September 23, 2026 — The World as It Is

Today, September 23, falls immediately after the autumn equinox. In New York, the equinox occurred last night at 8:05 p.m.; in other parts of the world, the astronomical event falls on September 23. The equinox marks the Sun's crossing of the celestial equator, beginning autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.

In the Islamic calendar, today is 12 Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1448, although Islamic dates can differ according to the calendar or local moon sighting.

Spinoza gives the natural event a very different philosophical meaning. For him, nature is not a stage arranged around human purposes. Things follow from the necessity of nature; understanding that necessity is part of becoming less governed by imagination and more capable of seeing things as they are.

Today the Earth turns, the season changes, and human traditions give the change different names. Higan, Mabon, Thecla, the Islamic lunar calendar, the equinox: none of them needs to be made into the same tradition. Spinoza offers another possibility: simply to attend to the order of nature itself. The season does not ask what I believe about it. It changes.