Reflections on Time

On September 7, 2018September 7, 2018 By Cynthia ThinnesIn Cats, Diary, Philosophy/Metaphysics, Ponderings and Reflections, Time

Time is an interesting thing. I have been thinking a lot about time recently. In the Filianic calender, we have just entered Autumn, and the Autumnal Equinox is just around the corner. Traditionally, this is when we reflect on our lives and where we are going.

This has been a strange year for me. Spring started late, and the summer has been very hot. I have been busy working on building my blogs and trying to develop my astrology practice, so I have not really been able to keep up with the garden. As a result, there is not much in the way of a harvest this year. It has been over 5 years since I closed my former business and almost 3 years since my grandmother passed away. I have spent much of that time heavily immersed in studying Japanese, and this year seems to be a slow reentry into the outside world.

It is easy to become filled with regret over things that might have been, if only… If only I had done this. If only I had not done that. Of course, there is nothing that can be done about the past. To the extent that we have Free Will, it is limited to the present moment, as least as far as we can tell.

The Arrow of Time

I think that one of the most interesting things about time is that it flows in only one direction. This is why we can only make choices about the present. For us, the past is settled. There is nothing we can do to change it in the present. The future is not yet. The choices we made in the past impact our present. The choices we make now will impact the future. Even so, we do not have the ability to know our future choices.

Time flows from the past, goes through the present, and continues on into the future. This is probably one of the very few things in this world about which everyone, everywhere would agree. Actually, if we met aliens from far away in a distant galaxy, it is almost certain that they would also agree. It is pretty amazing I think.

On an astrological and metaphysical level, time is governed by the Saturnian principle, and it is deeply intertwined with manifestation. On a scientific level, it is said that the reason time flows they way it does has something to do with the Big Bang at the beginning of this universe.

All of this supposedly relates to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which states that in a closed system, entropy always remains the same or increases. It never decreases on its own. Entropy is a fancy word for disorder. This is why rooms do not clean themselves, it seems. The natural state of a room will be either to remain the same or to become disordered. It takes an outside force, i.e., someone cleaning the room, to create order again.

Speaking of Disorder

If entropy is the disorder of the universe, then cats seem to be furry bundles of entropy. I guess humans are too, although they are not so furry. My cats have been reminding me of the passage of time recently. It has been a year since our youngest cat, Cookie, came to us, and she was about 4 months old at the time.

20170925_171748 — Cookie, when she first came to live with us

It is hard to believe that there was a time, not so long in the past, in which she did not exist in this world as herself. At the time she came to us, she was so little that our other three cats looked huge next to her.

20171023_170421 — Cookie with our oldest cat, Allie

It has been about 20 years since our oldest cat came to live with us. At the time, my spouse was in seminary and studying Koine Greek. She had learned the word, Aletheia, which means Truth. I thought that word was so pretty that I had wanted to name someone that. Shortly after I had that thought, a 10 month old kitten came up to us on the street with an infected sore on her face. My spouse picked her up and brought her to the vet. She has lived with us ever since. As it happened, she is the one who got the name Aletheia, or Allie, for short.

20171120_083757 — Allie and her protegee

Allie has been a mischievous, but wonderful, companion for such a long time. Recently, her health has been declining, though. I know that I will have to face the time in the not so distant future when she will no longer be with us.

20180425_135238 — Allie and Cookie in the Spring of this year

In the Buddhist tradition, it is said that all is suffering, and one of the forms of suffering is due to the temporary nature of the material world. Eventually, we will be separated from everyone we love, at least in this world. There are so many who are not here with me now in the present, my grandmother, my grandfather, human friends, kitty and doggy friends, and so on.

20180906_234008 — Cookie, just last night

My little nephew is now all grown up and has left home; our adorable little kitten is now a full grown cat. She still acts a lot like a kitten, though, and I have to say it is nice that she is no longer quite as active as she was when she first came to live with us. Time marches on, I suppose.

