Happy new year’s revolution! Another orbit of our beautiful Earth home around our life-giving Sun.
According to the now widely adopted Gregorian calendar, January 1 is the day the Western world celebrates the new year.
It’s a time for reflection, connection and renewal.
If you’ve started 2025 reflecting on the increasingly monetised experience of the NYE spectacular, you’re not alone.
Look, I’m no wowser, but spending $7 million on fireworks seems so out of kilter with where the world is at right now. It also terrifies wildlife and domestic animals and causes pollution.
Planting millions of trees
What if we did something different to bring in the new year, like planting millions of trees together?
Without a natural cycle or collective anchor to moor to, NYE seems destined to be perpetually ‘bigger, better and more spectacular’ than the previous year. On this arbitrary day of celebration, excessive alcohol consumption also fuels a massive spike in domestic violence.
Historically, the date to celebrate has been rejigged a few times in response to collapsing empires and Christian stories.
It was Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 who designated it as January 1 at a time when witches were being executed, and it was heretical to even suggest the Earth was not at the centre of the universe!
Today, we know the mutual dance of the Earth around the Sun takes 365 days. Since spheres have no real beginning or end, if we kept religion out of it, we could theoretically choose any day as the start of the new solar cycle.
Or we could just be in perpetual celebration of the here and now. Every single day could be New Year’s Day. It’s quite a liberating thought.
Fun fact: to date our Sun is the most perfect spherical natural object in the known universe.
First Nations people do not share linear ‘arrow of time’
Speaking of circularity, if I’ve understood it correctly, reading Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors on this, the First Nations people of Australia do not share the linear Western ‘arrow of time’ concept.
Their temporal reality is circular, and has no beginning or end and hence there is no ‘new year’ as such.
The seasons, as we understand them, also do not serve as a basis for ‘linear metaphors of new life in spring and death in winter’.
While the concept of marking new year is otherwise a near-universal one, its timing is purely culturally determined and often based on nature and seasons such as lunar cycles, agricultural practices and celestial events.
The Chinese, for instance celebrate the lunar New Year as a family event on the second new moon after the winter solstice, so the date varies each year. It signifies renewal of life with the promise of spring just around the corner.
Year of the Wood Snake
2025 is the year of the Wood Snake, and is said to bring qualities such as resilience, wisdom and thoughtful progress.
The Persian new year Nowruz occurs on the first day of spring, and has been celebrated for over 3,000 years across the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East and beyond.
Nowruz celebrates peace, unity, cultural diversity, respect and harmony with the environment and is recognised as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage for Humanity.
The Māori new year celebrates the return of the Matariki star cluster in the night sky in mid-winter and is tied to their maramataka lunar calendar. Their observance is about renewal and the gathering of families to celebrate new beginnings.
Jupiter and Saturn
Astrologically speaking, we’ve also recently entered a new phase with the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the two largest planets in our solar system, in the air sign of Aquarius.
This conjunction has previously been associated with social upheaval and breakdown of old orders to make way for the new.
Astrologers suggest this new era will ultimately be a paradigm shift towards greater equality, community and humanitarian ideals, but the collapse of the old order will likely be chaotic and a rough ride.
At new year, people often say, ‘let’s hope and pray it’s a better year’. Well yes, but let’s also step up and make this a better year for humanity and our planet in any way we are capable of.
We are at an existential juncture with collapsing cultural systems and nature teetering on the brink.
‘Boo! Hiss!’ to Earth-destroying patriarchal fascists
My new year’s revolution is a big ‘Boo! Hiss!’ to Earth-destroying patriarchal fascists with their feudalistic plans, robots and colonies on Mars and a great big ‘Yay’! to Earth defenders, forest regenerators and people being kind and compassionate to one another.
Let’s aim for the sky together not endless ‘f*ck it lists’ keeping us all enmeshed in late-stage capitalism. Let’s make it our collective new year’s revolution to go forth with laser beams of love and peace in our hearts to repair, restore and regenerate this Earth and care for each other. Happy New Year every day of the year.
Jo Immig is a former advisor to the NSW Legislative Council and co-ordinator of the National Toxics Network. She’s currently a freelance writer and researcher.
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