My first tool is the dance of stars and planets. Western astrology is tied up with mainstream culture, and most of us learn our sun signs during the process of developing a sense of individualized identity. As a child, I was devoted to the three-line horoscopes of the Saturday paper, and after years of casual study, I've now come to appreciate astrology not as a quick-fix telescope for glimpsing the future, but rather as an opportunity to regularly meditate on how humble a human life becomes when held up against the backdrop of the cosmos. When a person pays attention, astrology is a lush ballet of massive celestial bodies that we can watch from our seats here on Earth, and a very complete set of archetypal frameworks that can be used to articulate and better understand the nature of being human. 

old familiar

My second tool is runic symbology. I grew up in the capital of New Iceland, which I told you all about in V.2, so although my own heritage is not genetically Icelandic, the cultural dynamic of my childhood was. The Viking Runes are a set of twenty-four symbols that date to the approximate stone age, and they came into my life with a little silver-and-gold book that fell off the library shelf and into my hands when I was a teenager. I love this system for its simplicity and solid earthy themes. The symbols all relate to plants, to water, to seasons, to weather, and, because it's Vikings, to the path and duty of the warrior, and the pantheon of Norse gods and goddesses. Some years back, I extrapolated from my knowledge base to design a runic cycle of the year, which sketches a fresh thematic shift for every two weeks.

oracle bones

The third tool is the Tzolkin matrix from the Foundation for the Law of Time. This system is loosely related to the Mayan calendar, and some of the jargon around it gets a bit hippy-dippy for my tastes, but it was presented to me by a very impressive person under some very unusual circumstances, so I keep it. I mean, when an ageless cosmic priestess travels with her donkey across a mountain range to deliver a full-colour instructional booklet that is helpfully written in your second language, the very least you can do is study the thing, right? It would be silly not to. 

spring forth

The Tzolkin is a synchronometer of twenty symbols, thirteen tonalities, four colours, and a great many portals of galactic activation. Every day is assigned a signature, the characteristics of which can provide optional guidance for how to approach the events of that day. There are thirteen moons of twenty-eight days each, and the calendar resets on July 25th with an annual "day out of time". Mostly, I like the colours. They're so pretty.

cracking up?

I've been paying attention to all of this for a decade or so, and now, I have a synthesized format and ritual practice for acknowledging the passage of time. I use my journal. I map out a month in advance, add details as they come to my attention, and generally take a minute in the morning and a minute in the evening to review the various swirling forces of the day and think about how I might manage myself and my activities to be in harmony with that and make good use of the time.

hindsight

None of it means anything. I know that. But really, neither does anything else. Faced with the strict facts of universal meaninglessness and the inevitable domination of the supermassive black holes, I believe that our task in this life is perhaps to simply find the things that we like, and enjoy them as much as we can. Choose the path, and it chooses you. This is what I like. I'm really enjoying it.

play time

The integration of these systems of thought with my daily life provides me with a sense of stability and rootedness that is anchored in time, rather than space. It's a useful thing for a wanderer. Throughout our hectic human experiences, a life on Earth will be basically defined by the boundaries of space and time, so I think it's nice to develop a personal relationship with these phenomena.

Do you have rituals or systems to frame the passage of time? Feel free to drop me a line and tell me about them.

pastime

In today's Sauce, we're sliding across and down to let the cruciverbalist out to flex and splash some colour on that newsprint.