A beautiful slow Celtic air from Galicia, “Alalá das Mariñas” by Milladoiro for the beautiful soft air of this spring day. Find it on the “Peaceful Planet” compilation.

Spring is nearly here!

It’s equinox time. And this 2012 March equinox comes tomorrow – on Tuesday, March 20 at precisely 5:14 a.m. Universal Time. That’s the time in Greenwich, England, and it marks a single time for this equinox as noted from a whole-Earth perspective – when the sun stands directly overhead as seen from Earth’s equator.

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But, as always, our clocks will say different times. What this time means to us in the United States is that the equinox comes in the middle of the night – tonight, March 19. It’ll be only 10:14 p.m. tonight on the U.S. west coast – and 7:14 p.m. on March 19 in Hawaii. Meanwhile, it’ll be 1:14 a.m. Tuesday morning (March 20) according to clocks on the U.S. east coast. One event – different time zones and different times on the clock – when the sun crosses the celestial equator, bring this equinox to all of us around the globe.

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From my course blog.

icancstructures:

The new semester starts on Monday at both places I’m teaching this semester: the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Endicott College. As such, I’ve had to update my syllabi. Among other things, I’ve adopted the newest (second) editions of both the textbook and reader I use in my Introductory Sociology classes. It’s funny that one of my friends recently asked “How do you keep it fresh?” Well, that’s one way. It wasn’t exactly a “rototill,” but the updates were substantial enough to give me pause. I’ll leave rototilling to my upper level course. I’ve just become aware of a textbook I may want to adopt for that, replacing the current aging entries. They’re not bad books, it’s just that a lot has happened since they were published, and they haven’t been updated.

But this is but one of the biannual rituals of teaching. Others include closing out incomplete grades from the previous semester, and I have had a few of those. So no, I haven’t really been “off” this week. While it’s been a slower pace than when I’m teaching four or more courses, I have had a single-pointed focus that has not been leisure.

I can think of no better way to observe this ritual than with an internet meme, courtesy of the free meme generator app I got from the Mac App Store.

A sure sign of spring in New England is when the heat comes up on a rainy afternoon. I am amply defended, in that I am cooking Tuscan White Bean and Kale Soup from the February 2011 issue of Yoga Journal, and listening to Desi pop recommended to me by iTunes.

Being’s blog has some vibrant images for this rite of spring.

beingblog:

by Susan Leem, associate producer

A man dressed in elaborate costume celebrates the Maharashtrian New Year during a procession in Mumbai. (photo: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)

Bollywood stars took to Twitter to wish their fans Gudi Padwa, or Happy New Year. India’s vast…

Yesterday I was trudging across campus through snow, and today I managed to catch sight of willow branches, gone all yellow because of Spring, shining in the morning sun. It was absolutely worth trying to stay open–hearted for. Moreover, I wouldn’t have had this sight had I not been taking the backroads to avoid some annoying traffic. So this was a double delight.