At 10:03 a.m. on Dec. 21, we reached our winter solstice and what I think of as the real new year.

Apologies to the Roman god Janus, who scans both past and future in attempt to offer us balance in the precarious present, but his month arrives a little late for its new year purpose. Already on Jan. 1, we’ve added more than 100 seconds of daylight in our climb toward June 21’s day of maximum sun. It’s all about forward tilt then.

So the mythic figure I celebrated on the 21st is Sisyphus, and before we discuss his rock, which must be rolled back uphill to essay’s end, I want to explain why Sisyphus is also my “god” of land and water conservation — and its uphill work.

Sisyphus, one short version: King of Corinth, smart guy alive in and to a world of semi-bright, volatile gods who insist on “respect” above all else. (Still a familiar world, yes? Perhaps they were even orange-haired.) Sisyphus, when he came to die, was not impressed with Hades. Gray, dull, dim. Sisyphus figured a way to wheedle a temporary leave from Hades and revisit the glorious, green world.

Then he refused to return to hell on time. How disrespectful! We will condemn him to the eternal punishment of repeated meaningless work, said the gods.

“Here, Sisyphus, we command that you roll this rock up this mountain. When you get to the top, the rock will roll back down and you will go retrieve and repeat, repeat, repeat … and on. That’ll teach you (and everybody else).”

Today: It has, I think you’ll agree, been a long way down to our current environmental troubles. It takes effort to despoil a large, resilient natural gift, but the outsize of our world-gift fostered the illusion that it was immeasurable and always there. We’ve used up a lot of that gift, sullied many other parts.

Okay, most of us get that. So, here we are in this valley of our own making. And we have this uphill work on a slope that rises beyond sight. Scale asks for large, and we are little. Now what?

Dec. 23 offered a little answer: On that day, as Earth began to tilt back toward the sun, we got 5 seconds of added daylight. It made me giddy. The 24th was more generous — 9 more seconds!

Here, in year’s trough, I turned to my mythic companion and said, “Sis, what about the rock? It’s a lot of work.”

“It’s a good thing,” he answered. “Really, it’s the best. Here’s how I set my shoulder to it; here’s the purchase I feel for with my feet; here’s the force that gets applied. Talk about real work! I choose this. Every day.”

And that sent me off to my own rock. Here, a week-plus later and more than 100 seconds upslope, a letter written, a meeting planned, a tree visited, I feel the secure pressure on my shoulder. We are going up, my work-rock and I. Sure, we’ll reach a high point, marvel there at the June sun’s long gaze of could-be, and then the rock will say to me, “Okay, we’ve got more to do. Time to go back down. I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

And, sometimes daily, we will lose altitude, light, sometimes hope, until we reach another bottom. A day of rest, a shrug of shoulders; do we do it again? “Yes,” says Sis; “yes,” I echo. And together, on the solstice day given, we fit ourselves to the work. We go up.

Perhaps I have tried your patience with this personalized myth; perhaps its sine-curved repetition discourages. Apologies. But the repeats and implied follies are part of the point. Despite them, I (and you?) still get to choose this uphill work. And on days when the light is longer and rock and I are paused on some level spot up high, we get to look out in wonder at the ongoing gift of this natural world.

And then we get to put a shoulder to some work that may be useful to it. It is, somehow, apt and grand to have a rock for work partner. Here’s to the uphill of this new year.

Sandy Stott is a Brunswick resident, chairperson of the town’s Conservation Commission and its Steering Committee for the Restoration of Mere Brook, and a member of Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust’s board of directors. He writes for a variety of publications. He may be reached at fsandystott@gmail.com.