The Eagles and St Valentine's Day

DUKES FANS: As everyone in the civilized world knows by now, the Philadelphia Eagles won the 2025 Super Bowl and are champions of the National Football Legue. Sunday’s game was a dominating win-a “thrashing” a friend of mine called it-over the reigning Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs had won the last two Super Bowls and were looking to become the first team to win three Super Bowls in a row, something which has never been done in the 59 year history of the game. And going into 2026, it still hasn’t. I have been an Eagles fan since my childhood, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I loved the way the defense dominated from the first Chiefs’ possession. They totally shut down and bottled up the Chiefs. Yes, I love running backs and quarterbacks and wide receivers, of course. But I also have fond memories of Eagles’ defenses led by Reggie White, Jerome Brown, Seth Joyner, Brian Dawkins and the 1999-2007 defenses coached by Jim Johnson. It felt like I was watching those defenses again. I also loved the back-stories in the game. Chiefs coach, Andy Reid, had coached the Eagles and took them to the Bowl in 2005, where they lost to the New England Patriots. Carson Wentz, backup quarterback for the Chiefs, had been a starting quarterback for the Eagles several years ago. It was a good day for irony. One of the things reporters and TV commentators repeatedly mentioned was that the parade and celebration for the team from “The City of Brotherly Love’ was happening this Friday-Valentine’s Day. That got me thinking about a piece I had done on that holiday last year. Here is part of it: Valentine's Day and the Human Need for Story and Symbol “We are humans, and that means we are symbol making beings. And symbols can move us as much as or more than mere facts" Anonymous history teacher “Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.” Margot Asquith “In most cases, a good story connected to a strong symbol will last much longer and have more effect than any collection of mere facts.” Mac George Bundy, advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson This week we celebrate Valentine’s Day, a day dedicated to the ideas of true and romantic love. As in any culturally significant observance there are rites, behaviors, and symbols that mark the occasion. We are expected to tell people we care about that we love them, to give cards called “valentines” to people we care for, and ideally to play special music, to have special romantic meals, and to spend “romantic times” with someone. Cartoon hearts are seen everywhere, and the day is supposed to be all about the expression of love and togetherness. Of course, we live in a capitalistic and highly commercialized civilization, so there is always an economic interest linked to any such cultural observance. Americans spend more money on Valentine’s Day than on any other single holiday except Christmas. According to the website, Business Pundit, we spent over $ 25.9 billion dollars on the holiday in 2023, more than on Father’s and Mother’s Day combined. The cards, the dinners, the chocolate, and the flowers all add up. But to have reached that economic point, Valentine’s Day had to first be accepted as an important cultural idea. It needed to be embraced by us. And like any other strong cultural occasion, that means this day must be wrapped in story and symbol. The most accepted story about Valentine’s Day traces its origins to a Roman priest by the name of Valentine. In the late third century ACE the Roman emperor, Claudiu, was engaged in a series of unpopular and costly military campaigns, and he was having a hard time getting men to join the Roman armies. