Well, at least the current standard and practice of measuring time and how it affects us.
Our ancestors, thousands of years ago, didn’t have clocks to follow. They relied on the natural order of things to help them keep track: the moon, the stars, and the seasons to name a few.
It amuses me at times. To sit here and watch people, myself included, unfortunately, base everything on this idea of the time we all follow knowing that it’s all a man-made premise.
How old am I? How old are you? Who really knows? It was practically arbitrarily decided that XYZ equals the months, days, and years we follow.
Measuring time started out as a way to keep track of the weekly Sabbaths, but there was much debate on when this actually occurred. So modern timekeeping started to be used as a way to take “man and the creator” out of the equation. This was based on the lunar cycle. The most attuned way of keeping time out of man's hands and rearrangement of cycles is using “Atomic Time” which keeps its rhythm with the moon and the stars. This sounds fine to me, but in the end, it is still a manmade practice used to determine the passing of time, which continues to still be “tweaked” by leap years and the days in a month.
We have to follow these rules of time to keep managed and maintained. Everything is rushed or put off based on these principles. “We have a deadline to meet”, “you have two days to turn it in”, or “you have a month till you go on vacation”, and so on and so on. So with the way of things, you don’t get to really experience life by always looking at your watch or phone for when it’s time to do the next chore or go to the next place. Humans were not meant to be in these little uniformed rows following each other to the same cadence. We evolved from nomads that were always on untethered journeys. But now, “You have to be back at…” is what they always say when you go on a trip now. It gives that feeling like you have to make it back at that certain point no matter what, regardless of if you have to shorten your trip or the sights you wanted to see.
No, I can’t sit comfortably here and do this anymore. I’m of an age where my hair is mostly gray, my body hurts for no reason, and even sometimes just sleeping in a certain way will jack me up for days. I know by those measurements, I’m getting older. I don’t need your clocks to tell me that my 20s were 20 some years ago. I can see it in my face when I look into the mirror. I can see it in my kids as they grow older. The clock is irrelevant to these things.
It’s all corrupt. It goes along with the wonderful concept of capitalism. It’s really rather brash if I think about it enough. Just the plain idea of man’s audacity to try to control how time is measured is incredible.
I mentioned before you can follow or observe any of the natural ways to keep track of your time. The modern use of the clock as a means to regulate our days only really just began in the 20th century.
All of our occult kin have our methods and practices to pace ourselves, a tremendous amount of groups or practices follow the moon for most rituals just as our Native American friends and others track by its stages.
The druids built Stonehenge, Sailors used the stars, and ancient travelers could judge by the position of the sun. We as pagans and heathens have to keep this in mind to live our best life. We are not bound to the clock other than when we have to get our kids from school or get to our dentist appointments.
I mostly use the change of seasons to remember how long ago something really was. Like when I think of the first ritual I attended 13 summers ago, or that I have been with my partner these 11 summers now. I’ve found this can help to keep from being so distracted and miserable watching the hours tick away every day to relate it to the experiences that you have had since that certain event, or how much life you have to look forward to experiencing before going on that next vacation or having that next anniversary
Get back to your roots. As the stars and sun have their dance. They don’t care what day we call it, or what “time it is”. They just keep doing what it is they do… We should too.
Till next time.
H.B.VV.
The HellBilly Pulpit Blog by @hellbillyvvitch