Autumn Equinox

[hope]

Be prepared for shorter days and colder weather...
Meteorological Autumn started earlier this month, but the days will only start
to get shorter after the Equinox happens today, Thursday 22nd September.
Equinox comes from the Latin words 'aequus' and 'nox', which together translates
to "equal night"

Two equinoxes happen per year, one marking the start of the spring and one at the
beginning of the Autumn season.
It signifies the time when the sun's rays are centred on the equator.

During an Equinox the sun crosses the celestial equator, and so our day will have
equal amounts of daylight and darkness.
The sun will rise at 7:30 am and set at 7:30 pm.
The Equinox also marks the start of 'Aurora Season' in the northern hemisphere, when
it becomes possible, or easier to see Aurora Borealis in the higher latitudes with longer
nights.
As we approach December, the Northern Hemisphere will tilt away from the sub and
receive its rays at a steeper angle, creating longer shadows and cooler wintery weather
conditions.
Eventually the sun will reach its lowest point in the midday sky, marking December solstice.

[Redbeck]

[Redbeck]

Hurrahing in Harvest

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, eyes, heart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877)
Written while Hopkins was studying for the priesthood at St.Beuno's, North Wales. In a note he describes how it was written:
‘The Hurrahing sonnet was the outcome of half an hour of extreme enthusiasm as I walked home alone one day from fishing in
the Elwy', the Elwy is the river that flows through the Vale of Clwyd in which St.Beuno's is situated.