Everything Old Is New Year Again
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Hi hi. I’m so glad you’re here. Considering what I wanted to share to kick off 2025 here at the Rolling Desk took me down a delightful road of discovery. I’ll just say this road took me all around the globe. I’ll just say it made me think in a whole new way about new beginnings and the richness of connection in our sense of ritual and our striving. I’ll just say it reminded me of the beauty of giving ourselves grace again and again. I’ll just say, come with me, won’t you, on this road where “Everything Old Is New Year Again.”
The time or place of joy
At the northern tip of our planet, the sun rises on a new year just as earth’s axis has tilted as far from the sun as it will. As days begin to slowly lengthen, the Inuit, Yupik, Aleuts, Chukchi, and Iñupiat start their new year. Quiviasukvik, “the time or place of joy,” honors the sea goddess, Sedna, and appeases the roaming spirits.
A week later, the Gregorian calendar starts afresh. And on the same day, January 1, Japan celebrate Oshōgatsu.
A month or so on, the moon vanishes on the first lunar month. The tides leap. And in China, Vietnam, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, the year begins again.
Once, I looked down on a glacier from a mountain trail. I’d driven there on a road like a 100-mile canvas, painted by the earth tilting just so and the sun laying slanty rays across tundra and chlorophyll giving way to scarlet and sienna and amber.
The glacier was blue-white and otherworldly. It was either flat or hilly; no amount of screwing my eyes or tilting my head could make me understand.
Awww, I thought once I’d climbed down onto its surface. It it was undulating. To walk the glacier was to ride waves frozen in time. You could sense but catch only glimpses of the current far below. To keep from shredding your palms, you wore thick gloves. To keep upright, you strapped crampons to your boots.
At one point, I saw in the distance another group of four led by another guide. A line of tilted penguins, they went up a crest.
Listen, if you hike a frozen ocean and, when you come to an ice-blue pool still some miles from the path you’ll climb to the bus you’ll take to your van home, if you slip out of your clothes, all but your socks, and plunge in and then pull yourself up by a rope to keep from touching the sides, gulping sweet glacial air and then howling, you will have started anew.
My yellow is yours, your red is mine
Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, comes when the earth’s axis is perpendicular to the sun. During the 13-day Chaharshanbe Suri, celebrants light ceremonial flames. Saying, “My yellow is yours, your red is mine,” they exchange their weaknesses for the fires’ strength.
Next in the Gregorian March come Nyepi, the Balinese new year marked by a 24-hour silent meditation; Ugadi in southern parts of India; the Kashmiri Nerve; Gudi Padwa, the first day of the Hindu year; and the Sindhi, Pakistani, Cheti Chand.
In this season too, Bege Roch marks the beginning of the Saaldar calendar for the Baloch Hindu people of Pakistan and India. Sikh Vaisakhi celebrates the Punjabi Nanakshahi calendar. And the year is starting again in Tamil, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Assam, and throughout South and Southeast Asia.
Once, I sat on a beach hiding my tears. The water sparkled like diamonds. Palm fronds swayed in the blue sky. My daughter slumped on a towel. I buried my toes in the sand. I wanted to waggle my brows and say, “Wanna bury me?” I wanted to grin and say, “Let’s build a castle.” I wanted to pull her to me and say, “It won’t be like this forever, baby girl.”
I stood, pulling my shirt over my head. “Wanna swim?” I said. “I’m gonna swim.”
Listen, if you get up from the sand even though your tiredness is a lead cloak because you’re kind and you know the woman who gave birth to you is trying, and if you slip a small pink plastic donut around your waist and wade into shockingly cold water and then suddenly forget everything but dolphins and sea, so you kick your legs and rake your arms, moving toward them with all your might, twirling every so often to call back, “This is wonderful; they’re wonderful; it’s wonderful,” you’ll have started anew.
May the day be clear
As earth points its axis as close to the sun as it will, the year begins anew for the Kutchi people of western India. Ashadi Beej honors the goddess of agriculture and the coming of rains to the desert.
So, too, do the Serer people of Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania celebrate their new year, Xooy, in this season. And on the second Sunday of the Gregorian June comes the Odunde Festival, a street market held by the African diaspora to celebrate Kọ́jọ́dá “may the day be clear,” the new year of the Yoruba people of Nigeria.
When the full moon of July tugs at the tides, stretching and stretching the space between highs and lows, the Zulu new year renews.
Last week, my dog friend and I walked. I’d had a long drive in the rain. I’d had a blown-out tire. I’d had a moment of someone else’s road rage. I’d had to pull myself out the door.
The path through the trees was slick with rain and mushy leaves. “Let’s take this one, girl,” I said and forked right. Coco dashed past me, darted into the foliage, and popped up on a fallen log by my side. “Hey, Boo,” I said.
I’d been distracting. I’d not been reading the pile of literature that would fill my heart with the rhythm of language woven like silk and my head with connections like ah. Instead, I’d been following threads on social media. I’d seen posts on the regret and pain holidays can bring. People aching for forgiveness. People aching to forgive. Trains on parallel tracks that never overlap.
When we got to where the trees open to a field of saffron and a churning olive river, Coco paused, nose toward field and cloud, one paw raised. “What is it, girl?” I asked. “What do you see out there?”
Listen, if, when you get to the riverbank that smells of the business of geese and muskrats and wet and countless dogs, you put your nose to the ground and lift your leg at the perfect spots and then remember a particular joy and look between your two-legged friend and a pile of smooth rocks, so she’ll know to toss one into the shallow edge, and if you plunge in after it and then bound back up the bank, yelping in delight for another, you’ll have started anew—again and again and again.
Gift of jewels
When earth once again sits perpendicular to the sun, Enkutatash (“gift of jewels”) comes; a new year begins in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The heavy rains have ended. Girls beat drums and sing a call-and-response. The leader calls. “Lemlem,” the others say, painting in minds a lush green. She calls again. “Adey abeba,” they say, naming a flower the color of lemons that will spread across hillsides.
The northern hemisphere’s autumn (Gregorian November) also sees Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year; Chowmus, the beginning of the year for Pathans Kalasha of Pakistan and India; Bestu, the Gujarati new year; Losar, the Sikkimese new year; and Nepal Sambat, the Nepal Era New Year. And for some neo-Pagans, the ancient Celt’s Samhain marks the new cycle of the Wheel of the Year.
Listen, the earth will tilt just so again and again. The tides will leap toward the moon as it looks at us and at the sun or lap softly as we twirl. The days will curl in, tight and short and tender, or grow long and languid, telling time like teens. We who share this earth will follow our noses and remember particular joys. And we, who are human, if we are down and done or tired or uncertain, will fall down rabbit holes and despair and ride tracks that miss connections. We’ll guide and be guided and light fires and be refilled by hills turning yellow once more. And if we are anything, anytime, anywhere, and we want to, we can start anew.
Thank you for reading, for liking, for commenting, for restacking. You’re helping this post get to fresh eyes and start anew once more.
For the comments: What do you think of when you think of new beginnings? Were you as surprised (and delighted) as I was to learn you can find a calendar beginning all over again at every season of the year (I found new year’s celebrations in every month but May and August)?
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I love the idea of continued new beginnings and also I’m allowing for a slow start. In the dark of morning and evening I’m allowing my body to rest and recharge
This is exceptional Holly. Your writing is both powerful and catchy at the same time. I LOVE that you started the paragraphs with listen. It made me listen. Brilliant.
I am a sucker for a fresh start, the sense of new. When I was in school we were on the quarterly system which offered me four new beginnings. It took me a few years to get over not having that many fresh starts in a year🤣