A Year to Change - Step One: When to Start?!

As we all know, there are 4 seasons to a year, which is made up of 12 months, which total 52 weeks. The way I am organising my Year to Change will bear some relation to the seasons, and focus on twelve different areas, with a different specific task for each week, to be continued if possible throughout all the subsequent weeks.

So, the first decision to be made is when to start this 'new year' of positive change. 

The Roman and Julian calendars marked the new year as beginning on 1st January, as does the subsequent Gregorian calendar, which, since 1582, most of us in the West have followed. Prior to that the new year was celebrated in different European locations on different dates. The Astrological new year still starts at the Spring Equinox (around 20th March); the Celtic new year is at Samhain (31 Oct/1 Nov); and the Orthodox Church of Estonia begins its year on 1st September, with this 'Matin Hymn':

Christ our Lord, You who provide the rains and fruitful seasons,

and hear the prayers of those who humbly seek You, accept also our requests

about our needs and concerns, and deliver us from worry, danger, and sin.

Your mercies are as abundant as Your works. Bless all our activities,

direct our steps by Your Holy Spirit, and forgive our shortcomings.

Lord, bless the year with your goodness and make it a year of grace for all of us. Amen.

Today is 5th August. August, to me, is the last of the Summer months, a time of harvesting, so rather than start today, and despite the fields around us already having been ploughed over ready for the sowing of the next crops, I'm going to start my Year to Change at the beginning of next month, specifically, the evening of Friday 31st August. I prefer to think of 'days' as beginning with at sunset the evening 'before'.

Mucha: Autumn

Autumn is a time of transition between Summer and Winter, and September is the first of the Autumn months, the month of going back to studies and/or work after the summer holidays. September is also the title of one of my favourite poems by Louis MacNeice, from his Autumn Journal:

September has come, and it is hers
whose vitality leaps in the autumn,

whose nature prefers trees without leaves

and a fire in the fireplace.

So I give her this month and the next,

though the whole of my year should be hers

who has rendered already

so many of its days intolerable or perplexed
but so many more so happy;
who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls
dancing over and over with her shadow;
whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls,
and all of London littered with remembered kisses.

So, September it is, and rather than start with the easy and obvious one (Body - which can wait until after the feasts of the winter solstice!) I'm going to start with my Mind - and here's a song to start me off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEhS9Y9HYjU