Janus is With Us

Restoration Anglican Church

We have just celebrated the birth of our salvation, his entering our hearts with the Holy Spirit, and the imminent return that we long for. Through the symbolic death of the year with its shortest day, and now the long, long cold. It’s cold, purifies, and cleanses, an extremity in temperature, but instead of cleansing by fire, it puts some of the cancerous imperfections into a slumber that they never awakes from. Now is the season of Janus.

Janus the primordial deity of transitions, beginnings, gates, time, duality, and doorways, the archetype of birth death, light, dark, male and female. One face gazing reflectively forever in the past, a melancholic meditation on long-ago mistakes, a regret of things not said, missed opportunities, potential lovers not kissed, an “I love you” not uttered before a sudden death. Janus the eternal and reigning king of hindsight, a keen eye on the things that should have been done, should have been said, and regret. However our month’s archetype is not simply a melancholic cliché; forever sad and beautiful, his other face stares forever into the future.

 He sees all, and evermore into what awaits; not just this future but other realities, dimensions and universes, one small choice having a cascading effect on infinite probabilities; thoughts, feelings, and actions spiraling out in endless cycles. Dominoes stacked and falling in infinite arraignments, more tiles and possibilities than there are connections in ones brain. The archetype that sees the architecture.

As one sits next to his hearth, fortifying himself with a peaty scotch, or a hearty stew during the long, long cold with its short days and purifying snow; may he not fall compulsively into depressive cycles of ruminations, but also planning for his future. 

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While the cold will make one heave a great sigh of relief to find oneself in the dark vault with the pale dead. The cold seeming to soothe all care, melt away every pain, comfort every sorrow, but alas The bright days of spring with the sun in the south at meridian which is the beauty and glory of the day await his plowshare.

January is the perfect time for reflection, the perfect time for planning, and the perfect time for resolutions. Make peace with those you have wronged, or those who have wronged you. Make peace with yourself. And love, love with all that you have,  for one day the archetype of doorways will compel you to enter and you don’t want to be an “I love you” not uttered before a sudden death.

The Awaiting

With the season of death and morning past us, which has opened our hearts for immense gratitude that our loved-ones and we ourselves haven’t answered the ceaseless calling of Santa Muerte, Baron Samedi, or better known as Death.

Our great Harvest, our American Eucharist has been celebrated though the national holiday of Thanksgiving. A time to set aside the mundane, profane, and appreciate kith and kindred, all the blessings God has bestowed upon us.

Now Advent is upon us, it’s not just Christmas, not just a time for materialism, forced family commingling with drunken pilgrimages to midnight mass, or all the other trappings that come with the secularization of observing the birth of our Redeemer. It’s a time for reflection, anticipation, and celebrating the three comings of Christ. A celebration and observance of his first coming over 2000 years ago, also the deeply personal, easily overlooked, and mysterious manner in which he makes his way into our hearts daily; the source of our salvation in the here and now. Just as importantly it is also his coming at the end of days when all of this pain is washed away, no more broken people breaking others, no more hurt people hurting others, a return to the way it was meant to be. You know that hole you feel in you right now? One day that void will be satiated.

Advent is a time for reflection and preparation, there is a nervousness in the air, a little anxiety that moves though like static electricity. We look inward and hope our souls are prepared. The Invincible Sun will rise again, the cancer will be burned away, and we will reunite with our creator. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.