December 31, 2001

  • Now I don't feel so bad!


    Seems the celebration of a New Year's day started over 4000 years ago, but not immediately post-Yule as is now the custom, but in the Spring when "faces called flowers float out of the ground."


    I say that I don't feel so bad because I've been going around today like some sort of anti-traditionalist proclaiming that for me, after Yule, Spring and its attendant rituals are the next most meaningful calendarically.  After all, the true beginning of newness should usher in with more than just toasts and good feelings about a tax year just completed and new taxes to look forward to in the year ahead...Oh yeah, thank the Romans, the great codifiers, for the arbitrary selection of January 1.  Seems that the Roman senate, in 153 BC, declared January 1 to be the beginning of the new year in order to compensate for calendrical inadequacies with the precession of the equinoxes.  Yes, Rome!  The same ones who brought you the Census, taxes, and the state-sponosred lottery (well, i.e., the Colliseum games, at least for the participants...LOL).


    So instead, I cast my thoughts to Spring when the revival of spirits stir the Earth once again:


    when faces called flowers float out of the ground
    and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-
    but keeping is downward and doubting and never
    -it's april(yes,april;my darling)it's spring!
    yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
    yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
    (yes the mountains are dancing together)

    when every leaf opens without any sound
    and wishing is having and having is giving-
    but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
    -alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!
    now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
    now the little fish quiver so you and so i
    (now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

    when more than was lost has been found has been found
    and having is giving and giving is living-
    but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
    -it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!
    all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
    all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
    (all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)


    e.e.cummings


    Yet now alone in the near-death grip of winter, not overly celebrative, pondering the proximate magical toll of "the new year" when an inverse cinderella spell will transform the pumpkin of the past year into the royal coach of 2002, I still await more light.


    "Season's Greetings" is not merely safe.  It really says it all.

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