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Spring Equinox Surfers
Photograph by Matt Cardy, Getty Images
Surfin' U.K.: British boarders in Gloucestershire on March 2, 2010, brave the Severn Bore, a tidal surge that reaches its highest heights around the vernal equinox, or spring equinox, due to the movements of the sun and moon.
The vernal equinox of 2010 falls on Saturday, March 20. The spring equinox is the first day of the solar new year and one of two days each year when day and night are equally long—at least in theory (vernal equinox facts).
Around the vernal equinox surfers, boaters, and nature enthusiasts flock to the Severn Estuary (map), which has one of the world's greatest ranges between high and low tide. During a rising tide, the funnel shape of the estuary squeezes ocean water upriver, resulting in waves that can reach 4 feet (1.2 meters), as in this picture, or higher.
Updated March 18, 2010
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Pyramid of the Sun
Photograph by Jaime Puebla/AP
On the vernal equinox, visitors bask in spring's first sunlight atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico's ancient pre-Aztec city of Teotihuacán on March 21, 2004—one of many annual equinox celebrations worldwide.
The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world—smaller than only the Pyramids of Giza, Egypt, and Cholula, Mexico. It has served as a gathering place for meteorological events since its creation about 2,000 years ago.Updated March 18, 2010
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Ancient Order of Druids Member
Photograph by John Franks/Keystone/Getty Images
A member of the Ancient Order of Druids society marks the vernal equinox with a horn blast near the Tower of London on March 2, 1961.
The Tower Hill ceremony is perhaps eclipsed in the public mind by the Druidic summer solstice ritual at Stonehenge. But spring also has an important role in Druidic tradition: Alban Eilir, the equinox celebration shown above, is one of several Druidic spring festivals.
In addition to horn-blowing, the Alban Eilir ceremony also features whiskey, olive oil, a hazelnut, and fire.Updated March 18, 2010
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Turkish Kurds Protesting
Photograph by Murad Sezer/AP
Honoring a rebel leader, thousands of Turkish Kurds protest--and mark the Nowruz spring festival, in part by jumping over fires on March 19, 2006, in Istanbul.
Nowruz (Farsi for "new year"), a festival of Persian origin, celebrates the arrival of spring with outdoor gatherings and feasts.
In Turkey, Nowruz was banned until 2005, and the celebration has become imbued with Kurdish nationalism.
In Iran, Nowruz celebrations typically include visits to relatives and friends as well as the act of knotting a handkerchief and asking a stranger to untie it—symbolically seeking help for your misfortune.
In Afghanistan, seasonal foods such as haft mewa (dried seven-fruit salad in syrup) are served, and farmers parade through cities to encourage agricultural production.Updated March 18, 2010
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Warsaw Vernal Equinox Festival
Photograph by Czarek Sokolowski/AP
Traditionally costumed figures parade on stilts in Warsaw as part of the Polish celebration of the vernal equinox on March 21, 2006.
Another Polish equinox custom is to carry an effigy of Marzanna—a goddess associated with winter—from house to house, then strip it, set it aflame, and drown it.
Though originally performed on the fourth Sunday of the Christian period of Lent, the Marzanna drowning is now carried out by children on the first day of spring—the vernal equinox.Updated March 18, 2010
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Torch-Bearing Kurds
Photograph by Yahya Ahmed/AP
Torch-bearing Kurds gather in the countryside to celebrate Nowruz near 'Aqrah, Iraq, on March 20, 2007.
Here the Persian vernal equinox celebration is marked by fire, dancing, music—and journeys into the wilderness.
Under Saddam Hussein's regime, the traditional Kurdish celebration had been banned. In 2003 Iraq's new Shiite leaders declared the day a public holiday.Updated March 18, 2010
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Tractor, Afghanistan
Photograph by Musadeq Sadeq/AP
Driving a tractor over an Afghan wrestler is one way to celebrate the spring equinox festival of Nowruz—as shown at a ceremony in a Kabul stadium on March 21, 2006.
Until 2001 the public celebration of Nowruz was banned by the ruling Taliban.
Present-day celebrations of Nowruz in Afghanistan feature tournaments of buzkashi, a game in which horseback riders play a polo-like game with a headless goat carcass.Updated March 18, 2010
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