Restoration and Apostasy

There really is no static position in nature.  The full moon of two nights ago is now replaced by the waning gibbous immediately as the light begins to be lost.  Nor does the half-moon last longer than a single night, followed by the waning crescent. When the moon's light is altogether stricken, the new moon phase begins with the waxing crescent which is, at first, only a sliver. But it follows nightly through the waxing crescent, to the half moon, to the waxing gibbous, to the full moon.  Always in motion.  Always either growing or receding in light.

So also with the sun.  From solstice to equinox, to solstice to equinox, it grows, then dims.  Never static.  It is impossible to freeze the light.  It will grow or it will fade.

All things in nature testify of the truth.  This includes things in the "heavens" or sky above, as well as things on, in and under the earth. (Moses 6: 63.)

It is not possible for an individual, nor a collection of individuals, to remain static.  They are either involved with restoring truth or in apostasy from it; never merely "preserving" it.  Those who claim to merely preserve the truth given them are concealing the fact of their apostasy.  They are soothing their conscience.  Caretakers simply cannot exist.

All great truths are simple, and they are testified of in nature as well as in scripture.

Equinox

The Vernal Equinox is Saturday, March 20th.  It is that moment that arrives every year where everything is in balance, light and dark are balanced and nature everywhere from pole to pole is showered equally with the light and life of heaven.  It occurs twice a year, and not again until the Autumnal Equinox in the Fall.

 

The First Vision aligned with the Spring, the date of which is not recorded.  However, as Michael Quinn noted in his work (using borrowed research), the Smith family in general and Joseph in particular, would have associated power with the event.  It is not unlikely that the First Vision occurred on the Vernal Equinox, just as Moroni's visits always coincided with the Autumnal Equinox.

 

For our day, the Autumnal Equinox is the more significant.  The Vernal is associated with life, birth, beginnings, restoration and newness.  The Autumnal is associated with death, closing, judgment and endings.  We live on the cusp of the end times.  Though there remain a great many things to be done, our era is the time when history is about to close out.

Observing the Vernal, Autumnal and Solstices was something done from ancient times, in ceremony and in ritual.  Whole cities were built aligned to the cardinal directions of the compass and the lights of heaven.  The lights of heaven were given to us first as "signs" and secondly as "seasons." 

Don't let them pass by unnoticed.  Otherwise you note less than even the plants and the animals whose life cycles and behavior acknowledge the passing of such events.