Is it really a 'New Year'?
quick note about time (because it’s not what we were taught). The date you see today isn’t neutral. It’s not “natural.” It’s an agreement. Our modern calendar is a patchwork of Roman politics, church authority, agricultural control, and later—industrial efficiency. Months named after emperors. Weeks sliced to optimize labor. Time standardized so trains wouldn’t crash and factories could hum. Useful? Sure. Inevitable? Not even close. Before this, people tracked time by what the Earth was doing. Light lengthening. Light retreating. Moons swelling and thinning. Seeds. Blood. Migration. Rest. Calendars once followed patterns, not numbers. We didn’t always live by “What date is it?” We lived by “What season are we in?” “What’s ripening?” “What’s withdrawing?” “What needs tending—and what needs to sleep?” When you feel out of sync, exhausted for no clear reason, or strangely energized when the calendar says you shouldn’t be—it’s not a personal failure. It’s a mismatch of clocks. Once, we sketched a different kind of calendar. One that followed tilt, tide, breath, and return. No months named after men. No weeks pretending every cycle is identical. Just orientation. Not to abandon modern time—but to remember there are other ways to keep it. Awareness begins when you realize: Time isn’t only something you’re inside of. It’s something that was built. And what’s built can be re-examined