Mercedonius
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”
For obvious (pandemic) reasons, I have been thinking about challenging conventions; about what we do the way that we have always done it but don’t really have to do that way (anymore). Granted, I think along these lines a lot—what can I get out of doing by looking like I am innovating how said doing is done and really just do what I want to do?
Like those sentences.
I like to question and reconsider—I am an academic. Well, I’m a researcher. Okay, I’m a poet. I have only 26 letters with which to describe and refine infinite variations on life, with which to make the ordinary extraordinary. I gotta repurpose.
Right now, I’m rethinking calendars. I do that a lot too, but this is different. I’m going big—not looking at time blocking or goal setting or a weekly plan. I am rethinking the organization of the whole year.
Why does the year start in January? Why does the new year start in the dead of winter? How can we be expected to seed plans for growth when the ground is frozen (at least in the northern hemisphere) and the sun barely shines? January is not the beginning; it’s the middle of the end. Who made this decision?
The Roman Empire and the Catholic Church, of course.
The lunar calendar loses steam—the paper year falls behind the seasonal year by about 11 days each annum. If not corrected, this adds up quickly—in 8 years, we can be off by a whole season. The calendar says it is time for planting crops but the sun has already baked the ground, so the powers of Rome needed to add days to catch the calendar up to the season.
The short month of Mercedonius was inserted between February 23 and February 24 every two years. Mercedonius lasted 27 or 28 days—so February 24 became Mercedonius 1st, February 25 never happened, and at some point we would find ourselves in March.
The Romans loved to fiddle with the calendar when it suited their purposes—calling Mercedonius to extend a senate term or shorten the tenure of a rival. 46 BC was 445 days long—Caesar had had enough and implemented a leap year system that kind of solved things, but made the years slightly too long. So by 1600-ish, Pope Gregory had had enough, too (he just wasn’t feeling Easter in July). Now we have a Gregorian calendar.
But still, why does it start in January?
Because it does. January is named for Janus, the Roman god of gates, bridges, and thresholds so it makes sense that he guards the entrance to the new year. But he is also the god with two faces—one looks back and one looks forward. He’s guarding the entrance, but he cannot decide if he is going through it.
Even Janus finds January intimidating.
We put so much pressure on January 1st for new starts, new beginnings. It’s one day on which the ambition of the whole coming year depends. And when are you setting those intentions for the new year?
In the drunken haze of New Year’s Eve?
During the food-addled, over-consumption of December’s various holidays?
After the frights of Halloween?
The last few months of the calendar year are packed with holidays, events, and distractions. We are settling in and breaking out the sweaters. Or, if you are enjoying summer in December of the year, you’re getting out and soaking in the sun. Either way, it’s time to double down on the moment, not look toward the future.
Why would I want to think about January and all the things that need to happen next year when I have pumpkin pie and/or a beach and/or a bottle of wine now?
In many traditions, the new year starts in March. The astrological year starts on the Spring solstice of March 20 or 21. That makes sense—we start with rebirth (spring/March) and cycle through the year to death (winter/February).
(Honestly, I’m all in for skipping February. It is the worst month ever—it always has been—that’s why the Romans further truncated an already shortened month when they created Merdedonius. That’s why Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow and scampered back into his burrow on February 2nd 104 of the 124 times he’s come out to look. February doesn’t have the icy crispness of January or the mythology of March (lions, lambs, ides), it’s just in the way. Like Ohio. Confusingly palindromic, oddly spelled, somewhat unpronounceable (Ohio, Idaho, Iowa, what?), and no one really wants to be there—February or Ohio—but you have to go through it to get anywhere.)
January 1st as a day of new beginnings doesn’t do much more than balance the pressure of the future on a time we least want to deal with it. It gives one day authority over the whole other three hundred and sixty-odd. I propose we forget about starting our new years in January and start each year not when Greg & Jules say so, but when we say so.
Disclaimer: While the day after December 31, 2021 will still be January 1, 2022, it doesn’t have to mean anything more than the difference between any other two days in the calendar—say April 28 and April 29.
Call Mercedonius.
Mercedonius is a floating period that allows pause between each year. It can go anywhere you need to extend a season or abbreviate one. Mercidonius allows us to ignore artificial and arbitrary external pressures, and work with our own ebbs and flows.
Mercidonius gives an undated planner purpose.
In my year, Mercidonius is inserted somewhere around Christmas and goes to March-ish.
December is a wash. Here in the States, the space between Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November) and New Year’s Eve should really be called Forgetaboutit. Even if you do not celebrate any of the multitudes of holidays packed into this month, chances are most of the people you know and/or work with do. They don’t want to do anything but clink glasses, eat finger foods, and buy stuff in December.
Janus is still in January looking forward and back, but without the pressure of an abrupt 1st, he is more reflective—thinking about what has come before and considering how to move forward. Reflection is something we tend to put toward the end of an experience, and not at the start of one. What is there to reflect on about a year when the year has barely begun?
February is about purification, shaking off the residue of what came before. February is the time to clean, clear, and discard what you do not want to take with you into your new year—like February.
The word Mercedonius means work and wages—effort and payoff. If we put in the time and settle up the accounts, then we’ll start to see what we have and how we can use it. In the corona, we can path our own circle around the sun.
Toward the end of Mercedonius, usually around mid-March, there is a day when I wake up in my new year—I won’t know the day until it arrives. I feel the energy shift with all my senses. The air smells different, my skin changes, everything is talking, and my writing becomes more urgent. I know my year has started.
However you break your year down, I encourage you to think about the events that lend rhythm, place, and meaning to it. Reorient your calendar to suit your needs. January 1 might be a good enough start for everyone else, but you’re better than that.
Call Mercedonius.
