Autumn Equinox at La Mata Natural Park

For many, the equinoxes are just a passing of time, when one season turns to another, but for many others, they are a spiritual time, one where a higher state of consciousness brushes the past away and clears a route for the next chapter in the story of life. Whatever your feelings on this shifting time, where better a place to experience it than surrounded by the very fabric that make up our literal world, the beauty and awe that is nature herself.

On the 22 of September, from early evening until late, the natural park of La Mata is the location for a guided talk that sees in the autumn equinox.

Local associations Projecte Mastral and Astroingeo are collaborating to create an activity aimed at participants knowing the meaning of the autumn equinox, where day and night have the same duration.

Unfortunately, the official tour is already fully booked, although you can join the waiting list by emailing parque_lamata@gva.es, but as many of our readers may struggle to understand the talk given in Spanish, it is an occasion that you could set up your own evening of spiritual or enlightened relaxation.

Get the family together, although the very little ones may find it a little boring, pack a picnic blanket, some food and drink, anti-mosquito spray and park in the car park next to the visitor centre, then take a short stroll along the public footpaths until you reach the picnic area. But don´t sit here unless you really need to. Keep to the paths, but go just a little bit further. Put your blanket on the ground, set out your places and lay under the stars knowing that the night and day or of equal lengths, and the nights will start to get longer, the days shorter, and bid farewell to summer.

With not even so much as a book to distract you, certainly no television, no newspapers, and certainly no telephones, just you and those you care about, stop, look at each other and talk. Remember events together, laugh, enjoy, think about a good time, a better time, just be together.

Those on the guided walk will be able to look through a telescope to see Jupiter, Mars, the Moon and Saturn, but in an area where there is no light pollution, just look up, see for yourself, a view that has travelled from a time long before you were born, the stars we see today are from the past, and so we look to the future, and enjoy this moment together.

At the end, remember to take all of your rubbish away with you, and maybe walk hand in hand back to the car, because you have just experienced something very few make the effort for in this modern world, quality time together.

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