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pattern of time
- Thread starter Bear Wild
- Start date
In some of my religious studies over the past year or two - looking into indigenous cultures and animistic thought - I was reminded about how our modern conception of time is precisely that.
Consider how recently the human species has made widespread use of timekeeping devices. More years back, I read this essay - Column: The Time Of Your Life - Paganism, Perspectives - on the Wild Hunt which shines a bit of a light on how obsessive tracking of time is largely a thing of the industrial revolution and afterwards. Biologically, our bodies have their own internal rhythms that most modern domesticated machine-time humans have been forced to circumvent or ignore. It's not healthy, but that's a tangent for another time.
Our ancestors - who didn't have time and space measuring devices - just didn't see either of these how modern domesticated humans do. There was just here and now. When it is all here and now, suddenly all the traditions about making sure you are minding your ancestors start making more sense, because ancestors aren't "back then" they are still "right here" and "right now" in the landscape with us. "Future" is like the horizon, "over there" but never reachable - walking towards the horizon there's still horizon. "Past" is like the ground under our feet, hidden roots but that can be dug up and examined, but only so far, and with great care. These kids of ideas were present in non-modern, non-domestic cultures that didn't have all these measuring devices.
All that aside, I tend to conceptualize time as both no-time and cyclical. It depends on where I am standing in the landscape. Some of that inspiration comes from study of the sciences, where natural cycles are prevalent throughout. Some of that inspiration comes from working the mystical arts, where time becomes considerably more wibbly wobbly and bendy than domestic human culture views it as. Some of that inspiration comes from studying indigenous and animistic cultures, who, as described above, really didn't think about time like moderners do.
Consider how recently the human species has made widespread use of timekeeping devices. More years back, I read this essay - Column: The Time Of Your Life - Paganism, Perspectives - on the Wild Hunt which shines a bit of a light on how obsessive tracking of time is largely a thing of the industrial revolution and afterwards. Biologically, our bodies have their own internal rhythms that most modern domesticated machine-time humans have been forced to circumvent or ignore. It's not healthy, but that's a tangent for another time.
Our ancestors - who didn't have time and space measuring devices - just didn't see either of these how modern domesticated humans do. There was just here and now. When it is all here and now, suddenly all the traditions about making sure you are minding your ancestors start making more sense, because ancestors aren't "back then" they are still "right here" and "right now" in the landscape with us. "Future" is like the horizon, "over there" but never reachable - walking towards the horizon there's still horizon. "Past" is like the ground under our feet, hidden roots but that can be dug up and examined, but only so far, and with great care. These kids of ideas were present in non-modern, non-domestic cultures that didn't have all these measuring devices.
All that aside, I tend to conceptualize time as both no-time and cyclical. It depends on where I am standing in the landscape. Some of that inspiration comes from study of the sciences, where natural cycles are prevalent throughout. Some of that inspiration comes from working the mystical arts, where time becomes considerably more wibbly wobbly and bendy than domestic human culture views it as. Some of that inspiration comes from studying indigenous and animistic cultures, who, as described above, really didn't think about time like moderners do.
Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
I remember reading spell of the sensuous by David Abrams which had a large influence on my perception of the world including the view he presented about time. I perceive time more as a spiral with the timeless repeating cycles along with a noticeable change each year. The center of the spiral is the otherworld which is timeless. Myths that are timeless reflect truth better to me than the history written with dates along a line the same way the dreamtime of the indigenous Australians is timeless. I also no longer see time and space as separate and the time and space form a circular flow of seasons and life and death.
The way I have seen things (like that quote about history) that often repeat themselves. The cycle of the seasons. The cycle of life: growth, death, decay, growth.
I look at time as circular.
☆Dreamwind☆
Active Member
Circular. Day, night, seasons, and life cycles all rise and fall in those patterns.
Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
In the center of all of these cycles is the otherworld where time and space are completely unified and timeless.