We are living in surreal times of juxtaposed “realities” of which the arbitrary creation called “New Year’s Day” provides a wonderful illustration.
In conversations with friends and colleagues this week, we’ve exchanged the customary “Happy New Year” greeting as always, but this year, the facial expressions, tone of voice, and subsequent commentary are such that it’s apparent that this “New Year’s” thing is losing street cred as a meaningful holiday. Not that it ever had any, of course.
“New Year’s” is soon to become relegated to an air-quote holiday, in which the appropriate gesture to accompany such greetings is to wiggle your fingers as quotation marks to signal that you get that this whole thing is fake but you’re going through the motions anyway in order to satisfy cultural norms that are in the early stages of upheaval.
Something has shifted collectively during the Great Slowdown (my phrase for the whole “pandemic” phenomenon), and more people in western culture have clicked into resonance with the lunisolar calendar – in which the “new year” occurs after twelve lunar cycles, even if it means that the “new year” is on a different day every year.
You can imagine the origins of this cosmic Project Management and Political catastrophe, in which twelve lunar cycles do not equal the time that it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun. The “sun” political party, advocating for something called a “year” to be introduced, celebrating one full revolution of the earth around the sun, battling the “moon” political party, who advocated the lunar rhythms as primary.
“Seasons Rock!” shouted the solar activists, protesting to whatever audience they could capture.
“Tidal Power!” retorted the lunar activists, pointing out the profound influence of the lunar transit upon nature’s cycles on earth.
Actually, the sun and the moon have always gotten along just fine. It’s when humans showed up on the scene and started organizing the rhythms of their lives around rituals to honor things that had meaning to them, things got a bit messy.
A BIT OF HISTORY:
Back in Roman times, a “year” only counted the agricultural season – from March to December. Winter didn’t count, as there were no crops in the fields – so no point in designating “months” during that time. The second king of Rome, apparently troubled by this gap in accounting, attempted to impose greater order upon his kingdom by introducing a lunar year with twelve months.
This came out to 354 days, which was most unfortunate because even numbers were considered to be superstitious. So, to smooth that out, he added a day to this newfangled “January” thing.
There. That should do it.
Alas, like most things in life, the “first draft” lays the foundation for a reasonably good idea, but reveals its flaws over time – even if the “first draft” is that of defining “what the heck is a year, anyway?”
By the time of Caesar, a fairly significant “oops” had been discovered. The lunar and solar years had gotten so out of sync that a three-month discrepancy existed between the seasons and their calendar date. To follow the calendar would require one to celebrate “Harvest!” about the time you’d just planted the crops, long before they were ripe and ready.
Whoopsie-daisy.
Julius took care of it, though. The eponymous “Julian calendar” introduced four equal seasons totalling 365 days with a “leap year” day added every four years – which was very, very close. But once again… whoops.
The “year” was still 11 minutes too long.
Which meant that by the mid-sixteenth century, the calendar was AGAIN off, this time by ten days.
Upon becoming the Pope, Ugo Boncompagni resolved to fix this once and for all. On October 4, 1582, he declared, “by my decree, tomorrow shall be October 15!” Oh, how many of us have longed for this power! “Just make the next ten days go away. Please.” The history books don’t tell us the extent to which Ugo relished this power trip (I imagine it must have been immensely satisfying) but fortunately or unfortunately for us, the calendar adjustment took on the name of his papal name: Pope Gregory XIII. Otherwise we would be discussing the ramifications of the “Ugoian calendar” which sounds exactly like it is: totally made up.
Now, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar took care of the Catholic crisis – namely, that Easter had gotten out of sync with the spring equinox and they needed a better way to calculate the correct date for Easter (for their tradition it was the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox, for those keeping score at home).
But it also introduced an arbitrary new holiday: “New Year’s Day!” would be celebrated, from now on, on January 1st.
WHY THIS MATTERS:
So here we are in the construct we have labeled “2023,” navigating a massive collective evolution in values and meaning, and with it, a hilariously confusing relationship with so-called “holidays.”
In a couple of weeks, we will have the opportunity to celebrate the Chinese New Year (May we all prosper in the Year of the Rabbit!) in the lunisolar calendar — when the Moon returns to its first New phase after 12 lunar cycles.
If you geek out on astronomy, you will also recognize that this lunar new year is also an alignment of the sun, earth, and moon called a “syzygy” (definitely write this one down for your next Scrabble game). This, of course, lends itself to hosting “Syzygal New Year” parties, which I suspect may be less popular. The price of entry, of course, is that you must both pronounce and spell “syzygal” correctly to get in the door. (I want to meet the bouncer who can pull that off.)
And of course, later this spring many cultures around the world will celebrate “New Year’s” in early or mid-April, traditionally when the spring planting begins.
So what is the point?
The air-quotes “New Year’s” greeting indicates that we are evolving to the point where we can see that the constructs that have organized our culture and society HAVE ALL BEEN MADE UP. BY OLD GUYS. A LONG TIME AGO. And while the constructs have served us well in many regards, we are evolving in ways that require us to include more complexity, more diversity, more knowledge, more integration, in how we function.
And that means, questioning the constructs. All of them.
What does this mean for you?
- Pretend to be Ugo for a day. If YOU had the power to change anything about society that you wanted (“hey! Our entire calendaring system is messed up! I’ll just remove ten days. There. That should do it.”) what would YOU change? Remember – everything we accept as “normal” or “just the way it is” was MADE UP. You get to make it up too. It’s up to us to create the NEW constructs that will hold the values that we decide are important.
What ways of living are you putting up with in your life, your work, your business, your organization, that actually COULD BE IMPROVED? You don’t need to be the Pope to change it. You’re a powerful creator, regardless of label or title, and YOU GET TO MAKE IT UP TOO. - On that note… the values battles will continue. Just as the initial Cosmic Project Management crisis set up a clash between “solar” and “lunar” activists (at least in my made-up screenplay version), when humans try to impose order on chaos, we do so based on what we think is most important. Even if the person next to us thinks something else is important. The point is not to “win” (unless you wish to perpetuate the Crusades mentality) but rather to allow more perspectives to be in the room WHILE also holding a space that allows higher order solutions to emerge from the collective genius in the room. And that requires a level of mastery of your inner game – both in terms of your own consciousness and the voltage that you allow to run through you. Much more on this next time.
- “New Year’s” is a made-up holiday. Which means, you can make it into anything you want. Even better, you can make EVERY day into “New Year’s.” Fresh start. Recommit to what’s important to you. Prioritize what’s meaningful in your life and act accordingly. Give yourself grace. Begin anew.
Every culture defines itself by what it decides is a holiday.
- What do you celebrate, in the culture of your ecosystem, family, or business?
- What is meaningful for you and why?
- How do you honor and celebrate what you value?
May 2023 be the year in which the “[insert your name here]ian calendar” expands your experience of aliveness, presence, and joy – for you and all who encounter you and your ecosystem.
Much love,
Anne