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January, named for the Roman God Janus.
January, like Janus, stands at the gateway of the new year. He has one foot still in the departed year while his other is firmly planted in the new young year. The god Janus was a dual faced figure with one face looking into the past and one turned toward the future and what it may bring. January is much like this Roman god. The threshold of the new year promised opportunity and adventure and so we embrace the forward looking aspect of January. But what is made new has it's origins in what has gone before. With this dual outlook, we can look back on the past year and analyse what we did that was positive and then the things we would perhaps prefer to forget. The forward facing figure reminds us not to dwell in the past but to look forward to what is to come.
Janus was a god of transition, much as January is the transition from the old year to the new. A gateway god to guard the gateway of the year. January is a now you see it, now you don't type of month. It blows hot with the ubiquitous January thaw, then it changes over night and the north wind howls with the snow demon's breath while the mercury drops to frigid depths. The flowers of spring and summer hide deep in the earth under their protecting blanket of snow ignoring the fickleness of January weather.
For me, January means the returning of the light, the strengthening of the sun as it makes it slow steady way from the southern skies toward the northern horizons. The light that began its return in late December at the Winter Solstice continues to strengthen throughout January. I'm not saying January is my favourite month...I leave that honour to May and October...but this first month of a new year is always welcome as it heralds new beginnings and the opportunity to shed old habits and emotions that no longer serve me.
January is also the time of wassailing. The lovely ancient ritual of taking cider (either alcoholic or not) out to the orchard trees and sing to them while sipping hot cider and then offering cider to the trees in the hopes they will provide us with a bumper crop of fruit in the fall. I find it's a magical experience to engage with the nature of the trees and in some small way communicate with them. To stand with one foot in this world and the other in the realm where all things are equal and sentient.
Until next month,
Be well, be happy
