“We live our years in a courtly dance, circling through a roundel of sun, tides and seasons of body and soul that extend farther than our brief lifespan. We are ripples on a pond of incomprehensible depth. Every time we tell our story, we evoke the larger story. Yet for all the vastness of space-time and our littleness, we are not alone, orphaned. At threshold times, like the beginning of a year, in particular, we become aware of mysterious depths in and around us, of the pulls of time and tide, and of the backward and forward motion of generations coming and going. The word ‘January’ derives from Janus, the mythological god who faces in two directions. We, too, are left to look both ways, to straddle past and future, the known and unknown, to sense time and eternity as we begin the annual ascent toward Light. It is ours to live out our lives among these tensions in hopeful expectation that moments here and there will rise out of the grip of familiarity, break open, and, however fleetingly, become transparent. It is a long journey and we are often in a hurry to arrive, but, in the words of a Hasidic tale, we learn that sometimes we have to travel far to find what is near. All we know for now is that something of time and opportunity passes through the riverbed of our minds, drawing us into the widening currents of a year, and leaving us to a calendar of days that stretch out before us in a succession of beginnings – new each morning. For now, we follow the sun as it traces a hazy path through the cold skies of winter.”
{Excerpt from An Almanac For the Soul by Marv and Nancy Hiles}
Christine Mason Miller 