Happy New Year

Already into 2014,and still scratching my head, wondering what it all really means...

In the Southern Hemisphere, the calender flip in January, occurs in high summer. Winter solstice, signalling return of the light & traditional New Year occurs here in June, which means we are out of sync with nature's seasons, as indicated by a calender, formulated for the Northern Hemisphere.... or out of sync with the calender.... whichever way you look at it, it's confusing.....

I find myself making a distinction between the 2 worlds of Home & Hearth, and Business & Commerce, when actually, I know they are all one experience, and my heart yearns for some sort of balancing of dates that reflect the seasons... yet we must follow the rest of the world in times & dates, which are. after all, just human constructs, designed to make life easier in the first place...

Which brings me to think this may account for a sort of covert awe of old traditions, combined with a certain degree of skepticism, & even cynicism in an Australian psyche... feeling out of time, and out of place.... Not knowing if we are working forwards or backwards, and constantly having to change and adapt our experiences in order to reconcile them with what is supposed by the rest of the world to be "correct"...



When you're in high summer, and exchanging cards with snowmen and robin redbreasts, drinking a wee dram of warming whisky & singing Auld Lang Syne although might be 35 degrees and you don't know if the fireworks will be allowed at midnight due to high fire danger, New Year celebrations can feel a bit silly...

Like so many Australians, I am getting better at working backwards.... not following dates & times as much as getting a job done when it needs to be attended to, taking as long as it takes for completion...

So here's to a 2014 of deeper understanding, of seeing the essence of things, and of creating new traditions that include everyone.

Wishing you a very kind year, wherever you are, and whatever the season.