Returning to Life

On March 28, 2016 By Cynthia ThinnesIn Diary, Gardening, Ponderings and Reflections, Seasons

It is Spring again. The Filianic and astrological new year has begun. This year began with a Lunar Eclipse, which on a personal level feels a bit appropriate. My usual joy at the beginning of Spring is dampened by the sadness of the passing of my grandmother last fall.

I think one of the difficult things about life in the modern West is that we have lost the notion of mourning periods. There was a time when there was a proper amount of time to be “in mourning,” and rituals for coming out of mourning, with periods of “half mourning” and “light mourning.” When reading modern wisdom about grieving, we are told that it is individual and different for every person and every relationship. Yet, I think that mourning is not really the same thing as grieving. I think that mourning is the pause we take in our lives out of respect for the person who has passed, and the ending of mourning is when it is right to “come back to life.”

With that in mind, with no modern conventions to fall back on, I decided that Winter would be my period of “mourning” and that I would try to “come back to life” in the Spring. I am still quite sad, particularly as my grandmother loved Spring, but I will always be sad from time to time. My grandmother was an important person in my life. It is funny, because she never really taught me (or her own children) much. She tried, but she had no patience. She would hastily explain things, and if you did not get it the first time, she would give up with a disgusted “Ach!” and take what you were doing and do it herself. Yet, despite this, I learned so much from her. There is very little that I do that I do not still hear her voice telling me stories or giving wise counsel.

Even now, in my front yard, I see a lesson that she left.

Spring Rose For the past several years, Mormor (“grandmother” in Swedish) and I lived in the same two flat, which was owned by my aunt. In the front of the house, there was a lamp post, which used to be a working gas lamp. Mormor thought it was ugly. She researched, and she found that it would be costly and perhaps dangerous to remove it, so she devised a way to make it beautiful. Last spring, she planted roses around it with the plan that they would climb and cover the post.

Throughout the Summer, she carefully tended the roses, and she made sure that they did not stray too far away from the post. This was an interesting lesson in itself. It seems in order for roses to climb, they have to be held close to their source.

By the time that Autumn came, the roses had covered the post and bloomed gloriously for Mormor’s ninetieth birthday.

Mormor's Rose

Mormor passed a little over a month after that, right before the first snowfall.

The roses bloomed until that very day. They became covered with snow, and they left an almost magical image, as the petals could be seen on the snow.

2015-11-23 07.40.27

Yet, time passes, and now it is Spring. As if the roses were left to teach another lesson, they are starting to grow back again.

2016-03-28 10.51.58

I guess it is time to come back to life, as well as to honor and care for what Mormor planted and left behind.

Making Space for Nativity

On December 29, 2014 By Cynthia ThinnesIn Diary, Ponderings and Reflections

This year, Nativity was quite a hectic time for me. For the first year, I was the hostess for the family Christmas Eve smörgåsbord. It was a small gathering, but even so, a great deal of preparation was required. The house had to be cleaned and decorated, and I was responsible for the meatballs. In our family, the meatballs are quite important; my grandmother would often make the meatballs weeks in advance, and freeze them until just before Christmas Eve. This year was the first year that I have been allowed to make the meatballs, which was quite an honor.

Learning from my grandmother, I made the meatballs a couple of weeks in advance, and I made a test batch for my grandmother to taste before committing the rest of the mix to little balls. I was quite pleased when I received her approval after the first try.

When the day came, the gathering went well, I thought. It was rather interesting really. While I prepared the house and the meatballs, most of the food came from other people. My grandmother made the glögg (a hot, sweet, spiced alcoholic beverage). My aunt brought the potato sausage and the prinskorv (which, since childhood, I always called “little hot dogs”). My spouse went grocery shopping and bought lots of vegetables, a small smoked ham, pie, and various cookies and sweets. My spouse’s coworker came and brought the rotmos (a Swedish version of mashed rutabaga). I prepared the house and the meatballs, and the rest of the bounty just arrived! That seemed quite symbolic of Nativity to me.

