By necessity the physical has become sedentary, that force that survived wartime and peace, disaster and reconstruction, triumphal success and embarrassing failure, endless joy and abject misery, immeasurable power and abysmal helplessness; whom scaled, traversed and then descended that great height betwixt life and death itself undefeated, deeply imbued with gratitude and scarred with contrition, finds himself suddenly corralled, shackled without guarantee of release in a perhaps splendid oubliette, yet dungeon nevertheless, quite suitably for a lover of pantomime and farce of his own design and choice.
I was jesting but a few days ago with a friend of some longevity that certain aspects of astrology excuse the pun are wholly impossible, for example that illusory phenomenon known as a retrograde. Physical science proves quite conclusively that a reversal of any portion of the universe would result in complete and utter collapse, effecting oblivion.
My tease was gentle, halfhearted, having at my core a recognition that the art of astrology, for art she is ne’er science, doth oft for wholly mysterious reasonings and magical coincidences ring true in the hands of a skilled and empathic practitioner.
We have perhaps entered a time outside of reason, beyond the scope of explanation and logic, where beasts of inordinate size or the most miniscule of natures may lay waste great nations, beliefs and peoples. Moments when the rules have no hard and fast edges, when facts and the most carefully contrived answers slip and slide as haphazard as polished runes cast upon a frozen lake. When certainty evaporates we are left with conundrum, when science fails we are entrusted to our deepest belief, when religion fails we are cast into the darkness from which we so recently emerged, paganism.
My roots are deeply pagan, murky and all but invisible through the concealing veil of time. Although raised stridently Anglican I was lucky to be instructed in each of the long-held traditions of spirituality than invest every portion of mine ancient and myth-laden land. Britons unequivocally follow two paths, the new, the open, the visible and the older, less obvious, darker, exotic, with an unrepentantly base undercurrent. Both coexist harmoniously, having specific strengths and weaknesses that are ever available to be brought into play dependent on circumstance. Anno Domini and Before Christ festivals can easily be celebrated on the same day by the same people, sometimes separately occasionally in combination.
The seeming casual integration of Christian and pagan calendars is a process that commenced from the earliest addition of Christianity to the Britannia lexicon of worship. A carry over from the latter days of the Roman conquest it allowed every sect, creed or denomination of citizen to gather in celebration united as one nation above all other considerations.
The departure of Rome simply removed but one spoke from the nations wheel of worship, that of the politically and socially unique Roman gods. Christianity and the multiple variable of pagan worship thrived combined, unadulterated and comparatively unhindered for several centuries. Even after rise to prominence of the Christian faith noticeable echoes of the old ways continued, by cultural repetition, by tradition, by linguistic connectivity, by curse and blessing, oft even by simple desperation when all other options seemed to fail. Paganism, natures accepted path, has ever been the fall back position for humanity, a place of comfort when all else falters or fails.
That the Druidic sect held sway over a raggedy conglomerate of disparate fiefdoms and tribes for quite so many centuries bears witness to paganisms unquestioned place ahead of all other esoteric religious convictions.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 