03/20/2026
Here's a Cosmic Moment for us all: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JVXFByXCj/
Tomorrow, 300 million people across 13 countries will stop everything they are doing at the exact second the Spring Equinox occurs — not the day, not the hour. The exact second. 10:46 AM Eastern time on March 20.
Nowruz — Persian New Year — is the oldest continuously observed holiday on Earth, practiced for at least 3,000 years. It does not celebrate a fixed calendar date. It celebrates a precise astronomical moment: the instant the Sun crosses the celestial equator at 0 degrees declination. The exact second varies every year depending on Earth's orbital mechanics. In Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, India, and across the Persian diaspora worldwide, families gather around the Haft-Seen table — seven symbolic items beginning with the letter S — and wait. Countdown apps track the astronomical second. When it arrives, the new year begins.
The United Nations recognized Nowruz as an International Day in 2010, acknowledging it as a celebration shared by 300 million people on every inhabited continent. It has been observed continuously since at least 700 BC — through the Persian Empire, the Mongol invasions, the Soviet Union, wars, and borders. Every year, the astronomical moment resets it.
Most holidays are fixed to a date on a human calendar. Nowruz is fixed to a moment in the solar system. The new year begins when Earth's geometry says so — not when a committee decided it would.
Tomorrow at 10:46 AM Eastern, the Sun will cross the celestial equator. 300 million people will already be watching.
Did you know the world's oldest New Year is decided by the same geometry as the Spring Equinox?
