7.21.20
JANUS
“In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of doors, gates, and transitions. Janus represented the middle ground between both concrete and abstract dualities such as life/death, beginning/end, youth/adulthood, rural/urban, war/peace, and barbarism/civilization.“
There were foretellings of your coming you know. You’re pre-written in my pages. I didn’t know you then, but I saw you in the image boxes. In the half-opened-half-closed doors.
in the way the weights of past and future forced me present. Fitting then, for your coming to signal the end of the war.
“Janus was known as the initiator of human life, transformations between stages of life, and shifts from one historical era to another. He is usually a two-faced god since he looks to the future and the past. Janus was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, and of one universe to another. According to some, he was the custodian of the universe but, to all Romans, he was the god of the beginnings and the ends, presiding over every entrance and departure
My garden’s suffered as a casualty of my recent chaos. Her branches are brittle, there’s a carpet of grass coloring the places life thrives. Thrive, being the keyword here.
I’ve tended these roots ceremoniously, lovingly. Sometimes compulsively. It was cathartic back then – back when the entire world was becoming entirely too familiar with the inside of their home.
Things are different today. I can tell by the way my car millage jumped higher this month than the past two years put combined.
I patch the stucco and paint the walls. I fix cabinets, lights, and doorhandles. This time the work happens from the inside.
My garden? She’s here, dormant through the heat, dropping passion-fruits of labor at my doorstep. Tangy and sweet – popping hydration soothing the raw, coating the swollen, calming the nervous system to arouse the body.
A dedication made evident in each handful of soil.
“He protected the start of all activities. He inaugurated the seasons. The images of Janus are strange and evocative; they seem to combine time and place with an uncomfortable intimacy. We tend to think of the present moment as the most real experience: the past and the future are unknowable or distant.“
Strange and evocative. Strange as in peaceful, strange like tender, like humble, human, kind. Strange not to crave the chaotic.
And yes, evocative. Uncomfortable intimacy paints your face rose, shakes your legs timid. Not your arms though. Not the way they wrap around my waist. not the way the guide my hips, move me like deeper than those hail circles in lake water….
“Yet, if we think about the hinges of our own actions in the moment, we do move in a constant cause and effect motion—past experiences influencing the present, then a future outcome. The more aware we can link the opposites, the more we can find our way with conscious results.“
It’s the human in us that desperately seeks to justify our suffering. The part of us that still believes we must pay penance for our past pain. The gridlock voice inside your head that says you somehow deserved what they did to you. For the record; we’re not entitled to any particular event. Emotional injustices included. All we truly own, are our feelings, for as long as they’re here.
So what if our wounds aren’t fully healed? Janus, Pentacle King, Keeper of Doors, Master of Transitions – if the past is truly over, and the future isn’t here yet…. right here, in this moment I could care less.