Turn, turn, turn

I’ve always liked the sound of the word, and I knew it was some kind of seasonal phenomenon, but I only properly found out what an equinox was maybe two or three years ago, when I eventually looked it up in the dictionary. (All of you who already know, please skip to next paragraph.) It’s one of the two points in the year when the sun is directly over the equator. Thanks to the tilt of the earth’s axis, today’s vernal equinox sees our friendly neighbourhood star midway in transit from south to north, while the autumn one on September 23 marks equidistance on the return journey. On both dates, everywhere in the world, pretty much, day and night are both twelve hours long – which still amazes me, somehow, even though I see how it happens. (For loads more good stuff about equinoxes, and much better detail, check out here.)

The solstices get much more attention, but these other two dates are no less crucial hinges of the year: from tomorrow, here in the northern hemisphere, the days will now be longer than the nights until September, making it officially – at last! – the start of spring. It’s another week till the clocks change, but after yesterday’s brief bout of equinoctial gales, it was so beautifully sunny and still today that when I cycled home across the Meadows, well after six, there were still loads of people sitting out on the grass, while the sky faded to pale apricot, which felt like a real promise of things to come. (Although apparently equinoctial gales are a bit of a folk myth, possibly traceable to 17^th-century seafarers extrapolating wrongly from hurricane seasons in the West Indies.)

Aptly enough there, I happened to look up and clock the Green Man overlooking my desk, hung on the side of a tall bookcase. He’s one of the hundred or so amongst the carvings at Rosslyn Chapel, bought in replica from the gift shop, a fat-cheeked, slant-eyed wee gadgie, about six inches across, face fully wreathed in leaves, from which two thick tendrils disappear into either corner of his toothy, half-grinning, half-snarling mouth. Not, I hasten to add, that I’m any kind of pagan or New Age believer - or any other kind, for that matter, simply an out-and-out atheist with a soft spot for the Green Man as an especially enduring and widely shared folk symbol. He’s basically an embodiment of the life force, I reckon, in all its wanton, doubled-edged, necessitous unpredictability, and feels to me an essentially positive presence – though certainly not someone to take for granted.

Also beside my desk is Some Kind of Certainty (Greentrax), the long-awaited solo album debut from singer/guitarist Ewan Robertson – Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2008, and a member of the excellent young Scottish band Breabach – which arrived in this morning’s post. Not had a chance to listen to it yet, but I’m anticipating a treat, and a quick peruse of the track listing bodes enticingly indeed. There are songs by the well-kent likes of Richard Thompson, Phil Ochs and James Grant, plus a couple of traditional gems, but perhaps most intriguing in prospect are two numbers from the brilliantly maverick Highland songwriting team of Nick Turner and Finlay Napier (aka Queen Anne’s Revenge), and another by the Skye-based trombonist and all-round musical godhead Rick Taylor.

The fact that the Scottish music scene continues to thrive and progress in such inspiring fashion has a lot to do with this readiness among musicians to hitch their wagons together, to believe and invest in what one another are doing: it’s one of the many things which makes that scene such a joyous place to be.

Advertisement