Ever since 2016. we’ve been blaming our increasingly dystopic existence on the year. Remember 2016? Even before Trump was elected, it seemed like everyone was dying and we just kept blaming it on the year rather than a shift in the collective. Since then, it’s been “Screw you, 2017/2018/2019/2020” as if a simple flip of a calendar page would wave a magical wand over the unrest in our lives. As if time itself was Santa Claus.
All in all, the Gregorian calendar year is extremely arbitrary. Why should the new year start on January 1? Why not at the vernal equinox, when the astrological new year begins and when nature rebirths itself? Or in September, when the Jewish new year begins and we all sharpen our pencils for new learning, new endeavors? In my Ruby Intuition practice, I encourage people to behave as if their personal new year begins on their solar return, when the sun is in the exact position of their birth and there’s divine wind on their backs.
But you know what? That divine wind only helps us along our paths if we’re already moving in the right direction. So rather than expecting something external to change our lives—be it a calendar or a new president—we must accept that while we don’t have compete control over anything, we do have agency. The power to respond to circumstances–to decide how to spend time, money, energy. So it’s about staying practical and positive, receptive and proactive—about prayer and putting pressure on elected officials.
My personal new year takes place in the last degree of Capricorn, 19 days after the Gregorian Calendar begins. I’ve always loved that–it’s taken the edge off New Year’s Eve drama, granted me a balsamic period before I roll up my sleeves for my own reboot. The downside is that even when I was small this meant no one had the energy or will to celebrate my birth. January 19 is often the coldest day of the year, and it arrives when everyone is broke and and burnt out after months of holiday season partying. Usually I celebrate the occasion myself with lobster and champagne in the mermaid woods. I’m not complaining.
I mention all this because in 2021 I turn 50 on the day Donald Trump leaves the White House. And while I consider it weirdly childish to blame our problems on a given calendar year, I truly believe that the unprecedented devastation that began in March 2020 will not have a chance to end until this white supremacist reality king has been ousted once and for all. So for the first time since I’ve been alive, every American’s new year will begin the same day that mine does. Such sweet solidarity as I struggle on what recently has been a very painful pilgrim’s path. But you know what? Only if we meet the universe halfway can any of us really turn a page in 2021.
Ever since 2016. we’ve been blaming our increasingly dystopic existence on the year. Remember 2016? Even before Trump was elected, it seemed like everyone was dying and we just kept blaming it on the year rather than a shift in the collective. Since then, it’s been “Screw you, 2017/2018/2019/2020” as if a simple flip of a calendar page would wave a magical wand over the unrest in our lives. As if time itself was Santa Claus.
partying. Usually I celebrate the occasion myself with lobster and champagne in the mermaid woods. I’m not complaining.