New Year - New Beginning

With the New Year beginning just after the recent Total Lunar Eclipse on December 21st, which occurred on the Winter Solstice for the first time in 372 years (beginning just 14 hours after the total lunar eclipse), I am more aware than usual this year of the idea of new beginnings after witnessing such a beautiful event in nature. It's true, the promise of spring is on its way, former things are passing away and new things are soon taking their place. But it's difficult to tell during the darkest, or longest night of winter what has died and what will survive, or revive, and I can't help but feel a primitive sense of disarray.

Sully Erna: Avalon



What does the tarnished moon of a Total Lunar Eclipse have to do with the New Year? The word "sully" provides a clue. Sully means 'to soil, stain, or tarnish; to mar the luster of; to defile, or sully the reputation of.' It can also mean 'to become sullied, stained or tarnished.' The moon goes through a tarnishing phase during the total lunar eclipse, which was even more dramatic from where I observed it this time, with dark clouds also moving over the eclipse making it even more hidden, obscure and diminished.

In one description, tarnish was 'to diminish or destroy the purity of.' You could even say the moon was 'dead to rights, in the very act of committing a crime, offense, or mistake; (caught) red-handed.' The moon also became 'a type of copy, having been used or rejected.' The moon was 'out of play - a dead ball,' so to speak. The moon even appeared to be tarnished, showing an oxidized rust color. Not only did its color change, it began 'to grow dull, discolored and lose its luster,' 'to become hidden and obscure,' to 'deaden' (or just 'dead').

The moon was temporarily cut off from its direct source of light, its life, bereft, unresponsive, unplugged, 'completely killed' in the dead of winter, in the dead of night, in the period of greatest darkness and coldness. Fortunately, it also became "undeadened" or just, "undead" when it 'passed out' of Earth's shadow, and looked even more brilliant than before against the blackened-inky night sky.

More 'dead' references:

Not having a potential different from that of Earth; free from any electric connection to a source of potential difference and from electric charge;
Law: deprived of civil rights so that one is in the state of civil death, esp. deprived of the rights of property;
not fruitful; unproductive: dead capital;
without resonance; anechoic: dead sound; a dead wall surface of a recording studio;
flat rather than glossy, bright, or brilliant;
tasteless or flat, as a beverage: a dead soft drink;
infertile; barren: dead land;
without resilience or bounce: a dead tennis ball;
put out; extinguished: a dead cigarette;
sudden or abrupt, as the complete stoppage of an action;
complete; absolute: dead silence; The plan was a dead loss;
lacking the customary activity; dull; inactive; without vitality, spirit, enthusiasm, or the like: a dead party;
(as language): no longer in use as a sole means of oral communication among a people: Latin is a dead language;
utterly tired; exhausted: The moon felt dead from the five-hour trip;
not moving or circulating; stagnant; stale: dead water; dead air;
no longer functioning, operating, or productive: a dead motor; a dead battery;
no longer current or prevalent, as in effect, significance, or practice; obsolete: a dead law; a dead controversy;
(of an emotion) no longer felt; ended; extinguished: a dead passion; dead affections; incapable of being emotionally moved; unresponsive; lacking sensitivity of feeling; insensitive;
bereft of sensation; numb; resembling death; deathlike; not endowed with life;
inanimate: dead stones; no longer living; deprived of life...

these descriptions, along with any number of additional experiences of what it is like to be diminished or 'dead' in some way whether from rejection, reproach, shame, blame, failure, or other types of loss give an idea of what it is like to be tarnished.

This New Year 2011, like the moon's response to being diminished, shows the potential for all the dead things that were lost or diminished to revive, and like the moon that passed its test, to become 'undead'. Whether its finances, productivity, dreams, or just from being exhausted, the New Year can also be full of new life. With such a dramatic display of nature, I look forward to what the New Year might bring in, or back - and on the brighter side, the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus will be the brightest shining objects in the Southeastern night sky on January 3rd-5th, that is, unless the moon is near!

(Definition references from www.dictionary.com)