Religious celebrations in springtime

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Spring equinox celebrations

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The Spring Equinox is associated with, or known as: Alban Eilir, Eostar, Eostre, Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Festival of Trees, Lady Day, NawRuz, No Ruz, Ostara, Ostra, Rites of Spring, and the Vernal Equinox.

The spring equinox:

There are two days each year when the daytime and nighttime hours are approximately equal -- each being 12 hours long. One occurs between March 19 and 21 and is called the Spring or Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The other happens in September. These dates have strong ties to religious celebrations, both ancient and modern.

Topics covered in this section:

	Introduction:  Overview, timing, history
	Links to Easter & other religious celebrations
	Non-religious beliefs related to the equinox Balancing eggs; stuff that goes bump in the night

Related essays on this web site:

	Easter
	Summer solstice
	Fall equinox
	Winter solstice

A video and groups of photographs related to the Spring Solstice::

• Knowth.com videotaped an amazing video taken on the morning of 2005-MAR-23 inside of of Cairn T of the Loughcrew Megalithic Cairns. It is located about 50 miles northwest of Dublin in Ireland. They compressed a 50 minute transit across the backstone in the Cairn into a 40 second video. See: http://www.knowth.com/
  
  A series of still pictures can be seen at: http://www.knowth.eu/

Still pictures taken during the 2009-MAR-20 equinox can be seen at: http://www.newgrange.com/

• MSN has a remarkable series of 39 photographs of people celebrating the spring equinox in various countries of the world including El Salvador, Khzakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, and the UK. See: http://photos.msn.com/

A book on Loughcrew:

Tim O'Brien has written a book titled: "Light years ago: A study of the cairns of Newgrange and Cairn T Loughcrew, Co. Meath, Ireland," Black Cat Press, (1992). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store. This is an expensive book! However, less expensive used copies are often available.

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Copyright © 2000 to 2013 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2000-FEB-23
Latest update: 2013-APR-01
Author: B.A. Robinson

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