A Look at Janus
Two-Faced Guardian of Time & the New Year
As we’ve stepped into 2025 and left 2024 behind, we find ourselves in a moment of transition—a time that echoes the spirit of Janus, the namesake of January and the Roman god of beginnings, endings, and doorways. Janus, the divine Master of Time, is depicted with two faces: one looking back to the past and the other forward to the future. This duality makes him a symbol of transition and a figure of unsettling intrigue, perfect for the Grimrose Manor ethos.
In Roman mythology, Janus presided over all moments of passage. His likeness adorned doorways and gates, and his blessings were sought during weddings, births, and harvests. The Romans revered Janus as a protector and guide, especially in times of significant change. The new year was his domain, marked with feasts and sacrifices to curry favor and ensure a prosperous year ahead.
If you’ve yet to welcome 2025 with a ritual or tradition, consider this your invitation. Pour a glass of something celebratory, light a candle, or reflect on the year gone by. After all, the start of a new year is not just a flip of the calendar—it’s a sacred threshold, and Janus is the perfect patron to honor in such moments.
Unsettling, Indeed
But let’s linger on Janus’s two faces for a moment. While his dual visage symbolizes the wisdom of hindsight and the promise of foresight, there’s something inherently eerie about a figure that stares in two directions at once. In real life, “diprosopus” is a rare congenital malformation characterized by complete duplication of the mouth or of the entire face,” which brings to mind the kittens I saw online that might have been twins… (We’ll let you Google at your own risk.) In fiction, it’s a feature that has transcended mythology to creep its way into popular culture.
Take, for instance, Two-Face from Batman. Even adopting the moniker Janus in one storyline, Harvey Dent embodies the tension between past and future, good and evil. Disfigured and tormented, his split personality—visibly marked by a grotesque duality in his appearance—reflects the chaos of unresolved transition. He makes his decisions based on the flip of a coin, and he’s a cautionary tale of what happens when one face cannot reconcile with the other.
In Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children 2016 film adaptation of the book by Ransom Riggs, we meet young Claire Densmore whose “peculiarity” is having a mouth in the back of her head (filled with sharp teeth). She is otherwise a shy, cherubic girl with Shirley Temple-style curls, and it’s relatively unforgettable to see her eat a turkey leg with her backmouth.
And who could forget the Mayor of Halloween Town from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas? With his rotating head that flips between a cheerful, smiling face and a panicked, dour one, he embodies the duality of leadership under pressure. Much like Janus, he represents the balance of opposites: optimism and anxiety, confidence and doubt. The Mayor's two faces, while played for comedic effect, remind us that transitions—whether between holidays or years—are often fraught with conflicting emotions. His ever-spinning visage is a fitting metaphor for the whirlwind of feelings we navigate as we step into the unknown, making him another delightfully eerie reflection of Janus’s legacy.
Janus’s two faces remind us that transitions are rarely smooth. They are complex, layered moments, often carrying traces of the past into the unknown future. For those of us who revel in the macabre, his imagery is an invitation to embrace the discomfort of change, to see its beauty in the cracks and shadows.
So, as we’ve crossed this threshold into 2025, let us channel our inner Janus. Glance backward to honor what has passed, and peer forward with a mix of curiosity and caution. After all, even as one door closes, another—perhaps darker, perhaps brighter—always opens.
Happy New Year from Grimrose Manor.