Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
The Great Rite of the Moment
In the end, the goddess and god of the witches are Being and Being-in-Duration: Mother Nature and Father Time, one might say.
And we live in the Great Rite of the Moment.
We think of Time as composed of Past, Present, and Future.
But that's not how the ancestors saw it.
Their archaic world-view is preserved in the English tense system.
The Old Language of the Hwicce—the original Anglo-Saxon Tribe of Witches—had only two “tenses”: past and non-past.
That's why we say I was and I am, but when we want to talk about what has not yet happened, we have to say I will be.
What was, was. What is, is. But for future, you need a “helping” verb.
The future doesn't exist. There is no future action: only action complete and not-yet-complete.
Snorri names the Wyrds Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld. In Old English, this would have been Wyrd, Weorðung, and Sceal. Today we would name them: Were, Worthing (“Becoming”), and Shall: not so much beings, as allegory.
In the end, the goddess and god of the witches are Being and Being-in-Duration: Mother Nature and Father Time.
And we live in the Great Rite of the Moment.
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