The year begins the first so that as Desproges used to say, it’s not my fault. What’s more it begins on the 1st of January which shows how bad its intents are? No, not for past events although of course, a lot happened on that date since it was adopted in 45 BC by Julius Caesar and slightly reformed as the Gregorian Calendar in 1582 by which time most countries saw January first as the beginning of the year save for our British friends that waited until the mid 18th century? For the symbolic value, many Kings and Emperors got inthroned on that day.
My personal bug with January first stems from the month itself or rather the God for which it is named : Janus! Ever since the introduction of the Roman calendar, this doubtful figure had precedence as the God of beginnings. It makes sense, that I won’t dispute, especially as Janus is also the God of passages ( from one year to the next, huh duh ) & time ( facepalm, of course). Less evident in my honest opinion is that Janus in addition presides over change and as I expressed in last year’s last Post ( i.e. yesterday ), change is no more a factor of the calendar than of the markets.
But the real problem presented by Janus is that he is dual; I almost wrote “only” dual! Here is that problem. Most Indo-European gods were in fact dual. Janus and Jana represent the Sun & the Moon. Janus is turned to the end of the past year and to the beginning of the next. He’d look at the past steps of the traveller that enters a new zone by way of a door as well as the upcoming ones. He’d look at the life past of the dead person that he ushers in the “after”life. For all these reasons and on all such occasions, he stands as the essential God, even making the works of Jupiter possible by his care? As such he is a god of the dual connotation, the ambiguity of meaning and the unresolved possibles. He was studied as such by Mircea Eliade upon the works of Dumézil as a transition himself between the singular deity of the origins and the more complex gods and goddesses of pluralist structure. And yet he is not a god of the transition itself?
Said otherwise, in simpler terms, Janus is a marker of the opposition between states but does not give value to the change. He solves nothing, abstract watcher of concrete events, he is the lurker on the threshold.
To properly recognize this, Janus is often represented as a two face figure :
That is why I find him unsettling. It is in my idea the epitome of irresponsibility that is thus represented. What do we mean in common language by double face if not the breeding ground of indecision which if accepted as proper leads to the impossibility of change? Those who play all sides get even returns on their bets. Those who cannot choose cannot proceed. Those who won’t let go of the past cannot embrace the future just as those who won’t face tomorrow are condemned to live yesterday? The lurker on the threshold is the devil incarnate. He is the absence of evolution. He is the embodiment of status quo presiding over an immutable world in which our free will is more curse than tool. Better gods pardon the error of the moment to offer a new way to attempt. Janus reigns over what you were prior and you became after but not the leap itself, the hop nor the hope?
And it is that God which begins the year? No wonder it takes so long to accomplish so little!
My dad was very fond of a quote of William of Orange :
One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere.
William the Silent never was more loquacious in fewer words. Attempt until you become an attempt, find result in not ceasing. It is but the essence of live to forge ahead. Cross threshold with gusto for it is that which differentiate you the alive from the stone you step over, you the actor actor from the stage you thread! I will rise tomorrow ready to love and post anew. It won’t matter that the new year isn’t new anymore, that a 365th* of it has disappeared. It will be a new day over which despite the name of the month in the calendar Janus will not reign in indecision as far as I am concerned. My blog as my life is a process! It’s a new year every time I have a new idea to share with my readers and I’ll repeat myself until I am heard for there is no alternative.
And if the reader follows that reasoning too, you better beware Janus and hold the doors of the passages wide open. Unlike you, we cross thresholds for a living and don’t linger hesitantly. Tomorrow is now and yesterday is forever.
You Janus my boy are the place mat of sterile vice which probably why the Illuminati made you the god of chaos and deception.
There is but one month in my calendar and it is not called resignation.
Sincerely, Tay.
* 366th actually for this is a leap year! 😎
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Silent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus
And : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lurker_at_the_Threshold
Definitive Lapse of Reason 