The New Year Starts Now
Or, maybe tomorrow. Perhaps in March. Definitely not before I finish this coffee
This is the email I promised you last week with all the details of the Zoom closing ceremony I am running for paid subscribers. But before I get to that…
Yesterday I was reminded of a very wise thing I once said and had completely forgotten about. It was this:
New year does not have to start on the 1st January, or even the 11th of January as it now is, you get to start it whenever you like.
I told you it was wise.
Our current calendar which bases the year around 12 months and dictates that it should start in the depths of winter is called The Gregorian Calendar and stupidly it had never occurred to me to wonder why. Of course it was named after a man, Pope Gregory XIII to be exact, and it was introduced in 1582.
Greg can’t really claim for credit for the calendar though as he was only reshuffling one created by another man, Julius Caesar, which had been running since 42BC. When I was reading up on our current calendar two things really tickled me.
The first is that the Gregorian calendar was created because it turned out that Julius had got his sums a bit wrong and slightly miscalculated how many leap years were required. The result was that by the time it got to 1582 the calendar wasn’t reflecting where the earth actually was in its rotation around the sun and so things like the spring equinox were not actually happening on the date that the spring equinox was supposed to happen. Now, I don’t blame dear old Jules for this. He was working with what he had at the time and I’m sure doing the best he could with the tools available. But it took 1600 years for anyone to correct his mistake. And I do have to wonder how many women in those 1600 years (because let’s face it, it’s women who are working out where we are in the month) pointed out that something seemed a little off and were just ignored.
The second thing that amused me was that when Gregory realised the calendar would have to be adjusted in order to be correct / make sure Easter happened at the time the church said it happened in order to stop anyone questioning the whole Jesus rising from the dead thing, he simply deleted ten days from October. One day it was October the 4th, the next day it was October 15th. Can you imagine how many Libras that must have upset? They love a birthday celebration.
While I generally wouldn’t recommend following the advice of a 16th Century pope, I do think there’s something to be gained from embracing the attitude that says it’s ok to just say goodbye to a period of time. We live in a culture which wants us to believe that time is constantly running out, that we have to make the most of every minute, that every memory is there to be treasured. But to that I say, meh.
Some days are worth remembering, some are not. Some months you feel like you’re zipping through life taking in every particle of it, others you wonder if perhaps you might one day fully fuse with your couch. I can definitely think of a few weeks I’d like to delete - the week in October 2006 which started with me drinking all the vodka and coke Newcastle had to offer and ended with me realising that it is possible to literally turn yourself green with alcohol poisoning would be one. My point being, it is ok to let periods of time go.
You see where I’m going with this, right?
So, I am holding a Zoom gathering for anyone who feels like they haven’t quite got into the flow of 2023 yet and wants to say goodbye to the past twelve months while clearing some space for the next round. Unlike either Pope Gregory XII or Julius Caesar, we will not be trying to bring rigid order to the calendar but instead we’ll be embracing our own timeline and leaning into the gentle grace that is this winter period.
Come along if you:
Feel like you haven’t quite got into the flow of 2023 and that everyone is rushing around trying new things while you’re still recovering from the last year.
Want to see what there was to learn in 2022 and have some space to think about what you want to bring forward into 2023.
Need to create a more gentle plan for the next year than the regular new year’s resolutions allow for.
Love connecting with other thoughtful women in a small group with space for everyone to be heard.
When: 7pm GMT on the 18th January
Paid subscribers, the details are below. If you’re not a paid subscriber and would still like to attend you can either join as a subscriber (it starts from £6.99 a month and you’re free to cancel whenever) or pay a one-off fee of £25 for the event. Email me directly on harriet.minter@gmail.com if you’d like to do this second option and I’ll send you an invoice.
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