Our perception of ‘light’ versus ‘dark’ changes througout the year, exacerbated to a large extent by the physical process of the Earth revolving around the Sun. Through the year, the Earth rotates on an angle, yielding our seasons and changes in temperature.
And, depending on where you live in the world, the amount of light you experience on any given day.
But we know all that, don’t we?
December 21 happens to be the day in the northern hemisphere when the amount of light (ie. daylight hours from the sun) is the very least.
There’s a ‘pause’ of sorts when the amount of sunlight time doesn’t seem to change for three days.
The next day – December 25 – there’s a very slight, but noticeable increase in the amount of daylight time. From then on, we get more and more sunlight every day and can start counting the days before we should plant new crops, enjoy a little more warmth during the day and so on.
If it weren’t 2021, humanity might perceive the three day pause as a ‘death’ of sorts of the sun, and the first day of improvement could have been thought of a ‘birth’ of the sun. But we all know better.
Regardless of how we perceive these things now, deeply entrenched traditions remind us of the resurrection that once took place as our home planet soars through our solar system.
For millenia, we’ve made a habit of pausing around this time of year to celebrate parts of our lives, look back, but then also look forward.
We make resolutions and we set out to do a few little things to improve ourselves and the lives for those around us.
We make a commitment to ‘resurrect’ our own lives; dusting off ambitions, ideas and even basic acts of human kindness that might change the world around us.
The new Matrix: Resurrections represents a perfectly timed resurrection of that franchise, reminding us that a series of films and related short-stories is capable of obtaining new life. I haven’t seen it yet, but I look forward to the moment when the descending scroll of oddly-shaped light green letters on a dark green background push a new wave of nostalgia on me and Neo battles Agent Smith and others once again.
I look forward to change in my own life as well.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be touching up a number of draft articles and stories that I’ll be sharing on my site. They’ll zero in on all kinds of odd-ball subjects like mythology, cycling, music, travel, wine and food and more.
On December 31, the world transitions from the old year to a new one – with Janus, the two-faced Roman god that looks forward and also to the past is the namesake of our new month, January.
It’s customary to make a ‘resolution’ or two to improve yourself, and I’m not different. I actually have many, but I plan to focus on editing a number of songs I’ve written over the last year; write more on my blog and elsewhere; and re-educate in a wider range of topics, including Pacifica’s Ecopsychology Certificate and Cinema & Psyche. As I said earlier, different, but I’m confident they won’t be boring!
I’d also like to find some work to keep me busy as the world comes out of the pandemic state. I’m confident that Earth will experience a resurrection of sorts during 2022.