contemplativeinquiry

The wheel of the year, particularly now, prompts me to attend to time and the blessings of being time-bound. In John Cowper Powys’ Porius (1), Myrddin Wyllt (Merlin) is an incarnation of Saturn, Cronos, Old Father Time. By the end of the book Porius its main protagonist understands himself as a devotee: “there are many gods; and I have served a great one”. Earlier he reflects on “a delicious human satisfaction, in defiance of so many austere and implacable metaphysicians, in thinking of Time, the alter-ego of crooked-counselling Cronos, as the creator of all the value and beauty there was in Space, if not of Space itself.”

This is directly contrasted with the view of the priest Minnawc Gorsant in the same story. “Upon what great word … does our Christian faith depend? … Eternity! … What eternity destroys – swallows up, rather! – is this contemptible, this miserable, this wretchedly human thing, Time!” Gorsannt goes on to assert that “the human race wasn’t created to be happy, or To be good, or to improve its lot. The human race was created, purely, solely, exclusively, arbitrarily, for the glory of God, and for that alone.”

If there is any meaning in the word eternity, it has proved to be the enabler of time, at least in this universe. Through time I am given life, relationship and agency, however transient they may be. They are the greatest gifts imaginable. If, at times, I also experience them as compromised, then I can look at negative experiences and their roots – physical, psychological, relational, social or ecological. I experience the ‘spiritual’ dimension as living in all of these, not as a separate realm. So distresses and dysfunctions need to be compassionately acknowledged, addressed, perhaps accommodated, perhaps challenged and transformed, at their own level. If I find myself seeing the world (rather than my limited and illusory sense of it) as a prison to bust out of, then something has gone very wrong, because for me there is nowhere else to go.

When I pay attention to the wheel of the year, I experience a day-by-day process where the festivals act as markers. They are not a prime focus, and I have even known them to become another way of being distracted from distraction by distraction. Following the wheel helps me to acknowledge both time and place. Whilst no two years are alike, this way of living in time emphasises the cyclic rather than linear, always with an ebb and flow, a dying away and (where I live, thus far) a promise of renewal.

The effect on me is to slow it down, localise it, and better allow me to discern patterns, rhythms and tides. I find it very suited to an earth-oriented eco-spirituality, and at chosen times it can become a meeting place between stillness and movement. Perception becomes richer and the desire to share this richness becomes stronger. It is a sacrament that collapses the distinction between sacred and secular. It is entirely dependent on time, If Time is a god, it is indeed a “great one”.

(1) John Cowper Powys Porius: a Romance of the Dark Ages Overlook Duckworth, 2007. Edited by Judith Bond and Morine Krissdottir, with a foreword by Morine Krissdottir. The first abbreviated edition was published in 1951.