Eddy Says

Eddy Says: Happy New Year

By | Published on Monday 21 March 2011

EddyTM

I always feel a little uncomfortable around 1 Jan. Almost everybody in the country I call home says “happy new year” without really thinking about it; and why should you? It’s something you quite rightly take for granted. Friends and colleagues alike, none of whom have a Christian bone in their body, are quite happy saying “happy new year” as all British people do, despite the fact that there is nothing new about the year at that time.

The fact is, it’s not ‘new year’ at all, it’s the worst bit of the ‘old year’, but we’ve become slaves to a daft Christian calendar. I sometimes find myself saying “happy new calendar” around January, because that is, essentially, what the first of January is. I wanted to write something about it back then, but it would have seemed churlish, like I was some sort of Grinch, trying to put a dampener on your celebrations. Of course, that’s not my intention. When somebody says “happy new year” to me, I take the kind words, for that is undoubtedly what they are, with the good grace in which they are offered.

The reason I write about it now is because this time it really IS New Year.

Think about it.

When did the year officially begin in this hemisphere before organised religion came along? When did ancient, pre-Christian, pre-Islamic people celebrate their new year? Actually, it was yesterday. The Vernal (spring) Equinox. In other words, the first day, after winter, where night and day are precisely the same length.

My mum is from a very old, pre-Islamic Iranian family, and this is the day we’ve always celebrated as New Year, in fact it’s the only ‘religious’ day we acknowledge and celebrate, as a family.

Just like Christmas, we always try to get together, the whole family, and eat traditional food and give little presents. In a way, it’s like Christmas used to be, before it became so vulgar and commercialised.

All Iranians celebrate New Year at this time, and so do many other religions and cultures. Some call it No-Ruz, or Persian New Year, others Pagan New Year, and there are some other phrases from different cultures, all of whom acknowledge that this is where the year really begins.

It’s my favourite time of the year. Britain is a lovely place to be at this time. When the daffodils are popping up, when animals start getting noticeably frisky, when the great, and I mean GREAT British summer lays before us, like a beautifully wrapped, unopened present you’ve been looking forward to for months. The promise of long days, warm evenings, a glorious abundance of fruit and vegetables and the greatest thing of all, for me, in this day and age… the British summer festival.

At this time of year, I look forward to the festies, so much. The Ewok forest at Latitude, the Oak Tree bar at Standon Calling, the flames shooting out of Arcadia, above the railway line at Glastonbury, the new Glade festival – which I cannot wait to see, and of course, the best one of them all, The Secret Garden Party.

By this wonderful time of year that has nothing to do with calendars and everything to do with how our world revolves around the sun elliptically, I’ve always sorted The Remix Bubble line-up for SGP, and this year I believe it’s the best yet.

While the main stage rocks to the sound of Leftfield, Blondie, Martha & The Vandellas, we’ll also take in Nero, Sub Focus, Andy C, The Whip and so much more in The Remix Bubble. Feel free to have a look, and, like me, smile with anticipation and the joy that comes with knowing you will have one of the best weekends of your life, again.

There are still some early bird tickets but they won’t be there for long.

Back to New Year, and for the first time in a long time, I won’t be with my family to celebrate it this year properly. I’ll be in Andorra at the Big Snow Festival, or coming back from it. If I was home, I’d be in my brother’s or my auntie’s garden. We’d build a fire, just a little one, and we’d all take it in turn jumping over the flames while reciting a rhyme. It’s beautifully old skool. I mean REALLY old skool, from the days when northern Europe was under a glacier and people in the Middle East worshipped the sun. The rhyme we each say out loud as we jump over the flames echoes the Christian concept you’re familiar with, of the new year being a clean slate, to begin again, or to improve yourself in some way.

If I translated it literally, it’d sound like gobbledigook, but idiomatically, the rhyme means ‘I’m gonna take all the shit I’ve had this year and I’m going to give it to you’ (‘you’ being the next person in the line ready to jump over the flames), so all of everybody’s woes are cumulatively passed down the line, with each person saying the rhyme as the flames lick their heels, and the last person repeats the mantra and dumps all of it into the fire, so we can all start the year with that clean slate.

I mentioned this on Twitter and Facebook this time last year, and had some people very sweetly do the fire-jumping thing, in the spirit of camaraderie. Maybe a few of you will light a candle tonight, just as a little acknowledgment of something much older than any religion on earth.

I’m telling you all this so you’re aware of just how special this time of year is. This week, even. There’s a glint in people’s eyes right now, and now you know where that glint comes from. Look back at the year you’ve had, and look forward to the year you’re going to have. Today is the first day of it, and I wish each and every one of you the happiest one yet.

X eddy



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