Hawk’s Cry

Time and History

It is the weekend of the Autumnal Equinox, a time of balance and transition. One of the major markers of time used by countless civilizations and cultures, along with the Vernal Equinox and the two solstices.

Our western culture wishes to see time itself as objective and unchanging. A day has 24 hours and each hour is exactly the same length as any other. This is not the only way humans have understood time, though. Some ancient civilizations, including Egypt, Sumer, India and China, measured time with the rising and setting of the sun. They measured 12 hours between sunrise and sunset, and another 12 hours between sunset and sunrise. This resulted in the length of an hour being different between day and night, and from one day to another. Feel free to read more about this at Wikipedia.

I did some esoteric study of the nature of time over the last couple years. I started at the point where I thought time was linear and constant, along with the prevailing thought of the western culture. Over the course of this study, I found that I was incorrect. Part of my study was with a God of time and a couple of other spiritual entities whom I will call collectively A.X. Here is what I learned and hope that it will help others in their journeys and that some may wish to expand or correct what I have found.

The Nature of Time

The truth about time is that it does not proceed in a linear fashion at all. It is fluid and proceeds in cycles, vortices, bursts and lulls. It is not just our perception that time is variable, but that is its nature.

This relates to how growth occurs. Growth and development in all things, including biological, technological, economic, etc., happens in spurts with lulls or declines in between. Children, for example, will go for what appears to be a long time “stuck” in a particular place developmentally. Then they suddenly go through a “growth spurt” of advancement, with another lull following or even a regression. Then another period of growth and so on. This occurs regardless of the teaching or “educating” that adults try in order to encourage a more steady and predictable rate of growth. As a result, we can view growth, advancement and change as a metaphor for time itself.

A.X. showed me that there is more to it than this, however. A better way to define time is that it is a pattern of events and their relationships. It is not a thing in itself, but simply an abstract relationship, or series of relationships. As a result, time itself has no form. We see these relationships between events as history.

The Nature of History

History is a tapestry or image of time. It can be used to see how events proceeded in the past and can forecast the future. It is the only way to measure time and to know where one is in time. For example, I could say that today is September 23, 2007. But what does that mean, really? It is simply an arbitrary date that is only given meaning when events are added. Events such as what you are doing today. Or that it is six years and twelve days after the World Trade Center towers fell. Or that it is the day of the Autumnal Equinox.

One difficulty many people have with history is whose history to interpret or what events are important. Some events are more important than other events. Important to us as individuals, as a collective society and as members of the human race. When looking back, for example, on the beginnings of World War I, does one look closely at a car that makes a wrong turn in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 as an important causal event, or simply one that is a chapter heading in the story? Was it a cause or an effect? Was it both? And does this event have much, or any, bearing on our lives today?

How do we consider our personal histories, discerning the key events that indicate where we are or where we are going from the “static?” Since nobody truly lives alone, how does one event that may be important in our lives affect someone else who was involved or a witness?

A.X. said that all histories interact to make a complete image. It is an image that constantly changes as events take place. This image has many layers. Some layers hide others beneath them and some layers are transparent enough for underlying layers to be seen. If you were to look at this image of history from one angle, you would see a story, a history. Change your angle or position the light differently, however, and a different history would appear from the exact same events. The difference between them is the relative importance of each event in their respective story.

Understanding Time and History

Knowing that time is fluid, containing many vortices, ebbs and flows allows us to forecast the future. It repeats itself, not exactly as before, but in a distinctive pattern that can be studied. We need to study the past events and interpret their relative importance to understand it. Interpreting history, though, is not an exercise of the mind. It is more of an exercise of the heart and of intuition. This makes it difficult for many people. Techniques that make use of intuition help greatly with this, including various divination techniques like tarot, runecasting and meditation.

A.X. told me that we can see and understand the patterns of events that make up our history and time with practice, intuition and an open mind. We can see where our actions are taking us and where they will likely lead us to in the future. Armed with this knowledge, we can decide to change ourselves or our actions if they are leading us in a direction we don’t want to go. It also can give us the confidence we need to continue if the path we are on will take us to where we want.

Whether we choose to measure time by the actions of a clock, the sun, the moon or the relationships between them does not have any relevance on the nature of time. The way to truly measure time is to measure it by events. If we make something important to us happen today, or something important happens on its own, then we will remember this Equinox. We will tell others that when the periods of light and dark were in balance, an important thing happened. Otherwise, this time as measured on the calendar and clock will fade into the oblivion of non-existence for us.