Its DNA has many strands: good people, good food, relaxed conversation, genuine connection possible, a mixture of old friends and new interesting people, potential friends. It does not aspire towards perfection, and it appears effortless. Such a celebration is, in my experience, most often the opposite of show-offy. Much like lying on your back and looking up at the stars, when the chemistry is right, a celebration can be one of those times where we are not looking forward or back, not leaning towards the next thing on our to-do list, but rather relaxing into experiencing life as it is and saying, “This is good.” While Janus may not have understood the be here now thing, it cannot be denied that at its best, a really good get-together sometimes lets us slip into the blessed present. But the wisdom of the Roman gods did not much lean toward the more Buddhist-y / Eastern side of spirituality. Notice, though, he had no face for “now”, which is - moment to moment, second by second - the only time we ever actually have. Thus, he could look forward, into the future, and backwards, into the past. Not in the saying-mean-things-behind-someone’s back way: rather, he had two faces on either side of his handsome head. Janus, the Roman god who gave January its name, was two-faced.
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