New beginnings
Don Coldsmith
Monday, December 29, 2008
IT’S A TIME for a new year to begin. They certainly pass in a hurry, it seems. One of these days we’ll have to take down the Christmas tree and tuck away all that goes with the wonderful season.
But first, we celebrate New Year’s Day. Probably every civilization or culture, every primitive group of any kind, has marked the passing of time with some sort of a ceremony. Often, a religious ceremony.
It’s no coincidence that nearly all of the various dates for the New Year have fallen on or near one of the annual events of the solar calendar. There must be something to count from, an event that can be anticipated and relied upon to recur with regularity. There are four of these times, as the earth spins and revolves around the sun: The longest day of the year, the shortest and the two days in spring and fall when the hours of light and darkness are equal. Any and all of these events have been used by somebody as the start of a New Year. They still are, somewhere. Even now, when most of the world is using the Gregorian calendar, there are celebrations and ceremonies to mark the changes.
In most cases, the new Year is linked to a new beginning of some sort. Maybe, as in our own, to a look back, too — a review of events, an evaluation, a change. We need, sometimes to have an opportunity to “turn over a new leaf,” to look ahead, as well as back at some of our mistakes, pleasures, triumphs and tragedies. This makes it appropriate that our New Year begins with January. Our months and days of the week are named after an amazing assortment of pagan gods and Roman emperors. In this case, JANUS, the Roman god of “gates, doors, beginnings and endings.” Janus had two faces and could look backward as well as forward. (That must have been confusing. Bifocals are bad enough).
January, of course, is linked to the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, where human populations are largest. It misses the actual shortest day by a few. But, the celebration broadens out a bit, too, to include the Christmas season and the surrounding “twelve days.” The old Julian calendar, similar to our present one, and in use until the 18th century, celebrated New Year’s Day on January 14.
One of the most ancient observations of the New Year was in Egypt. It coincided fairly closely with the longest day of of the year, the Summer Solstice. At this time, the annual flooding of the Nile River occurs, with the associated agricultural activity. A logical event, to associate with a new beginning.
Many widely different cultures have observed the beginning of new growth in the spring as the birth of a New Year. These include such widely different cultures as the Druids of Britain and the widely varying cultures of the American Indians. We occasionally receive a New Year’s card in March from a friend who is a member of the Blackfeet Nation. They observe the time of “awakening.”
Christianity has sometimes used March dates for the New Year’s beginning, associating them with Easter, the Resurrection and the Feast of the Annunciation.
Jewish tradition follows the celebration of the harvest season. The Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur, is based on the Autumn Equinox, which occurs in late September. A great many other cultures also celebrate a Fall festival, but without the New Year connotation. Our Thanksgiving, for example.
One notable exception to all of this for thousands of years was in the Orient. The ancient Chinese calendar was based not on the sun, but the moon’s cycle. This led to a 12-year cycle and they still observe the Year of the Horse, the Tiger, the Rat, etc. For practical purposes, though, China and Japan use the Gregorian calendar and celebrate January First as New Year’s Day.
Author and columnist Don
Coldsmith lives in Emporia.