What do we wish for this New Year? World peace, less pollution, a slowdown of the melting Arctic?
And, for ourselves, perhaps smaller, personal goals: a challenge met, a book read, a child encouraged, a neighbour helped, a health challenge overcome...
New Year's Resolutions date back some 4000 years to folk living in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. Resolutions in those days coincided with the start of the growing season (around March) and involved a definite element of bargaining with the pagan gods of the day. If those early people promised to behave well i.e. worship their king, pay their debts, then the gods would smile on them, crops would grow, and fire and flood might be averted! Fast forward approximately 2000 years to Roman times, when Julius Caesar declared that the beginning of the year was to be January, named after Janus the two-faced god who looked backwards and forwards in time and therefore needed to be mollified by sacrifices and promises of good behaviour in the year to come.
Not much has changed, has it! To this day, we also look backwards at the mistakes we've made over the past year and forward to our hopes for the new one. And we promise to do better.
Here's a wonderful resolution I came across the other day.
Perhaps you'd like to carry it with you?
Eat half
Walk double
Laugh triple
And love without measure...
Happy New Year!
We certainly need to learn to laugh a lot and love without measure 3 months on. Keep safe, Barbara x
ReplyDeleteThanks, Angela, you too! Extraordinary times... We're doing a lot of walking across Pyrford and Wisley at the moment. Course is drying out and looking good. Let's hope we get back to playing at some stage this season! Impressed with your art, by the way!
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