The Roman god Janus would have cranked up the classic Moody Blues album Days Of Future Passed, being a deity depicted looking ahead and behind, into the future and into the past.

Recorded in just four weeks in October and November of 1967, the collection of songs was released ahead of Christmas, everyone getting their first good listen as the year was turning into 1968. Days of Future Passed was one of the first “concept” records in the annals of rock 'n' roll. A great record to see any day or year out and any new day or year in. (It's a musical crime these guys aren't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame).

January was christened in honor of Janus, who was, appropriately enough, the god of doors and of gates. Of comings and goings. Doors and gates are important in our lives, and there are many of them, taking any number of forms and shapes. Physical doors and gates, of course, but gates and doors don't end there.

People, for example, can be the most crucial and influential doors and gates in our lives, a relationship with them opening new places within us, new possibilities. Jobs, too, can be doors. Books, songs, sermons, conversations, or a hug, the list of doors and gates is confined only by the way we look at the world.

But let's clarify. A door can be a door without opening-and some doors, yes, are better left closed-but, on a journey from one place to the next, they do no good if they are shut to us when we need to pass through them. The people who have the best impact in our lives have the effect of open doors. New places and possibilities mean nothing if the doorway or gate through which we must pass is closed, shut tight.

January 1 is a door that is open to us all. A gate thrown wide to make room for the unoccupied space it offers, the blank tape waiting for us to record our new year, our own days of future passed.

The year 2013 is a song unsung, awaiting our own notes and melodies-the things we say and do, the way we treat people, the way we treat ourselves. In 12 months, 2013 will be a record, everything we've done recorded.

Will 2013 be a hit?

A classic?

Those questions await our answers to the challenges and opportunities in the days ahead, answers we provide starting right now.

The red light's on.

We're recording.

So, let's get in tune with ourselves and in tune with those opening doors and gates on our journey through this life.

Let's move beyond the dissonant clanging notes that cloud and conspire against our choiring angels. We've played that dissonance too loud and too long. Or we've let it play us out of harmony with ourselves and others. Even worse.

Oh, and something noteworthy to remember about Janus.

The god of gates and doors, right?

Fine.

Okay.

But he wasn't the god of keys. Keep that in mind. If the new month or the new year seems to have shut a door or gate through which your future needs to pass, don't give up, don't give in.

Sometimes we've got to be our own door or gate. Or, if we cannot manage to be the entire opening it is crucial that we be the most important part of its construction and effect:

The part that believes we can get through.

Always, we can be the key.

And sometimes, if good fortune truly finds us, not for ourselves alone.

-JKW-