Friday, January 15, 2016

Christmas Forward Backward


from One Increasing Christmas
by Winifred Kirkland

"The study of Christmas as a shining date growing ever clearer and more significant in human thought, is the study of a dream. And the dreams of humanity are tricksy things to examine, not susceptible to argument or statistics. One may hazard only guesses into the subtleties of human wistfulness. It is a curiously interesting search to gaze far back into the dusk of history as slowly, hesitantly Christmas appears. . . .


"Still dawns yearly upon our human calendar an ever more beautiful Christmas. Clearer, brighter each year there glows upon the dark expanse of time the recurrent luminous picture . . . Before it, after it, extends the long, long fabric of dark days, fog-ridden . . . But steadfastly the glow of Christmas spreads forward, backward, upon the stretching murk of the years. . . . Back over the black mystery of old years, forward into the black mystery of the years to come,* shines ever more confident the golden kindliness of Christmas."


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*Kind of like Janus, the Roman god of doors, choices, beginnings and endings, with two faces, one facing forwards and one facing backwards, representing time, looking into the past with one face and into the future with the other.
Janus ~ January 8, 2010

January: Forward Vision, Backward Glance ~ January 28, 2011

Janus, Orpheus, Obsolescing ~ January 30, 2011

Fast Away the Old Year Passes ~ December 28, 2009


Left: "Janus" / Right: "Janus"- watercolour by Tony Grist

And currently on my Fortnightly Blog:
Perfect Twins: Going Out, Coming In

1 comment:

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