All of this made me think of the meaning and importance of Nativity. I no longer consider myself a Christian, but Christmas/Nativity has a much deeper and older meaning than the Christian narrative. The Mother God Chapel recently published two important articles that explain the older and deeper meaning of Nativity which can be found here and here. In summary, the material world falls further away from the Light and would fall into complete Darkness, but the Light intervenes, and Light returns and is renewed. This theme is found in the Christian narrative, but the theme is Universal and thus larger and deeper than the narrative of any human religion.

In thinking about the meaning of Nativity, I have also been reflecting on the Advent preparations. These preparations involve rearranging one’s schedule, one’s finances, and one’s home to make room for Nativity to happen. One buys and/or makes gifts for friends and family. The preparations take time, making Advent a rather busy season, and often one must rearrange one’s daily activities to accommodate the extra chores and tasks. If one puts up a Nativity Tree, furniture must be moved. Regular household decorations must be put aside to make room for the Nativity decorations. It seems to me that these preparations are all symbolic of making space for Nativity to happen.

Yet, when we make space for Nativity to happen, a bounty often arrives, I think…or at least it did for me this year.

Ganbatte Kudasai!

On November 9, 2013 By Cynthia ThinnesIn Japanese, Ponderings and Reflections2 Comments

I have been studying Japanese lately, and I am finding Japanese a very interesting language in many ways. One of the things that is so interesting is that there are words for concepts that are not expressed easily in English. One of these words is ganbaru, which roughly translates to “doing one’s best” or “hard work.”

One of the things that is quite interesting is that in Japanese the phrase, “Ganbatte kudasai!” is used in a similar context that the phrase “Good luck!” would be used in English, and is said when someone is about to undertake a difficult task or some other endeavor. The rough translation of “Ganbatte kudasai!” is “Please do your best!”

I have to say that I really like this usage. It says so much that is very important, I think. It is especially important for the work of reclaiming our Hestia as an important and even sacred space. I am not sure about anyone else, but I know that I have compared myself to others and felt that I am not good enough or organized enough to undertake such a journey. I was certainly not able to do much around the house when I had a demanding career outside the home. I was (and still am) in awe of women that are able to raise children, have a job outside the house, and still maintain a semblance of order in their home. There is a lot of pressure on women to be able to do it all, and do it all well, in the present day and age.

As you can see from previous articles, even now that I am winding down my previous career and even without children, I am having trouble with juggling my projects and endeavors. The phrase and the concept behind the phrase, “Ganbatte kudasai,” is really quite helpful.

This concept is important because it helps me remember that the important thing is doing my best. I am sure that I am not alone in worrying whether my best will be “good enough.” There are so many expectations placed on us, both by our world and by ourselves. It is easy to say, “Oh, this is impossible. I will never be good enough, so why bother.” The concept of ganbaru is so helpful with this. The important thing is not the result; the important thing is that I am doing my best!

This may seem quite strange for us, but I am learning that in Japanese culture, ganburu is actually an abstract concept, which is not related to any particular activity. I think, though, that there was a time when this was understood even in the West. I remember as a child, we would get separate grades for effort. I do not know if this is still the case, but I do know that I have heard that scoffed at, with the idea that it is achievement, not effort, that is what is important.

Yet, I think that there really is a value to effort and to doing our best, regardless of result! I am thinking of my days in school…at every level from elementary to graduate studies. There was something satisfying about doing my best in a class that was very difficult for me, and that getting a B (or even lower grade) in a difficult class was much more satisfying to me than getting even the top grade in a class that was easy. Indeed, it sometimes felt embarrassing to get a good grade in a class that I had not worked very hard at.

