January, the Month With Two Faces
2021 means we have to be able to look in both directions
Janus, the double-faced Roman deity, gives us the name January
Or maybe not: Wikipedia points out that while “conventional belief” holds that the first month of the year is named after Janus, ancient Roman farmer’s almanacs said it was named in honor of Juno. But with one face looking to the future and one to the past, and being the god of “beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings,” Janus seems the clear choice for January’s Spirit of the Month. Anyway, who reads ancient Roman farmer’s almanacs?
The first week of January 2021 set many of us to whipping our heads back and forth with such velocity that we feel like we’ve got two faces pointing in separate directions ourselves. The tension between hope and dismay, progress and regression, creation and destruction has never been so taut.
2020, finally over. A new administration at last able to plan its transition to the White House. Coronavirus vaccines rolling out. After ten tragic and weary months, our forward-facing eyes scanned the horizon, eager to spot a brighter future even if we had to peer over the projected landscape of a dark winter to do so.
