Endings and beginnings
Jan. 1st, 2005 22:14![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillWell. I'm feeling better both physically and emotionally, and I'm ready to start on another year.
My calendar is odd. I don't celebrate Sabbats, really, but I do mark them... my year is more a series of seasons than months, and the Sabbats fall close to the divisions of several of them. So for me, the latter part of the year has a rather different progression than it does for many other people, and with the start of the calendar year, I am now in a different mental place than almost anyone I know.
Starting, for the sake of convenience, in July, we go from summer to the season of killing heat -- in our climate, this is our "winter", when the more tender things die off and the hardier things hunker down to endure it. People secret themselves away in air-conditioned buildings and try not to be out in the middle of the day. This goes on until October, when we get our three weeks of fall weather, before the winter rains. Then things get interesting.
Halloween marks the symbolic death of the year -- it used to be New Year's Eve, and I know many people who still celebrate it as such. I remember the dead that evening, and thus starts the season of ashes, marked not much later by the first frost which sweeps through and kills the last of the summer plants.
Late November has Thanksgiving, which is a modern holiday but mirrors a traditional feast which I can't recall... To me, it's a day to reflect on what you have, and to remember what the basics really are; this is necessary so that you can set the foundations for your priorities. It's a day of humility and evaluation, and taking pleasure in what you have. It is a time to focus on simple things. (This contrasts sharply with the popular orgy of Black Friday, and may be why I get slightly revolted by the commercialism that I simply accept later in the Christmas season.)
The season of ashes turns into the season of hope. Having taken a good look at what there is to be thankful for in life, what has been accomplished, it becomes time to think about what I want. It's roughly a month to think about what changes I want to make to myself and my world, and how that would make things better and brighter. Lots of personal reflection and decisions are involved, usually, overlaid still by the season of ashes and the awareness that both stages are on the underbelly of the year, the time of death, reconstruction, and rebirth.
Yule hits so close to Christmas that while I mark the longest night, it's really just a signal that the season is winding to an end... Christmas is a quiet day for us usually, and the world around us is quiet and odd in the way that only a total holiday can be, where everything is closed and the only people driving are doing so for personal reasons. It's a day spent with family, generally happy. It's also totally secular, with almost none of the religious trappings -- simply a feastday, one my brother refers to as "X-mas" to emphasize the distance from its Christian roots.
I celebrate not one day for the holiday, nor the full twelve days, but one week. From Christmas to New Year's Day is one holiday to me... If I had to ascribe a quality to it, it would be a period of grace. The evaluations and decisions and soul-searching are done, and at the end there is a week of rest and enjoyment. The last days are counted out like beads, running fingers over each one to capture the feel of the past year.
New Year's Eve is the crumbling of the old, and that night is one of severance, sloughing off the old year. New Year's Day is the birth of the new year, the day to recall the decisions of the season of hope and make those changes solid; they have often been implemented already, but this is an acknowledgement that they are part of everyday life. It is the start of the season of growth, a time of development. As with any development, there are frustrations, but patience and dedication are rewarded. In our area, it's a time of rampant vegetative growth, and everything gets very green as the tiny sprouts become huge plants. Exuberance is tempered by a need to go slowly, and the frosts continue.
Afer that is the warming of the weather in March, and I don't really have a name for the season, except perhaps the season of blooming. That applies not necessarily to flowers as such, but the fruition of projects and acceleration of things that have matured to the point that you don't have to be careful with them anymore. As a gardener, I'm planting out strong transplants and things are taking off; the sun is warm but not hot, and work can be done. It's time to do the things which have been planned out and prepared for, less a time of reflection and thinking than of action.
The start of summer in May is a time to regroup, coast a little, wrap up any loose ends and generally make sure things are running smoothly. It's the highest point of the year, the fastest, the most ambitious, but holds a lot of mellowness too. After having run so hard to get everything up to speed, now you get to ride.
And then, with late July, we have come full circle. My perception of time is less linear than it is a spiral, so in any particular season it feels like it's only been a couple of months since it came around last, rather than a year... last New Year's feels like it wasn't that long ago, really, despite all that's happened between then and now. That tends to enforce the seasons for me, rather than the linear model of a standard calendar.
So I am now standing at the birth of another year, looking at the tiny pinpricks of the personal seeds I have sown, and ready to leave the dead year behind and concentrate on new life and new possibilities.
I don't make formal resolutions, at least not at New Year's -- I've never seen the point of waiting until a certain date to implement a change, particularly some of the radical ones that people seem to set their hopes on. My changes for the year are mild, mainly to do more personal reflection and mental housecleaning. I also need to shovel out my current dwelling, which is more part of a "to do" list than a resolution. And I need to get employment more than ever, which is more hope and a continuation of effort than anything else.