I have gone on a little bit of a tangent here, but I think that this concept and idea really is important. The idea of this blog is not to make anyone feel guilty or ashamed or that they are “less than.” Our society has a funny attitude around the home. It is considered shameful if our homes are not in order; however, efforts to maintain our homes are not valued. I wish I had a nickel for every time someone asked me, “So, what are you going to do all day?” when I have talked about closing my business. Some are satisfied when I talk about starting an astrology practice, but when I say that I am going to be a housewife, the looks are quite dismissive. It is almost like people think that houses maintain themselves by magic, or something. It really is a lot of work!

So, in the face of all of that, I think remembering the concept of ganbaru is so important. It is not expected that anyone is perfect, just that she is doing her best!

So, to all my readers….”Ganbatte kudasai!”

And for myself, “Ganbarimasu!” (“I will do my best.”)

What Is “Real”? What is Ideal?

On September 21, 2013May 11, 2018 By Cynthia ThinnesIn Ponderings and Reflections17 Comments

There was an interesting discussion after a previous article, Welcome Back, Sandra Dee, regarding actresses, the roles they play, and who are they in “real life.” There was mention of how who we are is often shaped by social expectations, and even a bit of philosophical discussion regarding our lives being an illusion and a play.

As interesting as this discussion is, and I hope it continues, I think that in many ways the images are more important than the “reality,” or at least the “reality” in the sense of our physical existence. I understand that this is contrary to the view of modern society. We are fascinated by the “real lives” of celebrities, which generally consists of prying into the darkest and dirtiest parts of their lives. We are particularly fascinated when the “real lives” of actresses, or other celebrities do not match the characters they play or the images they present.

I think that this fascination is a bit misguided, though, and I also think it is not really useful for those of us trying to clean and purify our Image Spheres for various reasons.

One of the reasons is that people are complicated. We all play many different roles in our lives. We play roles as parents, as students, as workers, as friends, and the list goes on and on. Which one of these roles are “real”? I think the answer to that is that they are all “real,” even though they are likely quite different.

People are also complicated in that we all have a True Self and a False Self. On a basic level, our True Self is our better self, and our False Self is who we are when we succumb to temptation. Using a popular media image, our True Self is the little angel on our shoulder, and our False Self is the little devil. This idea is a bit foreign to modern, cynical thinking, which seems to operating under the belief that we are being “real” when we are at our worst. Actually, it is interesting that there are currently many “reality shows” being produced that create artificial situations that often have the effect of bringing out the worst in people.

Aside from the complicated nature of people, when we are working to purify our Image Sphere, we are making choices as to what we are exposing ourselves to. In our day to day interactions in the physical world, there are many situations that we do not have control over. We can not always avoid ugly or poisonous things. We are not always capable of creating a living environment that nurtures our soul.

Given that there are many things we do not have control over, when we do have control over our Image Sphere, it makes a lot of sense to choose good and healthy images. Do these images represent the “reality” of the past or of another culture? Some of the answer to that question depends on what one defines as “reality,” of course. To avoid that difficulty, I think an easier question would be whether the images accurately depict the physical circumstances of the past or another culture. If one phrases it that way, the answer is likely that it does in some ways, and it does not in others.

On the other hand, when we get too much caught up in that analysis, I think we lose sight of what we are trying to do. I think that the media we create and consume reflects our values and our ideals. These are the stories we are choosing to tell and to listen to.

While the stories that we tell and hear may on some level reflect the physical, material circumstances that we find ourselves in, they also help shape and define our circumstances. If we are trying to make changes in our lives to let our True Selves or our best selves shine forth, we need role models and examples. I see nothing wrong with these role models being fictional characters. I also see nothing wrong in allowing the actresses who bring these fictional characters to life being role models as well.

I think that this was understood in the past. The images of actresses and movie stars were carefully preserved to hide their faults and their struggles. Nowadays, there seems to be a great deal of effort spent on exposing the carefully hidden faults and struggles of the role models of the past and celebrating the bad behavior and faults of those who would be the role models of the present. Much of the time, this is done in the name of “exposing the truth.”

