In just a few days now, the top half of the Earth and all its inhabitants will experience what is called the spring equinox in one form or another. Derived from the Latin meaning “equal night,” the word equinox denotes a time during which the equator passes the sun at its midway point and when exactly half of the globe is in sunlight and the other half is not. It happens again in September and signifies a 24-hour period during which the length of the daylight hours equals that of the night-time hours.

Although we call it the spring equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere, the term doesn’t apply globally, because the Earth does not experience spring at the same time everywhere, nor with the same type of weather as we have here. Below the equator in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the autumnal equinox, for obvious reasons. Call it what you will, it has great importance for us here at this time of year, as it theoretically signals the end of winter and the rebirth or renewal of all things green.

This year, spring will officially arrive at 11:57 a.m. on Thursday, March 20, but of course, that doesn’t mean that nature will be right there waiting with her magic wand to change everything from white to green, pink, yellow and purple, and whatever other color we might be craving right about now. Things will progress here in the northeastern United States as they always have and in their own good time. And like so much else in life, there isn’t much we can do about it.

Which brings me to the weather, the topic that is eternally at the forefront of our thought processes, and that plays a large role in how those thoughts, and the plans they give rise to, progress. Much has been said, written and expounded upon these last few years about climate change, global warming and other such meteorological phenomena that, according to some, threaten our way of life and our very existence. It’s become a political issue, and thus an economic one as well when you factor in the money being spent by governments and laboratories alike to try to “solve” what is perceived to be a problem. But beyond contriving new ways to deal with old weather events that have affected the Earth since the first life forms crawled out of the sea, what is the point of even discussing it other than to feed our winter-weary fires with more fuel?

The bottom line is this, as it has always been and will continue to be: No matter how we feel about the weather or how much it impacts our lives, there is nothing any one of us can do about it.

Have we accelerated the rate at which certain natural forces come together to wreak havoc and upset the meteorological apple cart? Most likely we have, for we cannot expect to have free rein sullying the global canvas without feeling some ill effects from that. For at no other time in the Earth’s prehuman history has there ever been a species that we know of that treated it with so little regard and went to sleep at night secure in the outcome of their actions.

So, for the purposes of the weather, the worn-out phrase “it is what it is” couldn’t be more appropriate, for it certainly is just that. And this winter, in this part of the world at least, and in others as news reports indicate, we’ve had a good taste of what nature can do in the form of bad weather and severe cold in areas that normally don’t see those particular events ”“ or at least to such extremes.

Spring is just around the corner, and if this winter and its surprises were any indication that a widespread deregulation of the weather is in progress, things will continue to be interesting. And I doubt we’ll be coming up with a way anytime soon to stop it from snowing or raining, to stop the wind from blowing or waves from crashing. We will continue to be left with the only choices we’ve ever had ”“ to pick up and move to a place that supplies less of the weather we hate and more of the kind we love, or to stay put and deal with it.

And for those of us eternally caught between “should we go or should we stay,” well, we’ll just indulge in some good, old-fashioned resignation, with a healthy dose of ranting thrown in for good measure. It’s what we do.

— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@hotmail.com.