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families, so he summarily banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When what Valentine was doing was discovered, Claudius had him beheaded on February 14, probably in the year 278 A.C.E. He was later made a saint, became a martyr for the Catholic Church, and became associated with romantic love and marriage. Supposedly he wrote notes to people while in prison, signing them, “From your Valentine.” Thus was a story and a tradition born. Historians know that there really was a St. Valentine. But historians also know that there were at least three saints who were named Valentine. The Catholic Encyclopedia lists three martyrs with that name, and all are connected to a date in February. While that may seem strange to us, it is really not that surprising. Valentine, meaning, “having valor, righteousness, and strength,” was not that uncommon a name for Roman boys at the time. Just as happens now, parents then often gave children names that meant something: an ideal or hope. Historians also know that at that time there was a big February celebration in Rome called the Feast of Lupercalia. It was a pre-Roman pastoral festival dedicated to health, cleansing, renewal, and fertility. As a part of the occasion, the names of single Roman women were put into a box. Single men randomly picked a name out of the box and they were then allowed to romance the woman whose name they had drawn. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome many of these ancient Roman festivals were outlawed and/or converted into Christian fetes. In 496 ACE Pope Gelasius decided to put an end to the Feast of Lupercalia; he declared that February 14 would thereafter be celebrated as St Valentine’s Day, giving the day of his martyrdom a new meaning. People were to exchange simple gifts with loved ones such as grain, messages and flowers. The story of Saint Valentine sacrificing his life for love became a widespread and popular one, and he and the date of February 14 became forever associated with gift giving in the name of romance and love. Eventually the story of Valentine’s devotion to true love became joined to the one thing all great stories need: a symbol. The heart has been important as a symbol since the time of the ancient Egyptians. They saw it as the most important organ of the body. This was the place in the body where wisdom, emotions, personality and more were all joined. They also believed that it was an important vehicle through which gods spoke to humans. Yes, they knew about the chambers of the heart and that blood circulated through the heart; they actually performed surgery that removed the heart. But the circulation of blood was not the most important job of the heart to them; its supposed link to all things emotional and intellectual was. Greek and Roman cultures drew heavily from Egypt, so the heart became important to them as well. It was associated with emotions such as love, and by the 5th century BCE symbols on coins and in writings depicted the heart looking somewhat as it does on our Valentine’s Day cards, like a fat rounded” V” with two joined curves at the top. Some historians say that particular shape was chosen because it looked like the seed pod of a plant called silphium, a plant used as a medicine and as a contraceptive in the ancient world. Others say it came about as an attempt by early graphic designers to represent what the heart looked like in early medical texts. Regardless, by the time of the Renaissance that shape had become a symbol of love throughout Europe. And as Europeans went to other continents, they took their symbols with them. That heart shape eventually became associated with love in most parts of the world. This shape now abounds on all those valentine cards, in the design of boxes of chocolate, in TV commercials, and all over just about anything connected with love. The story had found its symbol, and the two would be forever linked. A great story, a great symbol, and now a great tradition.

