Radu said:
As for the astrological chart of the new year, I don't really understand why it is important, there is no real event going on, it's just a numerological thing, based on a human convention.
Actually, new years should interest astrologers because it is all about cycles and returns. Each calendar marked the begnning of its year based on an event, thus knowingly or unknowingly celebrating the approximate Solar Return of tht event.
I know that the convention of celebrating the new calendar year on the 1st of January doesn't show any returns or cycles, but that's because January wasn't always the beginning of the year. But take the Coptic Year for instance. It is calculated on the Solar Cycle and has its own months of course, but calculated on the Calendar Year it starts in September. Why? Because the Coptic Calendar was started to mark the end of a certain age of discrimination that Copts were subjected to during the reign of the Romans. Coptic Year 1 was the first year were dicrimination was no longer forced by the State, and later that year the Roman Empire was declared Christian. The Beginning of teh Coptic Year has its own religious cermonies in Coptic Churches
The Hijri Calendar that the Muslims use marks the Hijra (immigration) of their Prophet, Muhammed and is based on the Lunar Cycle. I don't know if it has its own religious ceremonies as well, but Muslims celebrate the New Hijri Years as a religious holidays.
I don't know what the Julian Year (which is the origin of the Gregorian Year) is based on to be honest. I know that 10 days were removed in 1582, but I don't know how the Julian Year was started in the first place. And judging by the names of the months, I bet it didn't always start with Januray. Notice the names of months 9, 10, 11, and 12. They're called September, October, November December. If you look closely you'll notice that Sepember means the 7th month (Spet = 7), October the 8th (Oct = 8 ), November the 9th (Nov = 9) and December the 10th (Dec = 10). Here's my theory without researching the matter. The Months had no names but had numbers. At points, Caesers and Emprorers called cerain months after their own names or names of gods. And just like days were taken out a certain months by a ruler to be added to the month carrying his name, I am almost sure that this is what happened with January. If September is the 7th month, then the year must have originally started in March.
Here's more about the Julian and Gergorian Calendar
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/GregorianCalendar.html
Anyhow, the bottom-line is that Gregorian Calendar is completely ruined and, unlike most other calendars, holds no particular significance. But since it is the most dominant calendar in the wrold, we still carried on the tradition of celebrating the return without knowing the return of what exactly. I guess you can consider New Year's to be the celebration the approximate Solar Return of happy family occasions on previous New Years'
A Happy New Year to All !