I’ll begin by saying I am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I think they are a set-up. Or a greeting card invention. And I find the first of January arbitrary.

Out of curiosity I looked up a history of New Year’s resolutions. They appeared to have begun 4000 years ago with the ancient Egyptians. Their new year began in the spring, round about planting time, which makes more sense as a resolution starting time than the dead of winter when sensible creatures are still hibernating.

The wheel of the year, turning round and round, over and over, is a built-in system for starting new rituals and discarding what no longer serves. The moon’s cycles are good for baby-step resolutions: every 28 or so days is a new moon, notable in that you can’t see it. It’s an auspicious time to start something new, then see how you’re doing with it at the full moon, roughly two weeks later. Evaluate, adjust, repeat.

The year has natural cycles that hang on the two solstices and the two equinoxes. At the vernal equinox, the light and dark are in balance and the juices of the earth are rising. It’s a great time to rise with them. At the summer solstice, life explodes with both an embrace of and a farewell to the light. Whether we like it or not and most of us don’t, we know the dark is coming. In our own ways, we prepare for it. The autumn equinox when light and dark are in balance again, is a chance to choose what you will take with you into the dark. And finally, the winter solstice, the grand finale of the year is the best time to just be still and see what thoughts come. No lists, no plans, just let our minds wander. Depending on how much eggnog we’ve consumed, this is easy enough.

If you happen to miss those four yearly events, there are always the crossquarter days: Feb 1, May 1, Aug 1 and Nov 1, the days that fall midway between the solstices and equinoxes. February 1 (Imbolc in the pagan calendar, purloined by the church as St Bridget’s Day) is the time for lambing and the rising of the milk, a new beginning.

May 1 (Beltane before everyone and his uncle took possession of it) is the real beginning of summer, the solstice being the height of summer or midsummer.  In the Pacific Northwest, May is a busy garden month with the added attraction that so many flowers are bursting into bloom. It’s an orgy of color and fragrance that carries you to the solstice and in its own way is not especially a good time to plan but to enjoy the days. That should be the resolution in the height of summer and the dead of winter: enjoy the days, let them come and go.

Aug 1 (Lughnasadh, Lammas and my friend Anna’s birthday) is the beginning of the harvest, a time of great energy. And finally Oct 31/Nov 1 (Samhain, also known as Halloween or All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day) which marks the end of the harvest and  preparing for the dark.

By my count that gives us eight natural times to make resolutions, change habits, re-think, plant, learn something, try again. Twenty if you count the moons of the year. None of them are Jan 1. The year is forgiving. If you fall short of something you meant to do, there’s another six white horses coming round the calendar and you can ride one of those.

But if you are determined to make new year’s resolutions, make them realizable. Here are a few modest ideas:

On a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, you know how you do all the red pieces and then give up? For 2021, resolve to do the yellow ones, too. Then give up.

You resolve to try to not binge on a bag of Oreos? Pile two slabs of frosting between two cookies.  Fewer calories. It works the same to suck the coating and chocolate off peanut M&Ms and spit the peanuts out. They’re stale anyway.

I haven’t done those things.

Maybe for 2021, I will resolve to.