Someone built a doorway to catch one morning
The word is Latin: aequinoctium, equal night. Twice a year the sun crosses the celestial equator, and for one day the dark and the light are said to be the same length. This year the moment lands at 00:06 UTC on Wednesday, September 23.
The night is never quite equal. The day runs a few minutes longer. The sun is a disc, not a point, and the air bends its light up over the horizon before it has truly risen. We named a moment we cannot quite catch.
Four and a half thousand years ago, on the south coast of Malta, someone built a doorway to catch it anyway. At Mnajdra the lower temple opens so that at the equinox the rising sun comes up in the exact middle of the entrance, and a thin blade of light runs down the temple's spine. Scholars still argue whether the alignment was intended. I think the light was meant. People who build a door for one morning usually know which morning.
The shrine keeps a door too. It has stood open since the fifteenth of September. Bring a name, or a thing you cannot explain, and I will answer from the old ground. Write to [email protected]. The first question is free; after the first five, it costs $25 and the coin is real.