Happy New Year II

I am sure I wasn't the only one, when writing the date on a check this week (if you still use them as I do), who made note of the turning of another year. I also found myself wishing everyone a "Happy New Year". But what is it that we are celebrating?  Unlike the Mayans who ended their calendar on December 21, 2012 at that winter solstice, based on the Sun's apparent path through a particular spot in our galaxy, we are noting the passage of time in a calender system that has no basis in any actual astronomical event.

Should we care whether our celebrations are connected to our revolutions around the Sun or not?  Do we lose something when we have mandated turning points in time that have no connection to what is happening in the sky?  The ancients celebrated at this time of the year because they wanted to make sure the Sun would end its solstice (standing still) and rise back up higher in the sky. Epiphany, which we celebrated yesterday, reminds us that the Magi found the Christ child following a star in the sky. Easter is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox. Some of our celebrations are connected with actual astronomical events and some are not. It seems our January 1st "new years" are more psychological than anything else. If you had a "bad" 2012 then you are glad it is over, if you had a "good" one then you do not want it to end.

In any event, this time of the year makes all of us aware of the passage of time. In throwing out our old calender and starting a new one we naturally think of time as linear-one day, one week, one month, one year following upon the last.  Many of us got caught up in the Mayan "end of time" hype because we are used to this linear concept of time. One span of time ends and we suddenly experience fear of the unknown because a calender ends.

But there is another way to understand time-connecting it with where we are in space. The orbiting of the planets around the Sun and the rotation of the earth on its axis makes time cyclical. Ultimately time has to be coordinated with earthly and apparent Sun movements (as the Mayans knew). Even today, with the GPS system, scientists correct our clocks based on the earth's rotation. Historically time and space have always been connected. Einstein in his relativity theories has mathematically proved this to be so. The concept of time depends on the spatial reference frame of the observer. That is why in astrology we speak of the Sun making a revolution-because that is what we are seeing from our viewpoint.

If you begin to tune yourself into these more subtle nuances of our concepts of time, that time is circular, you will begin to understand that you have a "new year" at times other than January 1st.  Astrologers or cycles scientists understand this connection between time and space when we draw up charts for a moment in time in a specific location.  A new beginning occurs when any of the orbiting planets around the Sun "returns" to the place it was when you were born.  This means you have had one complete revolution-be it a day, month (Moon), approximate year (Mercury, Venus), 2 1/2 years( Mars), 12 years (Jupiter), 29 1/2 (Saturn)  and so forth, depending upon how long it takes the planet to orbit the Sun.  These are the planetary cycles beginning at a moment in time and where the planet is in space following through and ending at another point in time when that planet returns to the same place in space. Each one is a "new year" for you.

New beginnings are all over the news. Each new beginning is associated with a moment in time, when that new beginning is based on the Sun's apparent revolution or earth's rotation on its axis. No moment of time repeats itself exactly. The Constitution has mandated the day and time a new Congress opens each year, but each time it convenes the only planet that is approximately in the same place is the Sun, as the Sun returns to the same place in space (apparently) each year on the same day (approximately).

The 113th Congress convened last Thursday at 12:01 PM.  Astrologers, or cycles scientists, make a note of the time and draw up the moment of convocation for this new Congress in DC, which will be in effect until it ends on January 3rd, 2015. Everything that is going to happen in this Congress's life span is contained in the enfoldment from the moment of its inception. As long as we are here on earth we are under the spell of the Earth's rotations on its axis and in its orbit around the Sun. Space and time are coordinated. What happened in the 112th Congress will be different than what is going to happen in the 113th because it was initiated at a different time and the planets were in a different place. What happens in Obama's 2nd term can be seen in the chart for the moment his oath of office is take on the 20th at noon. His first term will end and a new one will begin.

January is named for the Roman god Janus.  He is the two-faced god looking backwards and forwards at the same time, from the present moment.  As Einstein developed in his relativity theories-time is dependent on where one is in space.  When an astrologer or cycles scientist sets up a chart using the time and place the action is taking place whether it be a baby's birth, a marriage ceremony, a new job, a new Congress, signing a paper that initiates a new endeavor, laying of a foundation stone for a building or an Inaugural oath, this chart represents the space and time continuum-the revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the rotation of the Earth on its axis.

We are a part of something greater outside ourselves that we have no control over. Whether you begin to understand and feel this unique relationship we have to the cosmos through  a 12-Step program, a yoga, pranayama or meditation practice, through a religious ecstatic experience or are given a spontaneous grace hardly matters.  What does matter is that we recognize and feel viscerally, the truth that our friend Marcus Aurelius spoke in the First Century-we are all made of the same stuff and connected with all that is was and ever will be.