Issue #38 Jan 2025
“It is necessary to have had all illusions and all disillusions.”
~ Gurdjieff
Hi
A long time ago, the year began in March. That was until Roman King Numa Pompilius (713–673 BCE), added January and February to a previously 10-month cycle that began in March. January is, of course named for Janus, the deity of thresholds. Janus was one of the few genuinely Roman Gods in the Roman Pantheon – they borrowed most of their Gods from the Greeks
It is said that during the conflict between Romulus’s Romans and the Sabines, Janus unleashed a boiling hot spring to repel the Sabine forces attacking the Capitoline Hill. This act solidified his role as a protector of Rome, commemorated by the ritual opening of the Gates of Janus (in the Janus Geminus temple) in times of war, symbolizing the city’s readiness for battle.
Depicted with two faces gazing in opposite directions, Janus embodies the duality of reflection on the past and anticipation of the future. As the god of thresholds, he was invoked at the start of rituals, marriages, and harvests, guarding both literal and metaphorical passages. Oddly his name gave rise to the word “janitor,” which originally had the meaning of “doorman.”
Incidentally, I recently read that 2025 is the final year of the Kali Yuga – an ending rather than a beginning, but a threshold year nevertheless.
Sincerely
RB
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When the dew weeps unseen,
The soul whispers its longing:
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Cheap are the songs sung in comfort,
The hands that labor not the clay.
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Self-observation, in its purest form, must be uncritical, a dispassionate witnessing to the inner workings of our being. It is the patient work of the Observing ‘I’, that quiet observer within, that allows us to begin to glimpse the fragmented nature of our reality.
We are, each of us, a multitude. A chaotic collection of I’s vying for dominance, lacking the unity of a true, integrated self. This internal discord, this inherent …
⥫ GURDJIEFF OSKIANO ⥭
Time and Its Dimensions
by Robin Bloor