The Meaning and Importance of Black History

DUKES FANS: As the issues of diversity and inclusion have been in the national news recently, I thought I would reprint a piece I did several years ago about Black History Month We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro IN history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world, void of national bias, race, hate, and religious prejudice. Carter G. Woodson, founder of Black History Month When Carter Woodson helped found Negro History Week in 1926, he had already accomplished quite a lot. The son of former slaves, he had graduated from Berea College in KY in 1903, earned a Master’s Degree in History from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D in history from Harvard, becoming the second African-American to do so. W.E.B. DuBois was the first, but Woodson is the only offspring of former slaves to receive a PhD in history from an American institution. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 and their publication, The Journal of Negro History, to support and encourage research into the history, culture and accomplishments of Negroes, as we were then called. He was particularly interested in educating young Blacks about their history. "If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated," Woodson wrote in "The Mis-Education of the Negro." He sponsored research, worked with other historians, conducted interviews with hundreds of Black about their personal and family histories, and more. He was not the only one; the twentieth century ushered in intense interest in documenting Black life. The celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1915 brought thousands of people to the Chicago Coliseum to see exhibits and displays on Black life. Out of that Woodson got Black schools, churches, organizations, and newspapers to include ways of getting information about Black history to people. Negro History Week caught on, went across the country, and eventually moved into the regular school curriculum of more and more public elementary schools. When I was in elementary school in the 1950’s we had Negro History Week observances at Dunlap Elementary School. Of course, these observances had become mostly about famous Black people who had accomplished things, and not Woodson’s desired look at the Negro IN history. But while I overdosed on George Washington Carver and Phillis Wheatley in school, I had Ebony and Jet magazines and the Philadelphia Tribune newspaper at home, Black owned and Black themed publications, that had listened to Woodson and provided that wider view. Things have changed over the decades, of course. The organization Woodson founded is now called The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), we are now not called, “Negroes,” and there is now a Federally recognized “Black History Month” instead of just a week. There has been much more scholastic and scientific published research, many more books and films, many more newspaper and magazine, articles and more. There are even numerous Black life centered museums and official Black Heritage sites across the country, including museums looking at Black WWII fighter pilots, Black firefighters, cowboys and pioneers, a Great Blacks in Wax museum, and much, much, more. There are also webpages turning up interesting and previously hidden or unknown aspects of how Blacks have been a part of this culture. This is particularly relevant now in the wake of all that is happening in 2025. It became clear that there is a lot Americans do not know, see or recognize about Black life, and in some cases, there has been a conscious effort to hide and/or erase information about African-American’s roles in parts of this country's history. There needs to be a more conscious and continual effort to change that. Over the past months web -searching and friends e-mailing me have brought to my attention some wonderful new information and insights my way, and it is wonderful as my understanding and knowledge continues to grow. History is never stale and “finished.” It always fascinating, often changing and evolving. I invite you to spend some time doing some investigation of places, web sites, museum sites, and more to see what you can find about aspects of Black life with which you are/were unfamiliar or unaware. I invite us all to go to make this a month more in line with Woodson’s goal of discovering, exploring, and looking at who we as Americans are in as broad a sense as possible. We all have a lot we can continually learn. There are plenty of places to explore, both within the Philadelphia region and nationwide. Surprises and new learnings await, sometimes painful, sometimes wonderful and amazing, and sometimes simply fun. Let’s make this Black History Month a month of wonder and discovery. Thanks. Websites: African-American Museumin Philadelphia https://www.aampmuseum.org List of African-American Centered Museums Nationwide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_focused_on_African_Americans The Philadelphia Tribune Newspaper: https://www.phillytrib.com The Association for the Study of African American life and History: https://asalh.org/ The African-American Firefighter Museum www.aaffmuseum.org Black in Walden: Black Walden Came First. Thoreau, After. Black Seminoles made their mark on Texas history

