JANUARY & THE NEW YEAR: IT ALL STARTS OVER AGAIN!

past-future.jpg

After Yuletide and the Midwinter Solstice in December, we quickly enter the start of another contemporary year with the frozen month of January

I underline the word ‘contemporary’ because synthetic calendars (those not based on natural cycles) have repeatedly altered over the passing centuries.

The rural, pre-Christian, Celtic land dwellers regarded the time we now call Halloween, in October, as the end of summer and beginning of winter. It marked the start of their New Year. When we overlook the synthetic almanac and take a long hard look at nature’s changing moods, this elderly system of time calculation begins to make a great deal of sense. At the beginning of the modern New Year celebrations, many trees have now started to produce swelling buds and migratory fish like salmon and sea trout have long since spawned in upland streams. 

Mother Nature celebrates her own New Year just like the Celts did, several months before today’s more random occasion. Some birds are also now starting their courtship displays and thinking about nesting, if the weather permits. 

Many parts of our modern culture are thinly based on the enormous wisdom of our primordial Pagan ancestors. Alternatively, confrontational religious fundamentalists, enthusiastic to expand a podium for their narrow-minded, sectarian worldview often try to refute this fact. Their re-hashed adaptation (Jesus) of the ancient sun god myth fits gracelessly into the natural, agricultural, Pagan calendar that the ancients translated so well via mythological thesis.  

Our Pagan ancestors lived close to and in great synchronization with the planet; whilst today’s self-satisfied religious church missionaries have sought to transform all rural aspects of the natural calendar into false occasions to venerate their latest and clearly most bogus sun god adaptation. 

ANCIENT GOD OF THE NEW YEAR 

 

January in fact receives its name from the grand old Roman god of doorways/new ventures, ‘Janus.’ 

Janus was habitually portrayed in classical art with two heads, or faces; one looking to the past, whilst the second viewed the future. 

Some ancient scholars have supposed that this god presided over the investiture and terminate of the sun’s travel though the daily sky. As the sun opens each day so does it close it and it was the same with Janus. Some writers described him as the son of Apollo and so great was his magnitude that his name was habitually invoked before all others. In ceremonies all prayers went by him first, due to his revered status and link with the opening of doorways.  Janus therefore lends his name to the New Year’s beginning and like us he looks poignantly back at the past, then onto the invigorating future to come.

Stay true to a noble path, stand strongly against all pretenders and your dreams and aspirations may indeed come true in the year ahead.

I BID YOU ALL A HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

 

Pat Regan © 2014

 

Pat’s books include 

The Devil Gods Best Friend 

(Observations of a Pagan author)

US Paperback version

http://www.amazon.com/Devil-Gods-Best-Friend/dp/1493643363/

UK Paperback version 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Gods-Best-Friend/dp/1493643363/ 

The Devil Gods Best Friend 

(Observations of a Pagan author)

UK Kindle: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Devil-Gods-Best-Friend-ebook/dp/B00HRH6LKC/ 

US Kindle: 

http://www.amazon.com/Devil-Gods-Best-Friend-ebook/dp/B00HRH6LKC/ 

UFO: The Search for Truth (2012, extended edition)

UK Paperback version:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1479149128/  

US Paperback version:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1479149128/ 

UFO – The Search for Truth (Kindle edition)

US Kindle: 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B93A8Z4

UK Kindle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00B93A8Z4/

Peter Swift and the Secret of Genounia 

US Version: 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1478336595/ 

UK version: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1478336595/ 

Peter Swift and the Secret of Genounia (Kindle edition)

UK Version

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008QO3F86/ 

US Version

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008QO3F86/ 

 The New Pagan Handbook

UK Version

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954753453/ 

US Version 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0954753453/ 

The New Pagan Handbook (Kindle Edition)

US

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051BTWNO 

UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0051BTWNO

Dirty Politics (updated 2013 edition)

http://dirtypolitics.jigsy.com/

UK edition

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1482031248/

US edition

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482031248/ 

UK Kindle: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00B3L7EDQ/ 

US Kindle 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B3L7EDQ/ 

  The Torch and the Spear

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1898307725 

 Fly Fishing on Wild Becks

UK Paperback

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1481250000/

US Paperback

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1481250000 

Fly Fishing on Wild Becks (Kindle edition)

UK Version

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ANPDQZ8/ 

US Version

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ANPDQZ8/ 

Author site 1: 

http://patregan.jimdo.com 

 Author site 2:

http://patregan.wix.com/pat-regan 

Author site 3: 

http://pat-regan.weebly.com/ 

Author Blog:

http://pat-regan.blogspot.co.uk 

Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/reganclan 

Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/Pat_Regan 

UFO on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/UFO-The-Search-for-Truth/139778602798425?ref=hl

Pagan Anti-Defamation Network (PAN) 

http://www.spanglefish.com/PAN/ 

Pat on Goodreads.com

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6556964.Pat_Regan

Pat’s US Amazon ‘Author Central’ page: 

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002GWKPOQ 

Pat’s UK Amazon ‘Author Central’ page: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B002GWKPOQ

 

Most recent posts by Pat Regan

All posts by Pat Regan