Calling all followers!

This is my last post. Yup, my very last. I will no longer be posting after today. No more posts for the rest of the year. My next post will be next year. In 2010. Fortunately, next year starts tomorrow, at least that's what the calendar says. So I guess that means you'll be able to see my next post pretty quickly. And now that I have your attention, I would like to request a favor. If this post appeared on your blogger dashboard, and you were able to click on it and arrive safely here in my blog, please leave me a comment with simply the word "Yes" in it. If not, let me know in perhaps a few details how you arrived here to read this. I am curious after I changed my URL, or "blog address", to see if everyone can still come and see me in the normal fashion. Now, with that out of the way, my last post of the year.......

New Year?

New Year's Day, comes once every year, the first day of the "new" year. The start of yet another day, another month, and yes, another year. But what about the day after that? Or the day after that? Can it not be said that that day too, is the anniversary of another year? The same day appeared last year on the calendar, in the same place, as did the Earth itself appear in the same spot in it's orbit one year earlier. What about July 2nd? It's the first day of the second half of the year, why is that day not celebrated as the grand and glorious halfway point?

My point is this. Every single day of our lives, or of the life of this little blue ball on which we reside can be thought of, from a certain point of view, as a "new year". Think of it like this. How many of us were actually born on January 1st? A percentage of the population to be sure, but for the rest of us, our own personal "new year" starts at a much later date on the calendar. Can it then not be said, again, from a certain point of view, that EVERY day on the calendar is New Year's day? It's the beginning of a new year in a sense for many people, and as I said, each new day is in fact the same day the earth itself was in the same position in space the year before. Well taking into account leap year, and deviations in orbital speed, ok, well, I'll  leave that one to the guys with a degree in orbital mechanics. What I'm really talking about here is the perception of "new" beginnings.

New Year's Day is the day everyone looks to as the beginning, when in fact if we stop and think, every day, every hour, every minute, and yes every second is the beginning of something for someone. Right now, on this, the last day of the calendar year, a small percentage of the population is celebrating their birthday. So for them, it's a new year. Some are getting married today, the beginning of their new lives together. There are probably people starting a new job today, for some of which may turn out to be a lifelong career. Still others are starting the process of obtaining a college education, which will lead to a degree. Every day of the year, someone is starting new. Next year, on this same day, they can look back and say, yup, this is the day it all started.

For me this thought process started with of all things, as one might expect, a glance at a calendar. Not your hang on the wall through that little hole calendar, but one of those fancy cover up your desk varieties that gives you the number of days that have passed in the year, next to how many days are left. Of course I got curious, and decided to look at my birthday, to see what "number" day I was born on. To my surprise, I found that it said my birthday was day 184, and that there were 183 days left in the year. Yes folks, that's how i discovered that July 2nd is the first day of the second half of the year, or it was that year at least. But it got me thinking. Did anyone know? Did anyone care? Why should January 1st and December 31st get all the glory? Or hell, why not break it down into quarters, and bring April and October to the party? Of course this is all pretty ridiculous, and would really get out of hand in a hurry, but my thoughts began to center on why the need at all to celebrate a "new" year? Clearly many days can be considered for the beginning. I mean why not make April 1st the first day of the year?

Now of course if you are a pagan, like me, you are saying, wait, hang on, I celebrate MY new year on Samhain. Not at all a day on the Gregorian calendar that coincides with the start of a "block" of the year, and not even close to the supposed "starting" point. But how many of us really do see it as our "new" year? This is my first year as a pagan, so please don't kill me if I am wrong, but it seems to me, just from reading posts here on blogger, that many pagans still actually celebrate the new year on January 1st. Granted it makes sense to do so, as it IS a new calendar year, and should be celebrated as such, but the gist of what I'm trying to say is more along the lines of not picking a day to celebrate, but to see every day as the start of a new year.

All in all it boils down to this. Let's celebrate the new year every day of the year, find something new to start, something new to accomplish, someone new to meet. Because someone like you, like me, is today considering this day, not tomorrow, as the start of a new year. And maybe we should too.