New Year’s celebrations have been with us for a very long time, seeing how the ancients have been paying attention to the movement of the sun, moon and stars for at least four thousand years.
For example, the Babylonians celebrated the beginning of the year with a great religious festival in late March, on the day of the vernal equinox. Not all countries or regions of the world marked the beginning of the year at the same time, though. Egyptians celebrated when Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, became visible. This was also the time for the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to flood and begin the agricultural year.
When the sun got out of sync with the calendar, Julius Caesar, ruler of the Roman Empire, added 90 days to the calendar in 46 B.C., and called it the Julian calendar. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII made a slight correction that gives us leap years, and it is the calendar that is used by most of the world. He also established Jan. 1 as the beginning of the year.
Nowadays, the New Year is celebrated around the world, and through the magic of television, we can watch many New Year’s celebrations as our world spins and travels through the sky. Fireworks in Australia. Silence and sleep in Iceland. Both caught on TV.
We are all familiar with some of the elements of modern New Year’s celebrations. There are parties, and drinking champagne or other libations, dancing and singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Again, through the magic of TV many of us Americans watch the brilliant Times Square ball fall 141 feet. The thousands who fill Times Square will count down those last seconds that will leave us in a brand new year full of expected and unexpected events.
Many of us enter the new year with a list of resolutions. I don’t make resolutions anymore, but it recently came to me that a wise place to turn for good advice in the garden would be Ecclesiastes. Some say this book of the Bible was written by King Solomon in his old age, but others name a teacher as the author, one who never names himself,
Chapter 3 begins, “To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.” It does not take us gardeners too many years to learn that there is a time to plant, and the time will come when it is time to harvest. There is no point to rushing out on the first glorious day that makes us think spring has finally arrived. If we want a good harvest, we must be aware of the season. We must be patient and we must tend to the needs of the plants until they are ready for the moment of ripeness.
“A time to be born, and a time to die,” the book continues. It is the plants I am talking about here. Seeds and seedlings planted at the proper time will send out baby shoots full of promise. That promise fulfilled, they will die, but they will leave seeds, or more roots and tubers. A new generation of plants will rise.
“A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which has been planted.” Here, the author reminds us again that we need to get busy at the proper moment in the spring, and that we had better be ready at harvest time, or it will all have been for naught.
“A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.” This year, I have wept over the floods in my garden, but there came so many floods that I could only laugh at the relentless rains. When faced with storm after storm, I began to turn the flood into a humorous story, joking, “Did I tell you about the year I grew toads?” I did mourn the plants that drowned, but acknowledged that there was time to dance over to the garden shop and try again.
“A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together,” the book continues. When we are digging and preparing the soil for planting here in New England, we will have stones to cast away from the planting beds. But we can later gather those stones to make a path, or a dry stream, or a sculpture. I think New Englanders often find creative ways of using castoffs of one kind or another.
“A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” It is not hard to joyfully embrace sunlight, flowering plants all abuzz with pollinators, delicious vegetables and the colorful blue jays, cardinals and goldfinches flitting through the trees and shrubs. Neither is it hard to sit in silence and feel the peace of the garden.
The final verse of Chapter 3 begins, “Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works.” I wish all men and women seasons of rejoicing in your garden this year.
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening since 1980. Readers can leave comments at her website: commonweeder.com.