Benjamin Banneker and Bllack History Month

DUKES FANS: I was having coffee with some friends a few weeks ago, and one of them told me that he had been on a business trip in MD for a few days, and he somehow wound up visiting a place called, The Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum. He really was delightfully surprised by the place, and he asked me if I had ever been there. I was blown away; Banneker has long been one of my heroes, and my wife visited that place several times before she died as part of our regular Baltimore-Washington, DC long weekends. We loved walking the trails, seeing the recreated buildings, and visiting the museum.it. I have also become friends through my Quaker meeting with a woman who is a descendant of Benjamin. So Benjamin has been a part of my life since I first found out about him during my elementary school days. That also reminded me of how I had first found out about the Banneker site in 2016. I wrote about that experience in a newsletter back then, and I have reprinted it blow. Curiosity and Black History Month “The thing about Black History is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up” Henry Louis Gates “Black History is not only a separate history-it is American History.” Morgan Freeman It is February, and in schools, newspapers, websites, museums and more that means that it is Black History month, a time to place a special emphasis on the accomplishments, experiences, and importance of African-Americans in, to, and in spite of American history and culture. While I have some problems with how the month tends to be looked at in a lot of places, the month often provides me with opportunities to experience and learn new and exciting things. I look forward to a lot of the activities during the month because I often hear interesting interviews with fascinating people, see some wonderful art work, get introduced to musicians, writers, and thinkers I may not have heard of before, and get greater insights into an event, time period or a person about whom I knew a little. Such was the case Saturday, February 6th when I took a trip to Doylestown’s Mercer Museum to see a first-person presentation on the life of Maryland’s Benjamin Banneker, the great colonial writer of almanacs, astronomer, and a surveyor on the team that laid out the city that was to become Washington, DC. He has long been one of my heroes, and this program promised to provide me with greater details about him and his life. As a kid in the 1950’s we had Negro History Week, and as an inveterate reader and devourer of all types of information, I loved learning about things that were not part of the regular school curriculum or in my history books. I went to a majority black elementary school, and my teachers and parents nurtured my curiosity and encouraged me to read, ask questions, and to explore. I got my first library card in the 2nd grade, and the libraries at 52nd and Sansom, 54th and Media, 40th and Walnut, and 19th and the Parkway were sacred places to me. They and magazines such as Jet and Ebony were sources that gave me a lot of basic information on Black people’s experiences from all different times and places that were not covered in school or in the mainstream media. So I had known some things about Banneker from my own study. I knew he had written an almanac, created a clock, had surveyed the land that later become Washington, DC., and that he had an ongoing relationship and correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. But the Doylestown presentation offered a chance to see him portrayed and to have his life brought off the pages-to sort of encounter him. And there was a great chance that I could get more detail and learn more things that I did not know about him and his life. I was not disappointed. Bob Smith from Baltimore has made a career of doing what he calls, “First Person Presentation”, and he presented us with a Banneker that had a sense of humor, unbridled enthusiasm, curiosity, ingenuity, and an intense commitment to education and freedom. And I learned some important things about what it was like to do the work that Banneker did in colonial America-what it took to track and study the stars outside at night in all types of weather to be able to put together an accurate almanac, for example. Or how physically hard and uncomfortable it was to do the surveying to lay out DC. And how he had taken apart and put together a pocket watch several times until he could do it blindfolded, and then used that memory to attempt to build the first clock in the colonies. It took him three tries and two years, but he was able to create the first clock made in colonial North America in 1756. It kept perfect time until his death in 1806. The other fascinating things that I found through Bob Smith’s portrayal were details of Benjamin’s family and of the help of the Ellicott family, Bucks County PA Quakers who had moved into the Baltimore area to establish a grist mill. When Ben was 40 George Ellicott lent him a book on astronomy and a telescope; those fired up his enthusiasm and took his interest in astronomy to a new level. It was George's cousin, Andrew Ellicott ,who recruited him to be a part of the surveying team for the District of Columbia. The Ellicotts definitely played a big role in Benjamin’s life. I also learned a lot about his family-his grandmother was apparently an English indentured servant who had served her full term, was given land as the term of her indenture, and who bought, worked with, freed, and married “Bannake,” an African who became Benjamin’s grandfather. And Bannake’s son, when he was made an inheritor of the family farmland, included 6-year-old Benjamin on the deed, making sure he could never be taken and sold into slavery. and to complete the picture of Benjamin’s life and times there were also some colonial era tools, a printing press, a telescope, maps from the time period, and more. It was a fascinating look at an impressive person, some unusual people, and a special time. As the Gates’ quote above notes, truth is often stranger and more involving than fiction. Benjamin’s story makes that clear. For me seeing the presentation at the Mercer was also a chance to add on to that knowledge that I first came across as an eager-to-learn young person. And as I continue to read and haunt libraries and dig through websites and museums, I suspect I will find out more about this incredible individual and be led into other paths and interests as well. I hope that whatever your interests, questions and/or points of curiosity are that you devote some real time to feeding and nurturing them-to indulging that spirit of curiosity that seems so vital to human life. Museums, libraries and trips are especially wonderful ways to feed and nurture that spirit. And when we do that perhaps we can better make sense of the world around us and our role in it. It is definitely worth a try. Surprises and wonders await. (For more information on Benjamin Banneker go to: http://www.biography.com/people/benjamin-banneker-9198038 https://www.black-inventor.com/

