I bought this large ammonite fossil about 15 years ago. It was found in Morocco and is from the Paleozoic Era which was 350-395 million years ago. Ah, time!
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Measurements of time in such units as days, weeks, and years, are conceptual models that help us make sense of our world both individually and collectively. The Julian calendar with January 1 as the beginning of a new year was initiated by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582. It’s the calendar most of the world uses today. All of this is so common to us that we take it for granted – even the fact that we have to add an extra day in February every four years to accommodate a slight inaccuracy in the length of each day. It’s actually shorter by 10.8 minutes. I mean, seriously, who thought of that? And, pragmatically, just try to imagine what daily life would be like without clocks and calendars.
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As 2021 has progressed I’ve heard conversations where people say they cannot wait until 2021 is over so we can start a new year – as though the turning of the calendar will launch us into something different. Yet, while the bunnies that live under the shed in our backyard may notice the cycle of days, the seasons, and maybe even the cycles of the moon, they didn’t notice when the calendar shifted ‘the world’ from 2021 to 2022. Neither will covid notice. For most of life on earth, that shift from one year to the next is just another day in an ongoing stream of time.
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Even so, symbolically and ritually, for humans, the coming of a new year is a marker where we honor the past and have hopes for the future – and perhaps even make resolutions and set intentions for the coming year. This marker of time gives us a special opportunity to reflect and refresh as we continue to move into our always unknown future. And, simultaneously, even with all of our focus on our mental models of time and their usefulness in our lives, the greatest gift we can gain as we move into a new year is a deepening comprehension of how all we truly have is the present, this very moment – which lives outside of our mental models of time. What a precious gift it is!
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With that, Happy New Year!