Resolve

Yes, I'll make resolutions as 2011 appears on the horizon. I too will "resolve" to do things better, to exercise more, to whine less, to be more grateful. I'll follow this tradition dating back thousands of years to be a better person. The ancient Babylonians, credited with starting the resolution tradition, are said to have most frequently resolved to return borrowed farm equipment. That's funny.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces this definition of "resolve" to a late middle English word that means to dissolve, disintegrate, or solve a problem. The ancestor of this word is the Latin "resolvere," which is composed of "re," which expresses intensive force, and "solvere," which is to loosen. So, ultimately my act to resolve is to forcefully loosen something. I like that definition. I'm going to forcefully loosen my attachment to anger, to sloth, and to excess. That sounds do-able.

Wondering why resolutions are typically made at the beginning of the year, I discovered lots of intriguing things. One is that the beginning of the new year has changed a number of times. Before Julius Caesar, the new year was on the vernal equinox, the re-birth of greenery in springtime. Caesar made January 1st the beginning of the year on his Julian calendar. That worked for awhile until a church council in 567 thought new year celebrations were too rowdy and so abolished January 1st as the beginning of the year. The new year was celebrated on a number of dates in the Christian world for the next 1,000 years, with Dec 25th and Easter dates sometimes being dubbed "New Year's Day." The milestone settled on January 1st in the 16th century. I think it's fascinating that bodies can make such decisions. Seems like tracking a new year along with the tilt of the earth would be the most logical.

Folks all over the globe review their lives at year's end and start a new year fresh. Resolutions are accompanied with lots of interesting gestures, from jumping seven waves, throwing flowers in the sea and lighting candles in the sand, to exchanging gifts, burning Christmas trees, kissing loved ones, and scrubbing the house. Noises are important in many new year's celebrations, including fireworks, noisemakers, and bells, originating, it's said, from the need to drive evil spirits away. A Buddhist tradition is to ring gongs 108 times, representing 108 human frailties. The Greeks ring bells 12 times, as they eat 12 grapes, representing the year's months.

One of the most intriguing new year's customs I discovered is wearing underwear of a certain color: Mexican women who would like to get married in the coming year wear red underwear and those who are pregnant wear pink underwear to bring good luck to the baby.

So tonight I think I'll join humans around the globe at this important pivot. I think I'll wear green underwear (to help me act more environmentally sound); I think I'll eat 12 olives; I think I'll jangle my new wind chimes 12 times; I think I'll kiss my sweetie and then my dog; I think I'll make firm my resolve to forcefully loosen three of my attachments. This will head me in the right direction for 2011.

Bringing Green In

Sitting in my living room, I am delighted with my view: curls of rope light across the big window, blue LED lights all along the roof line, and white sparks on the tree in the corner. This year I decorated our Christmas tree with peacock feathers, about 80 of them. Sprays of gilded artificial leaves and pheasant feathers dance with the peacock's rainbowed eyes, as do deep turquoise ornaments. It's a gorgeous tree, snugged up against the teal wall.

Such a fun custom, bringing greenery into the house this time of year. I love it and I love the long, long history of this act. Because the winter solstice occurs this time of year, many people have thought that bringing greenery into their homes would help bring the sun back. Some societies thought that the sun god was weakened by illness this time of year and hoped that celebrating the solstice would help the sun god "eat" and return to full health. Bringing the greens inside renewed confidence that the sun would grow healthy and that all plants (not just evergreens) would thrive again.

Numerous cultures celebrated this way, including the Egyptians who brought green palm rushes, symbols of life triumphing over death, into their homes, hoping that these would help the god Ra recover. Ra, with his hawk-shaped head, wore a crown that included the sun. The ancient Romans also decked their halls with greenery, to honor the god of agriculture, Saturn, in hopes that he would help their lands turn green and productive again. Druids and Vikings revered evergreen boughs, with the Druids decorating their temples with them as symbols of everlasting life and the Vikings honoring them as the sun god Balder's favored plants. European, primarily German, customs incorporated evergreen interior decoration as part of Christmas festivities in the seventeenth century and Westerners have loved the custom ever since.

Evergreens are such fascinating plants, decked out as they are for year-round photosynthesis and prepared to take on the harshest weather. Their diversity is amazing. My late husband used to train me to distinguish various conifers and I enjoyed the drills. He tutored me in needle shape and distribution (whorls were fun to ID!), bark, overall shape, top configuration, cone design and size, as well as location (north slopes most likely had some fir). Tamaracks (larch) were easy for me to ID in fall (bright yellow) and winter (needle-free), as were ponderosas (Grandfather trees) with their ruddy bark and long needles. Our house on the river had huge ponderosa pines, three stories high and as wide as the house. When they went through their August needle drop, we had mats of dried needles over the whole yard, the roof, the deck, and the driveway. It was wonderful. Though the pines dropped wheelbarrows full of needles each summer, they remained faithfully green all year long.

Evergreens: symbols of unending life. I like the idea of bringing evergreens into the house for the dark of winter's longest night. The greenery reassures us that the sun will come back, the plants will grow again. And, in this house, with 80 peacock eyes perched among the pine boughs, the reassurance is spectacular!