Remembering Georgie Bonds

DUKES FANS: “All I’ve ever wanted to do was to be a cowboy and a singer.” Georgie Bonds This week and last week I have been thinking about and celebrating the life of the great Philadelphia bluesman Georgie Bonds. A member of the Pennsylvania Blues Hall of Fame, Georgie was a regular on the Philadelphia blues scene who seemingly came out of nowhere in the 1990’s to become one of the most popular singer/guitarists up and down the East Coast. I first heard him in the mid-1900’s at blues jams at The Barbary and later at Warmdaddy’s,and he blew me away. His voice had a clear presence that was both sweet and powerful at the same time. Listening to him sing was always moving and intense. The Dukes were fortunate to do a couple of festivals with him, and we got to know him. He was a genuine and friendly person, and he always had that big smile. And when he asked how you were doing, you knew he really wanted to know. He was outgoing, friendly, and real. Georgie had some health issues due to a medical error, but he was still upbeat and outgoing even as he dealt with the long term consequences of that event. He rode and loved horses, was a real-life blacksmith, and was a joyous soul in love with life. He passed away on last Monday, January 13th at the age of 72. Thanks, Georgie, for sharing your music and your love of life with us. Love you! (https://georgiebonds.com )

January Night Skies

DUKES FANS "In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity." John Burroughs, "The Snow-Walkers," 1866 Around 5:30 PM a wonderful curtain of darkness comes down and settles in, and for some 13 or 14 hours we are in the grip of one of the most dramatic and beautiful scenes on the planet-the winter night sky in the Northern Hemisphere. That seasonal combination of the absence of leaves on the trees, the sheer number of hours of darkness, the clear presence of so many constellations, and the visibility of several planets makes the winter sky among my favorite celestial happenings. Yes, there are nights when it is cloudy and not much seems visible, but even then the greys have their subtle shades and shapes that seem mysterious. And when the sky is cloudless, then things are amazingly stark and dramatic. Even in the city, nature's lights in the sky stand out. Some of the constellations are clear and almost shouting in their brightness: the Dippers in the north, Orion to the southeast, and Cygnus to the northwest are simply brilliant and delightful. It is a quiet gorgeousness up above us each night that beckons and pleases. For the past few days we have been fortunate to have had the first full moon of 2025 moon. The crescent and quarter moons give way to a new moon by the end of the first full week of January. The Full Moon was on January 13th, and this has easily and proudly visible for the past few nights and into the early morning. I am out most days by 6AM, and the moon is still proudly there in the northwest sky. Seeing it has been a wonderful way to welcome the day. This moon is known as The Wolf Moon. And that is supposedly because wolves are more active as this time in the winter, and their howls are more constant and pronounced. Visible, too, for the month is Jupiter, high overhead and also in the northwest sky. Venus and Mars are also visible during mush of this month; it is a month of extraordinary visuals. These are all treats and wonders for us to behold, and they all remind me of the wonderfully paradoxical position of humans in this universe. We are really quite insignificant when you observe all that is going on around and above us. I mean there is Jupiter or a comet, and then there is us. But we are also powerful because we can observe, think about and make some type of order out of all of this. We can even name these things. That too is amazing-we are simultaneously powerless and powerful. And we also get to stand back and enjoy it all. I hope you can all find some time to watch and enjoy the shows above us. Here is a link to a website that can help you find out and learn more about our magnificently wondrous January night skies. Get out, look up, and enjoy. The Sky Live https://theskylive.com/guide?geoid=4560349 ____________________________________________________ MLK DAY: A reminder that Monday is Martin Luther King Day of Service. Here is a link to a listing of service opportunities and celebrations in the Philadelphia area. https://volunteer.globalcitizen365.org/kingdayoverview?layoutViewMode=tablet

