, you can ad the following World days : Down Syndrome, Poetry, Forests and heck, Puppetry!
So good for the names and I suppose you can guess the sounds. Apart for the Chunfen festival in Asia which marks the Solar term’s second pentad of Thunder Sounds, in general as seen with the Californian Return of the Sparrows, Spring sees ( pun intended ) the return of specific bird songs. In my neck of the towns, sparrows are indeed back but the particular song that I noticed a few days back was that of the Cardinals. Those beautiful sparkling flying rubies have a tell-tale singing pattern. Both the male repetitive and the female’s more modulated answer are part of the modern North American police sirens.
Now I know that law enforcement officers don’t migrate but cardinals do and their presence is a fave of mine ( the birds of course and not the Saint-Louis baseball team whose return from hibernation also marks Spring with the return of America’s dullest sport ). Besides their song, the game of searching the green foliage for the red splotch is quite relaxing. Of course that will have to wait for the leaves to come back on the yet desolate tree skeletons … but I digress. No matter where you live and which bird is concerned, try for an outing when you wake up if only standing on the veranda/balcony and you’ll be graced with a concert that should get richer as instruments ( new birds ) add themselves to the orchestra over the coming weeks. You could wait for your walk to work ( if you drive, forget it ) to hear them but nothing covers the chirping of sparrows quite as well as a roaring pick-up or speeding SUV not to mention semis and town buses.
As for smells, I’ll conclude quickly. You might have noticed that I left off the plural in my title up there? The reason for this is simple. Although Spring is ideally represented olfactorily by the flowing aromas of thrush and crocuses, tulips and lily, this only holds true in underbush or greenhouses. In town, the smell of Spring is diesel and in the country it is wet soil and manure, both pungent fumes not particularly enjoyable? That is why I forewent the plural … be cause for me Spring marks the transition between the utilitarian biking season and the fun one. Soon, riding will be fully enjoyable again. No more battling the elements on the spartan machine and back to speed, jumps and long rides. For that reason, the next few days will have me toiling happily on overhauls. Covered in grease up to my elbows ( and more often than not on my face too after half an hour ), whistling bike tunes and tearing skins off my knuckles ( and then swearing somewhat ), I’ll prep my best inanimate friend and my son’s as well. That is why I spelled smell in the singular. Because through this upcoming smorgasbord of bike mechanics, after greasing bearings and headsets, lubricating shifters, cable outers and chains, I’ll finish it off by oiling the brakes mechs! That last touch to ensure positive spring returns will mark full readiness to ride into warm sunsets. And accordingly, for me the smell of spring is the true smell of Spring?
Find the above image in this past Post on the great Jo Burt :
And great Spring all, Tay.
Definitive Lapse of Reason 