Welcoming the New Year

The winter holidays have always been a season of renewal. Civilizations and religions that long proceeded ours created permanent calendars to mark the moment the sun rose after the longest night of the year. At Stonehenge, the rising sun shines through a little rock – framed window onto a marker:

Welcoming the New Year at Stonehenge.

At other archeological sites around the world, it shines through narrow doorways, roof slits, special windows, between close pillars, or along the raised blade of a sundial. At our little moment of time, our recognition of the New Year has gotten delayed by 9 or 10 days behind the astronomical New Year, a complex compromise between politics, religions, and the desire for tidy calendar.
But it is still a time of resolutions, of revisiting goals, of looking forward to something better. If you would like some inspiration in this regard, the most elegant I’ve seen is Paul Hawken’s commencement address to the class of 2009 at the University of Portland, provided as a pdf.

While a decade old now, his speech is still 99% relevant, with one exception so glaring that it will leap off the page to you. Don’t dwell on it, this too will change. And while Hawken’s speech was aimed at college graduates, Greta Thunburg’s young voice has reached out across the world, an in-your-face example of what the youngest generation thinks of the world we are leaving them and what needs to be done to start repairing the damage.

Wishing you some green New Year’s resolutions, and the courage to follow through.