History is The Story Beneath The Story

DUKES FANS: “There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the development of society has been enormous.” Nelson Mandela “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people working consistently can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead The above quotes have been important to me since I first came across them years ago. They point out the fact that while our history books and history courses often focus on important people, most of what those people accomplished that made them “historical” would not have been possible without the actions, support and involvement of tons of people whose names we will never know. When I taught American and world history, I often told students that history is about story-what happened, why did it happen, how did it happen, and most importantly, who were all the ordinary people involved? How were they affected? What did they do leading up to the big event? Or just after it? To me, that is where the power and beauty of history rests. As the Margaret Mead quote states, it is the actions of groups of people and not just 1 “great person’ that makes history and makes change. We may symbolize or personify the story through a great person, but it is the work of groups and of the "ordinary” folk that played a huge role in making it possible. Kings, generals, and Presidents plan and try to make things happen, but it is the willingness of many ordinary people ,working together, that can lead to an event occurring. Yes, many times the events or actions are ones with which we disagree or did not wish to happen. But the involvement of the ordinary people was essential. And that involvement is especially essential to those things we support and need, particularly in the area of justice and social change. There are unknown folks and backstory beneath any historical event, and we need to realize and acknowledge that. Take the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example. People know about Rosa Parks’ refusing to sit in the back of the bus and being arrested on Thursday, December 1, 1955. But most people do not know that she had worked with the NAACP for years, was not the first black woman arrested in Montgomery for sitting in the front of a bus, and that she had, in fact, set out to get arrested. Most people also do not know that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was not really associated with the people who helped organize the initial meeting which led to that famous boycott. It was labor leader E.D. Nixon who tricked King into hosting that first meeting about Ms. Park’s arrest because King was new in town and the powers that be in Montgomery did not know him, and therefore, had no plans on how to deal with him. And the first boycott meeting happened, in fact, not because of King, but in large because of the actions of one of my favorite unknown heroines-Jo Ann Robinson. A long-time member of the Montgomery Women’s Council, a black group that had been advocating for change in the Montgomery transportation system for several years, she, several friends, and family members hand mimeographed-not XEROXED or photo copied-HAND MIMIEOGRAPHED- some 30,000 fliers Thursday December, 1st that were placed in churches, given to high school students, and placed in barber shops and other places on Friday, December 2, calling for people to initiate a one day boycott of the bus system on Monday, December 5th. It was the success of that Monday boycott that led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association and the full- blown Montgomery Bus Boycott that we think of today. I mention all of this because Monday, January 20th is an opportunity for many of us to be a part of groups working in small ways to help make things better. That Monday is Martin Luther Kings’ Birthday, and the Philadelphia area is home to the largest collection of service opportunities in the nation happening on that day. The idea is that ordinary citizens on that day can try to live out some of the ideas in the Mandela and Meade quotes about what it takes to make change. Global Citizen 365 is the organizer of many volunteer opportunities that help communities. If you are interested, please go to Global Citizen 365 to find places where you can be a part of those committed people helping to bring change. In these small ways, we can be a part of history. https://volunteer.globalcitizen365.org/kingdayoverview?layoutViewMode=tablet

