After ringing in 2014 with good friends, I was thinking on this first morning of the New Year about the annual milestones and celebrations provide a mooring for the passage of time.

Door in Geneva, Switzerland
Photo: PK Read

Actually, what I was really thinking about was how helpful it is to have regular markers, seasonal dates and observances to create a recognisable path through what might otherwise be an overflowing delta of uncollected life events.

Gate to the farm kitchen garden next door.
Photo: PK Read

I don’t mean clocks and calendars so much as moments like New Year’s Eve, an otherwise unremarkable night that acts as a passage from one time to another. And with it, the reflections on the past and resolutions for the future, as if the tools for constructing the way forward aren’t always ready and at hand.

Regardless of which markers we use in our own country or cultures, time and life flow forward at their own pace.

Layers of time in the Long View
Source: The Long Now

So, Happy New Year and best wishes for 2014, but also: Best Wishes for Now, all the time.