Yet, is this really “exposing the truth,” or is it creating an illusion of an ugly and cynical world? If our role models are celebrated for behaving badly, and if we are taught that this is “reality,” how will we ever aspire to, well, anything?

A metaphor to this might be a beautiful ceramic vase that has a flaw in it. Does it make sense to turn the vase so that the flaw is visible and draw a black marker around the flaw to make the flaw more obvious? Wouldn’t it make more sense to position the vase so the flaw can not be seen?

I think that all of us are beautiful vases with flaws, including celebrities. The choice that we have is whether to highlight our beauty or highlight our flaws. It seems an easy choice when looked at in this light, I think.

Welcome Back, Sandra Dee!

On September 18, 2013 By Cynthia ThinnesIn Diary, Ponderings and Reflections10 Comments

As part of the changes I have been making lately, I have been doing my best to avoid most Western post-Eclipse media (media produced after the mid 60’s). I admit, though, I slipped a bit this evening. I watched a movie from my childhood, Grease. When I was a child, this was one of the most popular movies around. Children would brag to each other about the number of times they had seen this movie. The soundtrack for Grease was one of the first albums that I had. I listened to this album over and over again, and I can still sing “Hopeless Devoted to You” from memory. Given this, when Grease was on the television, I found myself watching it.

Hopelessly Devoted to You I am actually glad that I watched this movie, and I watched it in a much different way this time. Watching this movie was quite instructive for me in understanding how the Image Sphere of my generation was shaped. In remembering my own reaction to this movie, this shaping is not just theoretical, it was personal.

The movie came out in 1978, but it was set in the 1950’s. The main female character in this movie was Sandy Olsson. At the beginning of the movie, Sandy was innocent and pure. During the previous summer, she fell in love with a boy, Danny Zuko, who was part of the clique, “the greasers,” who were the “bad boys” of the school. The central plot of the movie was relationship and romance between these two characters, but I think that there was a theme to this movie that was quite insidious. At least it was insidious for me, particularly because I identified strongly with Sandy.

Throughout this movie, Sandy was ridiculed and teased for her innocence and purity. She had just transferred to the High School from Australia, and she was befriended by Frenchie, one of the “Pink Ladies,” who were the “bad girls” of the school. One of the early scenes is a sleepover that Sandy attended with the Pink Ladies. One of the songs of this theme was “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee.” During this song, the other girls mocked Sandy because she did not drink, smoke, or swear, and because she was too innocent.

There were also several scenes where Danny rejected and even mocked Sandy as well in order to maintain his reputation with his friends. The two do eventually get together, and Danny does try to make changes. He joins the track team and earns a Letterman sweater.

Sadly, though, Danny’s changes were not the focus of the movie. The focus of the movie was the pressure upon Sandy to renounce her innocence and her purity. Eventually, she did. When she did, she became fully part of the group of girls, and she and Danny came together. The moral of this story seemed to be that if a girl wants to be happy and have friends, she must give up being innocent and pure.

I remember as a young girl, along with “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” I also sang over and over again the song in which Sandy makes the decision to renounce her innocence, the reprise of the mocking song, “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee”:

Goodbye Sandra Dee Look at me,
There has to be something more than what they see
Wholesome and pure,
Oh so scared and unsure, a poor man’s Sandra Dee

Frenchie: They won [a drag race]. Isn’t that great? Aren’t you happy?

Sandy: Not really, Frenchie, but I think I know a way that I could be. Could you help me? Can I come to your place?

Frenchie: Sure, come on.

Sandy, you must start anew
Don’t you know, what you must do
Hold your head high, take a deep breath and sigh
Goodbye to Sandra Dee

The help that Sandy asks for from Frenchie is a makeover. She changes from her pretty, wholesome look to one that was decidedly unwholesome. It was then that there was a happy ending.

