Having lived close to the equator for decades, the Gregorian Calendar with its old year ending and a new one beginning, never seemed to make much sense, nor hold as much significance there, as it does now, living in the higher northern latitudes of mid Wales. Nearer the equator the relationship between day and night, light and dark, is pretty much equally balanced throughout the year. So, a more noticeably significant annual event than the end of December and beginning of January, always seemed to me, to be the arrival of the rainy season after months of heat and dry around the end of October to early November, when the unmistakable smell of the parched earth receiving the rain seemed like a sigh of huge relief. It was always a dramatic moment knowing that the much needed water was bringing life back with changes to the air as the dusty smoky haze cleared, and knowing that the vegetation would transform from dried up browns into rich verdant shades of green.
2023 was a funny old year that seemed to me as more disconnected and disjointed than many before. Some of this could be dealing with the continuous daily challenges of an SCI. The gift that keeps on giving. Ha bloody ha. In the outdoors, the first months of the year threw up dry months followed by record breaking wet ones and it looked like spring was having another early start when a bitter short sharp cold snap put a slight reset into place.. By June it seemed as if the heat was going to be overbearing, and we were having to water newly planted trees a few times every week, just to help them survive. Then the rain came back with a vengeance for much of the summer. This was great for many plants and the vegetables and fruit trees certainly enjoyed it, as did my water bill.
On a personal level I think it was a year of ‘‘latibulation’, meaning I hid from much of the world in my little corner, whilst trying to fathom even a tiny sense into the multiple crisis the planet is facing, without descending into total despair and at a loss for words into the scale and speed of the unspeakable violence being wrought against both human and other communities of life.
The weather in other parts of the world was demonstrating its power in different ways, signs and signals that the climatic system is teetering on the brink of breakdown. The climate system along with many other interlinked earth systems are flickering on the cusp of tipping points that might well prove irreversible and many of these at an accelerating rate. The Antarctic is melting far quicker than most climate scientists predicted which will impact the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current with far reaching effects, including on our weather here in Wales. That’s before we move onto the Amazon and Congo rainforests destruction, permafrost meltdown and so on.
These events seem to be normalised in the news after an initial drama to attract eyeballs, just until the next story is combined into the news harvesting machinery. These stories move on so swiftly to the next disaster, people simply don’t seem to grasp how dramatic and rapidly the planetary scale events are happening when measured against time cycles outside those of our own short lifespans. When these extreme events like fires and floods occur in faraway destinations it seems that for so many it is just one of those things that won’t really happen here and if they do it won’t be too bad and it will be fixable, with little thought of the future.
Anyway, the start of my 2024 was promising. The sky was clear at first light with a bright moon and little sign of rain. My bowels provided a tremendously satisfying start to the day and the Gregorian New Year, later followed by the morning spin around the lake with Yazoo who was happily occupied with a new doughnut-shaped ball. There was a brief spell of sunshine, the wind was almost absent, the air a few degrees above freezing. I noticed quite a number of rooks noisily squabbling around a rookery, readying to begin their latest breeding venture, and very briefly I caught the sound of a greater spotted woodpecker hammering away in the woods. Very early signs of spring.
The winter solstice in these higher northern latitudes also seems to be a better ending for a year than the end of December. It is the chance to start anew, when the sunrise has moved as far west along the horizon as it will get, hovering around the same place for a few days, a brief pause. ‘Sol ‘stit’, means, sun standing still. Standing still before starting to move back east again, together with a lengthening of days and the slow steady climb back higher into the sky, like the turning of the sea tide expressed by light. Or at least it is when the sun happens to show itself, so you simply have to have faith that this is what is actually happening for day after day, as the endless cloud cover has refused to reveal the sun for much of December.
So perhaps the word to begin 2024 with should be respair, originating from the 16th century, which means fresh hope and a recovery from despair. It is a lost positive, so we might do well to bring back more of such lost positivity into our language and our lives to make them more gormful, ruthful and feckful.
I’ll feckin’ well have a toast to that come rainy season, solstice or New Year!