January New Year - Is It True?

I’m not one bit.

It feels like winter!

That’s because IT IS Winter!

It’s cold;

It’s dark;

I want to sleep;

I want to stay at home.

Do you?

All of this marketing about NEW this and NEW that! I’m just not feeling it. Are you? Surely NEW energy is springtime! Not January.

Have we been conned into thinking it is a new year when it actual fact we are still at the end of an old year? 

So I did a bit of digging .... 

And it’s fascinating what you can learn when get off the TV propaganda and you research stuff yourself!

So here’s some info to share with you and empower you -:

Did you know that we now use the “Gregorian calendar” which runs from January to December. 

Whereas we used to use the “Julian calendar”? And the new year started end of March! 25th March to be exact inline with spring equinox!

How amazing is that?!

But it all changed in 1752.

The Gregorian calendar was named after Pope Gregory XIII.

The Pope wanted to make changes and shuffled all the day’s and months to fit into his new idea.

If you think of the original Latin words you can see what order the months are supposed to be in... September means Severn, October is eight, November means nine and December means ten!! But they got shuffled to 9th 10th 11th and 12 months but their names don’t reflect this! 

How crazy is this?

And when the day’s and months got shuffled they needed to correct the new calendar by 11 days so September 1752 lost 11 days ! As it was decided that Wednesday 2nd September 1752 would be followed by Thursday 14th September 1752.

Crazy to just lose 11 days! 

Workers protested that they would lose 11 days wages but they were paid and so the phrase “paid leave” came about.

How mad is this information?!

And have you have ever wondered why the tax year in Britain starts on the unlikely date of 6th April, rather than 1st January? 

Mmmm I wonder why that is?

Well the official start of the year of the Julian calendar used to be 25th March and this was also the official start of the tax year. 

However the introduction of the new calendar and the loss of the eleven days in 1752 meant this date was changed to 5th April in 1753, to avoid losing 11 days of tax revenue!! 

Greedy tax collectors!

Another change was made to the date in 1800, as this would have been a leap year in the Julian calendar but not in the new Gregorian calendar. So again the tax year was extended and the date changed to 6th April where it remains to this day.

This information is SO empowering! 

So for anyone feeling tired or sleepy or wanting to stay at home (and not leap into a new year!) then you are in tune with the seasons and the animal kingdom, and Mother Earth! As well as our old Julian calendar. 

Surely these dark cold mornings and sleepy energy shows us how we are meant to be operating, being kind and gentle with ourselves. Early nights, cozy blankets, warming nutritious foods, meditations and lots of staying at home in the warm doing our healing and journaling etc.

The “proper” new year for me will be the spring equinox which this year falls on Monday 20th March in the U.K. And I’ve booked the day off! I will be then doing a new intentions list for the forthcoming 12 months and leaping into the new year! Planting seeds, and looking at blossoming!

Join me!

Obviously none of this means we do nothing at the moment, it just means we go with what FEELS right for us and NOT what our culture tries to dictate to us! As it’s all phoney anyway lol!

I watch my animals for guidance. 

My dogs are sleeping loads 

My chickens want to go to bed at 4pm.

My horses and ponies are NOT galloping around the fields!

All of my animals are eating lots of delicious foods and resting. 

But come spring they will all be playing and wanting to stay up late (laugh out loud).

So if this resonates with you then great as it makes such a lot of sense to me and makes me realise why I’ve never really felt this whole January 1st new year vibe thing. I don’t want to go out it’s too cold! But come spring I’m loving the birds back singing, the blossoms on the trees, the beautiful spring flowers and new life everywhere and I’m out! 

So let’s increase our self care, do what feels right for us and be in tune with nature 

And let’s start our new year when we feel it’s right. Which for me is spring equinox.

I send you love and empowerment!

Susie xx