On the F train home to this afternoon, my timing was perfect to catch the last direct sun rays -- to these parts -- of 2017 through the west-facing windows, reflected in pale pinks by the clouds, bridges, and buildings of Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan. To the east the Supermoon was on the rise to take over the Sun’s duties, sending its reflected light to Earth this New Year’s Eve.
The next sunrise will be in 2018, and one year from now it will 2019. But a year is not an entity, it is a quantification based on one complete revolution of the Earth around the Sun, marked by the 4 seasons, which are generated by the geometry of tilt of the axis of this planet. This circuit takes almost exactly 365 sub-units of 24 hours -- a quantity based upon the duration of one full rotation of the Earth around the aforementioned axis. Somewhere in Time that is universal and connected to Space, our conceptualization of time developed and came to include the principle that these 24 hour periods, “Days” if you will, would have seven names that repeated 52 times during the almost exactly 365-day cycle now affectionately dubbed “Year.” And after the passage of 12 named (by similar sentimental and conceptualizing humans) “Months,” occurring in the span of the “Year,” the name of “Month” one would be the name of the “Month” after the 12th, and thus we would have a “New Year.” And apparently will, in this sense, within a few short hours…
But if a cycle around the sun is a “Year,” it can start at any moment, so the day that dawns on January 2, 2018 can be thought to have its very own “New Year,” In fact, any cycle starting at any point in our constructed frame of time can constitute the beginning of a “Year” that will end in almost exactly 365 days…
Your year is always really going to be what, where and when YOU make it…
Looking out the window, it’s dark out. Happy New Night!
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