Here's hoping this year is better than the last.
My calendar is odd. I don't celebrate Sabbats, really, but I do mark them... my year is more a series of seasons than months, and the Sabbats fall close to the divisions of several of them. So for me, the latter part of the year has a rather different progression than it does for many other people, and with the start of the calendar year, I am now in a different mental place than almost anyone I know.
Starting, for the sake of convenience, in July, we go from summer to the season of killing heat -- in our climate, this is our "winter", when the more tender things die off and the hardier things hunker down to endure it. People secret themselves away in air-conditioned buildings and try not to be out in the middle of the day. This goes on until October, when we get our three weeks of fall weather, before the winter rains. Then things get interesting.
Halloween marks the symbolic death of the year -- it used to be New Year's Eve, and I know many people who still celebrate it as such. I remember the dead that evening, and thus starts the season of ashes, marked not much later by the first frost which sweeps through and kills the last of the summer plants.
Late November has Thanksgiving, which is a modern holiday but mirrors a traditional feast which I can't recall... To me, it's a day to reflect on what you have, and to remember what the basics really are; this is necessary so that you can set the foundations for your priorities. It's a day of humility and evaluation, and taking pleasure in what you have. It is a time to focus on simple things. (This contrasts sharply with the popular orgy of Black Friday, and may be why I get slightly revolted by the commercialism that I simply accept later in the Christmas season.)
The season of ashes turns into the season of hope. Having taken a good look at what there is to be thankful for in life, what has been accomplished, it becomes time to think about what I want. It's roughly a month to think about what changes I want to make to myself and my world, and how that would make things better and brighter. Lots of personal reflection and decisions are involved, usually, overlaid still by the season of ashes and the awareness that both stages are on the underbelly of the year, the time of death, reconstruction, and rebirth.
Yule hits so close to Christmas that while I mark the longest night, it's really just a signal that the season is winding to an end... Christmas is a quiet day for us usually, and the world around us is quiet and odd in the way that only a total holiday can be, where everything is closed and the only people driving are doing so for personal reasons. It's a day spent with family, generally happy. It's also totally secular, with almost none of the religious trappings -- simply a feastday, one my brother refers to as "X-mas" to emphasize the distance from its Christian roots.
I celebrate not one day for the holiday, nor the full twelve days, but one week. From Christmas to New Year's Day is one holiday to me... If I had to ascribe a quality to it, it would be a period of grace. The evaluations and decisions and soul-searching are done, and at the end there is a week of rest and enjoyment. The last days are counted out like beads, running fingers over each one to capture the feel of the past year.
New Year's Eve is the crumbling of the old, and that night is one of severance, sloughing off the old year. New Year's Day is the birth of the new year, the day to recall the decisions of the season of hope and make those changes solid; they have often been implemented already, but this is an acknowledgement that they are part of everyday life. It is the start of the season of growth, a time of development. As with any development, there are frustrations, but patience and dedication are rewarded. In our area, it's a time of rampant vegetative growth, and everything gets very green as the tiny sprouts become huge plants. Exuberance is tempered by a need to go slowly, and the frosts continue.
Afer that is the warming of the weather in March, and I don't really have a name for the season, except perhaps the season of blooming. That applies not necessarily to flowers as such, but the fruition of projects and acceleration of things that have matured to the point that you don't have to be careful with them anymore. As a gardener, I'm planting out strong transplants and things are taking off; the sun is warm but not hot, and work can be done. It's time to do the things which have been planned out and prepared for, less a time of reflection and thinking than of action.
The start of summer in May is a time to regroup, coast a little, wrap up any loose ends and generally make sure things are running smoothly. It's the highest point of the year, the fastest, the most ambitious, but holds a lot of mellowness too. After having run so hard to get everything up to speed, now you get to ride.
And then, with late July, we have come full circle. My perception of time is less linear than it is a spiral, so in any particular season it feels like it's only been a couple of months since it came around last, rather than a year... last New Year's feels like it wasn't that long ago, really, despite all that's happened between then and now. That tends to enforce the seasons for me, rather than the linear model of a standard calendar.
So I am now standing at the birth of another year, looking at the tiny pinpricks of the personal seeds I have sown, and ready to leave the dead year behind and concentrate on new life and new possibilities.
I don't make formal resolutions, at least not at New Year's -- I've never seen the point of waiting until a certain date to implement a change, particularly some of the radical ones that people seem to set their hopes on. My changes for the year are mild, mainly to do more personal reflection and mental housecleaning. I also need to shovel out my current dwelling, which is more part of a "to do" list than a resolution. And I need to get employment more than ever, which is more hope and a continuation of effort than anything else.
Here's hoping this year is better than the last.
