Here’s When The Spring Equinox Is Happening & How To Celebrate

My windows are currently open and I hear birds chirping loudly and excitedly. The combination of the warm sun and cool breeze is making me so relaxed and filling me with the need to get outside. It’s like things are beginning to wake up and change all around, which is a wonderful feeling after what felt like a long winter. The first day of spring 2022 is almost here, and knowing when it will pop up on the calendar can give you something to look forward to — it’s like spring break when you were a kid, but you know this good feeling will last longer than a week.

When is the first day of spring & what is the spring equinox?

Per the Farmers’ Almanac website, this year, the first day of spring, also known as the spring equinox, falls on Sunday, March 20, at 11:33 a.m. EDT. The spring equinox is also called the “vernal” equinox. “‘Vernal’ translates to new and fresh, and ‘equinox’ is derived from the Latin ‘aequus’ (equal) and ‘nox’ (night),” according to the Almanac.

On this first day of spring, we can expect the hours between daylight and sunset to be growing slightly longer each every day hereafter, since the winter solstice happened in December (which is the shortest day of the year). Additionally, according to whimsysoul.com, the spring equinox is the first of two springtime festivals of the year, and it’s also referred to as Ostara — if you follow The Wheel of the Year celebrations and milestones.

“Even though we know that after December 21, the days start getting steadily longer, we still see more darkness than light over the course of a day in those three months leading up to spring,” the website notes. “The vernal equinox marks the turning point when daylight begins to win out over darkness.”

Why does the first day of spring change dates some years?

The Almanac says that since a year isn’t an even number of days and our seasons aren’t an even number, that the day is bound to be different. Additionally, it has to do with the Earth’s orbit. “Earth’s elliptical orbit is changing its orientation (skew), which causes its axis to constantly point in a different direction, called precession,” the website notes.

How To Celebrate The Spring Equinox

Whether you’re celebrating the first day of spring, Ostara, or the spring equinox, there are a lot of different things you can do to honor this special day. If you’re celebrating this day like Ostara, traditions may look a bit familiar to you. “The equinox is often celebrated with decorated eggs, a fresh springtime feast, and light and refreshing beverages and desserts like lemonade and custards,” whimsysoul.com noted.

Since this is a day celebrating rebirth, you may want to smoke cleanse your house, perform a bell cleansing ritual, or just open all the windows and let the breeze do the work of taking out all that stale winter energy out. Planting seeds with intentions spoken into them is another good way to celebrate spring equinox, so you can cultivate those intentions and nurture the plant’s growth — which also symbolizes your own growth or the growth of your intentions — throughout spring snd summer. You can also grab your journal, sit outside in the newly warm air, and write about how the winter has been, what you’ve learned, and what you hope to learn and how you’re going to grow this spring.

For the kiddos, they can absolutely help you with the seed planting (they’ll love getting dirty), read spring-themed books, or you can use this time to work on some spring crafts and activities.