Tonight is New Year’s Eve. At midnight it will have been 365.2 days since the last time we were in this place in our orbit around the sun? Why January 1st though? It has no agricultural or spiritual bearing, no real historical meaning, yet every year people party it up…
The Gregorian Calendar, formerly the Julian Calendar was established on February 24, 1582. The last country to adopt it was Turkey, in this century. The calendar is based on the earths rotation around the sun and its beginning and end has no bearing whatsoever on the seasons or the lunar calendar. In fact the Gregorian Calendar was created so that Easter fell at the same time every year where the lunar calendar caused it to jump around too much. The day the year starts wasn’t actually declared, it just arbitrarily came to be. What is important to recognize here, is that if we went by the lunar calendar, we would be completely out of synch with the sun, wherein staying with the solar calendar, we are entirely out of synch with the moon. The two cycles do not match up year to year. (Interesting considering the moon represents the femanine energy and the sun, the male energy - we live in a relativelly patriarchal society and we are following the sun… I digress)
I guess I’m at the age where I question everything (not 4, but 26) and where I want to have a reason for what I do instead of blindly following the masses. My parents always celebrated new years eve on December 31st, I recall giving New Years kisses to hairy lipped relatives that smelled of alcohol, and crying when the fire works went off. Now, I’m sitting here on new years eve day thinking that this day doesn’t really have meaning to me and that perhaps I need to gain some perspective.
When would the most logical end of the year be? I think the end of the year is the shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. By this point the plants are dead or in hibernation, the animals are in, the frost has come to freeze the ground. Everything has stopped. At midnight that night, the daylight hours are beginning to get longer thus waking and bringing everything back to life. I agree with the celts that the year is a cycle, not a liniar amount of time. Their calendar begins after Semhain which is a lunar festival celebrating the last day of the harvest season, somewhere around the 31st of October. This makes sense too. I will more consciously feel these days next year, however I imagine that both days have reason to celebrate. The last day of harvest season would be a good day to celebrate since it is so much work to get everything prepared for the frost, and it deserves to be recognized. The solstice seems like a time when it is dark, and cold and quiet - a celebration would liven things up a little!
Perhaps the year is a wheel, with no end and no beginning, only time interlaced by the movement of the sun, the moon and the earth. Maybe that is the reason why the lunar and solar calendars don’t line up - because there is no end.