 January
is named after Janus
(Januarius), the god of the doorway; the name has its beginnings in
Roman mythology, coming from the Latin word for door (ianua). The word "janitor"
came from the same word, originally meaning the gatekeeper or
doorkeeper. The Ancient (or first-known) Roman calendar, traditionally
attributed to Romulus, the
legendary founder of Rome, contained ten
months which were arranged as follows:
- Martius , March (31 days)
- Aprilis , April (29 days)
- Maius , May (31 days)
- Iunius ( Junius ), June (29 days)
- Quintilis , Fifth month (31 days)
- Sextilis , Sixth month (29 days)
- Septembris , Seventh month (29 days)
- Octobris , Eighth month (31 days)
- Novembris , Ninth month (29 days)
- Decembris , Tenth month (29 days)
They apparently ignored
the other two months because they fell in the middle of winter (did
that mean they didn't exist? go figure...). Supposedly, the
other two months were added later by the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius,
and the number of days in the year came to 355. To make the
calendar correspond roughly to the solar year, Numa added another month
every other year named Mercendinus, which added 22 or 23 days to the
year.
In the beginning, the
months corresponded exactly to the lunar cycle. A priest was
assigned to observe the sky each night, and when he sighted the first
sliver of the crescent moon, he yelled out that there was a new moon,
and the next day the new month started. The first day of each
month was called Kalends from the Latin calare (to announce
solemnly).
Holidays in January
- New Year's Day – January 1
- Independence Day in Haiti - January 1
- Handsel Monday in Scotland and northern England – First
Monday
- Three Wise Men Day in Latin America - January 6
- Ukrainian New Year's Eve, also known as Svyat Vechir -
January 6
- Coptic Christmas – January 7
- Plough Sunday in Scotland and northern England – Sunday
after January 6
- Coming of Age Day (成人の日, Seijin no
hi?)
in Japan – Second Monday
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States – Third
Monday
- Australia Day in Australia – January 26
- Republic Day in India – January 26
- Makara Sankranthi (Festival of Harvest) in India – January
14
- Auckland Anniversary in Auckland, New Zealand – Monday
closest to January 29
- Burns night in Scotland - January 25
- The uniting of Moldavia and Wallachia under the same ruler
in 1859, Romania - January 24
- January has become known as Change Your Profile Picture To
A Muppet month for Facebook users.
Here at the beginning
of our year, we should stop and contemplate: what is it we are
really looking for? What is it we really hope to
accomplish? Do we want to continue to be carbon copies of what
others have been or done, or do we somehow hope to become spiritually
authentic? And how do we plan to do this? I'd appreciate
your input on this question. I've often thought, what if we
totally wiped out our traditional calendar and holidays and started
from scratch, making up our own. What would we include, and
why? What if we came up with some celebrations and practices
based upon what's inside us and not on what's happening out
there? I realize that the traditional calendar was Roman, and the
pagan calendar is based upon the seasons and the moon phases, and that
in centuries past it was important for an agricultural society to
center their celebrations and rituals around the seasons. But
now, since most of us do not live in an agricultural society, what
should we center our celebrations and practices around? On a
daily basis, what is meaningful to us? I'll be giving that some
thought this week and hope you will too.
|