Over the last few weeks I've questioned my New Year practices. I was once a New Years' Enthusiast, eagerly awaiting the turn of the calendar page and all of the sequin-spangled opportunities it seemed to bring. But over the last few years my attitude has changed dramatically. January comes and I still feel consumed by winter, as deep in contemplation as the springtime blossoms hidden below ground. New Year's Eve and Day as we celebrate it today begins to feel totally arbitrary.
It's not a logical divide.
There is no seasonal change to mark anything "new." Its associations with the beginning of the year are wholly superstitious, a holdout from a pagan society long gone but never forgotten.
The old gods are not dead. They've simply transformed. And there may be no better example than the namesake of January himself, an entity so familiar with transitions that he ruled them.
Janus was a uniquely Roman god.
Unlike the many deities that found themselves absorbed into the pantheon after grand campaigns of war or came in on the winds of trade, Janus was said to date back to the first kings of Rome. He was present as Lupercus tended the She-Wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus, assisted as Saturn heralded the Golden Age. There are no consistent stories of his origin. Some say he arrived on Roman soil by ship while others say he was present at the creation of the world itself. This certainly seems a better fit, steeping him in the primordial chaos which gave way to the orders of duality by which we understand the world.
Wherever he came from his presence was cited during pivotal moments in Roman history, his watchful eye cast over the changing tides.
With his twin faces and namesake arches, Janus stands tall in a long tradition of crossroads deities. But it was not just travelers and tradesmen who engaged in his worship--all of Rome seemed predicated on Janus' presence. His mythic signature was by no means as strong as the absorbed Olympians but his cult was pervasive. It's said that his name was invoked to begin all public ceremonies and political events. His image was found on coins and carved into the stone of buildings and gateways.
Janus feels like an inescapable presence.
Rome occupied a unique place in history. Its armies were legendary, its politics still idealized millennia after its fall. The names of its generals and emperors still bear weight in modern society. Rome had their gods of war and their gods of wisdom, but it's telling that the deity whose hands extended through the empire--much like Rome's own throughout the rapidly modernizing West--was Janus.
Janus was most commonly depicted with two faces of varying age. His younger face led his body forward while his elder face gazed stoically behind. He opened and closed doors of change and opportunity not through brute force or youthful desire, but through understanding of place and time. Unlike fiery Mars or progressive Mercury whose ambitions often landed them in precarious places, Janus sought to contextualize action in the larger scheme of history.
Janus occupied the liminal space between past and future.
Completely removed from the motivations of personal desire, he remained centered in the context of what's come before. The power Janus held in Rome was not won through conquest or feats of bravery. While he was an ally to armies and senators, his own pervasive influence was held without coercion or force. Consulting Janus in matters of war insured a smooth transition of lands and kingdoms, a peaceful integration into the empire at large. It seemed that Janus held insight not into how operations were to go, but whether they should happen at all.
And while both coercion and force played a large role in the spread of the Roman empire, its legacy is assured. We still rely on concepts and terminology with roots in Rome today--including the calendar system to which most give so little thought. The origins of a January New Year bring us back to Rome and the Feast of Janus (though likely not the 1st of the month itself), a celebration of beginnings and endings, transitions and transformations.
Janus' continued presence in our lives ought to serve as a reminder that beginnings and endings must be considered concurrently. With every birth comes a death: something begun comes on the heels of another's close. Nothing lasts forever--the only eternal constant is transformation. Far from the sparkling champagne optimism of our modern New Year, the New Year observed by Janus in an initiation into transition. It's a time to look in both directions and find presence in the space between. We--like Janus--may find power in the liminal.
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