Why Our Year Starts in January

DUKES FANS: “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” Bill Vaughan Human History, Ritual, and the New Year This Tuesday night into early Wednesday is a big time for most of the world. We are saying “Goodbye” to the year 2024 and saying, “Hello” to the year 2025. Here in the US and around the world there will be tons of celebrations, ceremonies, religious rituals, parties, and more as the majority of the world celebrates making this move from one year into the next. The parties and celebrations this year, though, will be very different from the wild revelry that is usually associated with this holiday. There are many post-COVID restrictions on what is allowed at public municipal celebrations-no alcohol is allowed to be brought in to the big New York City celebration this year, for example. Nonetheless, it will still be big and noisy. And billions of people will stay up until midnight to watch and to countdown the dropping of the ball. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are probably the most universally celebrated public holidays in the world. For most of the world, that means December 31st rolling into January 1st. That is relatively recent, though. For most of human history, New Years did not mean those dates, and in some cultures, it still doesn't. Seeing December 31st as "2024" and January 1st as "2025" represents the relatively recent triumph of the Western World's sense of time over those of other, more ancient cultures. The calendar with which we are familiar is less than 500 years old, and the idea of starting a new year in January is less than 3000 years old. And it is, when you think of it, strange to be starting a new year in what is for many parts of the world, winter. The idea celebrating a "new year" is not strange; it has been part of human ritual and tradition for thousands of years. The first recorded celebrations of a “new year’ come from some 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia, the civilization developed along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Iraq. This was the place most historians agree urban living, or "civilization", started. And like most religious and cultural celebrations of long standing, it was tied to what nature was doing at a certain time. Around the spring and fall equinoxes, when days and nights were of equal length, Mesopotamians celebrated both the planting (spring) and the harvest (fall) as days of renewal for the earth, and especially for the cities and their surrounding farmlands. “Akitu” was the name of the festival, and historians look to those ancient celebrations as the first recorded instances of regular, culture-wide celebrations of a “new year.” Of course, such celebrations are probably much older; humans did lots of things long before writing and keeping records were invented. But once farming and agriculture became mainstays of human activity large numbers of people simply had to know when the ideal times were to plant and to harvest; civilizations depend on that for their existence. So for thousands of years and in most cultures, it was spring that was viewed as the beginning of a new year. And why not? Flowers are budding, animals are emerging from hibernation or returning to feeding grounds and mating, and days were longer. That cycle of the seasons was noted and revered. The earth was being “born again” right in front of and around us, so celebrating that time as a “new year” made sense. This "spring-as-new year" idea can easily be seen in the practices of many religions, even today. Some of the most significant holidays-holy days-of many religions are in the spring. Like spring, Easter and Passover, are both about renewal and rebirth, actually and/or metaphorically. Knowing this cycle of the seasons was essential knowledge for us as a species, and humans have long built their most important rituals around our “essential knowledges." So how did we get from the cycle of the seasons being what determines the new year to an almost universal acceptance of January as the new year? What happened? In 46 B.C.E. Julius Caesar, the leader of the Roman Empire, faced a challenge. Empires control many peoples and many different cultures across many miles. To operate at peak efficiency, they needed an "empire-wide" sense of time, especially for trade, religion, and law. Julius invited Sosigenes, a noted astronomer from Egypt, to come to Rome and create a new calendar to unify and regularize the empire's sense of time. This astronomer moved the Roman Empire's calendar from the movable dates of a lunar (moon) based calendar to the more regularly dated solar (sun) based calendar. Doing this moved the start of the calendar year from March (spring) back to January. Further adding to the changes, the Roman Senate decided in 42 B.C.E. to honor the by-then assassinated Caesar by making January 1 a day of tribute to him. This meshed very nicely with Roman religion and symbolism, and it firmly implanted that date as the start of a new year across the Empire. The Romans already had a god of gates and beginnings named Janus, for whom the month of January is named. Janus was two headed, with one head looking backward and the other one looking forward. This became the perfect metaphor for the idea of a new year: look back at what had already happened and look forward to what is yet to come. January had become the start of a "new year" under what became called the Julian calendar. This lasted throughout the Empire for centuries. But as the Roman Empire broke up, when the new year started once again became a confusing mélange of dates. The Catholic Church, in an attempt to create a unified Europe, drew up a new calendar in 1582 under the leadership of Pope Gregory the 13th. This calendar, since called the Gregorian Calendar, is the one in use in most of the world today. It kept the new year as starting on January 1st, and as European Christian countries came to dominate much of the world, the new year's date around the world gradually came to be January 1st. Yes, there are still cultures and calendars which celebrate the new year at different times among and for themselves; the Jewish, Islamic, Chinese, and Baha'i calendars are all prime examples of this. (They celebrate the new year in the fall, summer, later winter, and spring respectively). But the regular, everyday world we all know, and especially the business and political worlds we know, now go by the Gregorian calendar and recognize the start of a New Year as January 1st. So this Wednesday will be the start of 2025, regardless of how out of step that is with most of human history. As we head into this next new beginning, I wish you all a time of thoughtfulness, hope, strength, fun, hope, good spirits, good company, and good food. These are worrisome and challenging times-no doubt about it. But we humans have faced such times before, and with faith, unity, support, consistent hard work, and especially through friendship and through community, we have endured and even flourished in some very important ways. That is also an essential trait of being human-we can often respond to hard times in some pretty remarkable ways. So whenever, wherever, and however you celebrate it, I wish each of you a happy and wonderful start to the new year. We all have a chance to make new history all over again. How about that?! Happy New Year!