Here we are in January, the first month of the new year in our solar based calendar. Named after one of the oldest of the Roman gods Janus, the god of temporal transitions, he is venerated for being able to see both past and future. As women in this week’s online women’s group checked in with a gesture and a word describing their present state of mind they used words and expressions like “catching up,” “sorting,” “layering,” “resisting,” “spinning,” “finally resting,” I resonated with each of their words and the experiences they represented and remembered the image of Janus, on coins and statues–two faces on a single neck, one looking backwards, the other forward. It seems that’s what many of us are involved in as we finish one year and begin the next.
Coming back from the interruptions of usual routines, after shopping and gift giving, family celebrations and travel, we resume our former life while initiating new patterns, beginning new self-improvement efforts, start new courses or that book we’ve been wanting to read. We step to the rhythm of “this is the year that…” (we lose 10 pounds, begin a journaling practice, start a business, publish a book, <me>) and generally lay plans for the many months ahead. We also review last year’s goals and how we met them as we prepare to close out the books on 2022.
One of the challenges of this time of temporal transition, from the perspective of the art of grieving is that you may have experienced many losses in the past year, and the grieving for those is continuing as you look to create your new life. Fortunately, we can alternate between past and future concerns since, as grief walker Stephen Jenkinson suggests, “grief is a capacity. It is not something that disables you. We are not on the receiving end of grief we are on the practicing end of grief.” I tell myself and others that loss is common and frequent, and grieving is an art we need to get good at, even more so if we want to participate fully in new life experiences. Part of investing in new relationships, and acquiring new skills is to remember as we begin, that these too will end, as will we. In his book, Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, Jenkinson reminds us that “Death is the cradle of your love of life–the fact that it ends.”
