Hogmanay—Time for Seeing Both Past and our Future

HOGMANAY—Prelude to New Year the Old Way

Here’s a wee dochan doris
Jist a wee drap, that’s aa’
A wee dochan doris
Afore ye ging awa’                    

There’s a wee wifie waitin’
At a wee but-‘n’-ben
But, if ye can say ‘it’s a braw bricht meenlichty nicht’
Ye’re aa’ richt, ye ken

Winter sun enhances frost crystals from high cirrus cloud, to create light mirages

We just passed winter’s shortest day.
The solstice: solar ‘standstill’, the point when the Sun appears to come to rest at the center of the galactic plane. It seems to stand on celestial equator, pausing in time, moving neither north nor south.

Four winter solstices ago, we planetary travelers collided with Galactic Center on December 21st, 2012, when the Great Cycle Calendar of the Maya comes to full rest; pause; restart.

Time and Light or Bread and Circuses
The Romans—a civilization we liken ourselves to more as time elapses—became so tired of their outdated Julian calendar, adding days, subtracting nights, that they elaborated on the earlier pagan rekindling of Saturnalia—extending a Hallowe’en thru Christmas holiday period into ten days of non-time in the run-up to January 1st and the New Year.

Khronos, Father Time—in his human persona Aeon—holds zodiac wheel in balance for human race

This respected period of utter chaos, drunken festivities, carnival and masqued balls was known as Saturnalia.

Not to be confused with current Hogmanay in Scotland.
While the Scots may already feel repercussions, there are certainly more to come—in the Empire and in now-disintegrated Scotland, Hogmanay will live forever, whatever the climate. Rhyme at top is traditional toast in broad Scots to test if you could outdrink them. Translation for dummies in comment section, below.

This year’s solstitial preparation for the New is a good time for pausing.
For all of us:

To contemplate how much we shall change in the coming year—because the Human Race is changing fast and we have changed radically in the past year—
To give thanks for the road that brought us here to this point in space and time and for this moment—before plunging into the maelstrom once more—
To bless all those immediately around us NOW—as well as our loved ones far afield—absent friends—and family gone to fresher fields—
A time to remember and a time to look forward—

Time and Light are on our side.

Time Warp and the Magic of Seventeen

Perfect bowl-shaped crucible zodiac chart for Hogmanay eve—with Uranus outmaneuvering Saturn—presages a receptive year for 2017

Χρονος Kronos was God of and out of Time, Father Time

Κρονος A Titan who killed his father Ouranos—Uranus, Roman creator god
Both confused within Roman god Saturn.

KRONOS (Roman Saturn) was the primordial Greek god of time. In the Orphic cosmogony he emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation. He was seen as discorporeal, serpentine in form, with three heads—of a man, a bull, and a lion. He and his consort, serpentine goddess Ananke—Inevitability—enveloped the primordial world-egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea and sky. After this act of creation the couple circled the cosmos driving the rotation of heaven and the eternal passage of time

Kronos was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaic as Aeon—Eternity personified. He holds a wheel inscribed with signs of the zodiac and Gaia—Mother Earth—reclines at his feet, right. A.D.5thC. poet Nonnus of Panopolis described Aeon as an old man with long, white hair and a beard, below, but mosaic-art presents a youthful figure—above.

The figure of Kronos was essentially a cosmological double of the Titan Kronos/Cronus—Father Time. Confusing the heirarchy, Hellenist culture sometimes merged Kronos with creator-god Phanes, and occasionally with the Titan Ophion.

Χρονος /Kronos self-created master of Time

No wonder we in the 21stC are confused. Drawn irrevocably to the madness of twelve days out of Time—just enough to feed our inner spirit, before we have to step back into the so-called real world when January hits.

ThunderSnow four inches on the Coast Range; chains required. Freezing hail in Mexico, battling a weak tropical front.

Thundersnow! Even the weather forecasters have given up; while in California, agriculture and home farmers are grateful for any seasonal precipitation, to allow the parched earth some semblance of moisture catchup, before the growing season starts all over again.

Hope for the Human Race to begin again with new resolution?

There is no Planet-B

Coal-fired industrial smog shuts down Chinese cities Beijing and Hangzhou

Even resolutions can be broken. Two years ago the Western nations agreed to a climate resolution. There are many who are doing their utmost to stick to clear healthy living, with clean healthy energy.
And there are those who are not. Marrakesh Climate Talks notwithstanding, United Airlines, one of the last American flight providers to operate within United States, as well as internationally, has closed its service to northern University town Eureka/Arcata, but has opened two new flight services to mainland China.

The mind boggles.

As does our inner spirit—watching and waiting for us to catch up with our human selves in a real grasp of what we are doing to our Pale Blue Dot—our only home—until they colonize Mars.

May we—at least some of us—wake up before that. They say seventeen is a good number.
Happy New Year.
©2017 Siderealview