The Latin phrase says that times change, and we change with them.  But the illustration reminds us that we can face backwards and might even gain an umbrella along the way.  This illustration encapsulates our Oddfellow approach to life.  We're reminded of a moment in childhood, when the family car was passing by a horrendously stinky paper manufacturing plant.  We suggested that everyone breathe through their mouths until we moved out of range of the stench.  Our kid brother — with all the wisdom of the eternal twelve-year-old — sneered derisively, announcing what was obvious to him, that we'd be inhaling the fumes either way.  We remained silent, too dumbfounded to communicate what was obvious to us, that just because one has to breathe it doesn't mean one can be forced to smell it.  So, too, in this illustration — just because the pony is charging ahead doesn't mean we can't look whichever way we choose and keep an eye out for an umbrella and medicine bag to make the journey more bearable.

From St. Nicholas, 1897.

"Only clowns try to find suitable clothes. ... And they turn nonsense into a sacred rite. ... [E]ven Art often fails to do for us what a clown does.  Laughter and tears together. ... With his tragic clumsiness ... he lurches out over the reality that we have lost.  When he grasps for support he grasps at fantasies, and when he stumbles he falls out of the world altogether." —Ernst Kreuder, The Attic Pretenders

The context here is that the matronly year 1866 is on her way out, with Father Time pulling her offstage like a kite as he pirouettes a segue; the new year 1867 enters downstage as a comely danseuse, ready to pas de deux with Punchinello.  But what caught our eye is the middle-ground action — two clowns maintain a tension/equilibrium (a precursor to Bosonic — er, Bozo-nic — string theory?).  One is bald and stout, the other bearded and gaunt, but they joke around (literally in circles) as a concerted comedic constant.  These clowns may be our favorite Yin/Yang symbol to date!