The message of this movie was clear to me as a young girl. One could not be innocent and wholesome and be happy. In order to be happy and accepted by her peers, a girl needed to say “goodbye to Sandra Dee.”

I am an adult now, and I have learned a lot. One of the things that I have learned is that there have been many changes in our world starting in the mid-1960’s, and one of the things that happened was a process of Conscience Inversion, a process by which we are taught to be proud of our worst instincts and ashamed of our best ones. This is one of the forces that shaped a larger change in society marked by atomization, deracination, and deformation.

So, as part of my journey, I am reclaiming Sandra Dee. Rather than being embarrassed and ashamed of being wholesome, I am reclaiming and celebrating it. A lot of things have happened in my life, but I believe that I can reclaim my innocence. I also believe that reclaiming our personal innocence is one of the best things that we can do, not just for ourselves but for our world.

So Welcome Back, Sandra Dee!

The Ladies’ Tea

On July 25, 2013 By Cynthia ThinnesIn Diary, Ponderings and Reflections1 Comment

This past weekend, I went to an Annual Ladies’ Tea at a larger church gathering. The Tea itself was lovely. There was beautiful china on the table with lovely teapots. Ladies were dressed in beautiful and elegant dresses.

China Set What was interesting, and to me, a bit sad, were some reactions to the idea of a Ladies’ Tea. There were women who seemed to think that such events should be long past. There were also women, even at the tea, who chafed a bit at the entire concept behind this event, and I think, what such an event seemed to represent to them. It was also sad that there were several teenage girls at the gathering who did not go to the Tea. I think that this is symbolic of the direction our society has been headed in the last few decades, which is really just a culmination of millenia of a systemic patriarchal devaluation of the feminine principle.

In order to explain what seems to be a bit of an outlandish statement, we need to understand that the masculine principle and the feminine principle are metaphysical concepts that are separate from (but not completely unrelated to) biological gender. In its highest form, the masculine principle is that of protection and courage, but on a more mundane level, it is related to outward action, competition, and conflict. The feminine principle is related to nurturing, beauty, kindness, and gentleness, and is related to stillness, as opposed to action. Stillness was not viewed as inferior – quite the reverse – to quote feminine Scripture “earth moves but heaven is still.” Many millenia ago, even in the West, the feminine principle was seen as the higher principle, and the masculine principle was seen as the lower principle.

When patriarchy took over the world around 600-500 B.C., both in the East and the West, the East and the West took different approaches. In the East, the feminine principle was still considered the highest principle; however, the associations of masculine and feminine became reversed, at least in terms of the qualities of action and stillness. The quality of stillness was assigned to the masculine gender, and the quality of action was assigned to the feminine gender.

In the West, however, the masculine principle itself became seen as the higher principle, and over time, the feminine principle became more and more devalued. Nurturing, beauty, kindness and gentleness became associated with weakness, to be subordinated to the masculine principle of achievement, competition, and war. Men were violently discouraged from manifesting feminine traits, and though women were still encouraged to manifest feminine traits, they were made subordinate to men, legally, socially, and often violently.

Despite this, until the past several decades, there have been vestiges of the ancient dance between the masculine and the feminine in the form of chivalry. The true meaning of chivalry was an outward manifestation of the masculine principle giving honor to the feminine principle, which survived in form, even though the understanding of the meaning of the form had been lost. Because the understanding of the meaning of the form was lost, people mistakenly believed that men engaged in chivalrous behavior because of the supposed weakness of women. It is understandable that feminists chafed at chivalry with the long term mistaken social belief as to what it represented.

So, how do these deep philosophical concepts relate to a Ladies’ Tea? I believe that these events represent a dying bastion of feminine space. Femininity is not a restriction or a prison. Femininity is a birthright. Not all biological women need to accept or manifest this birthright; however, it is ours, should we choose to accept it. The very form of such events is distinctly feminine and is not trivial.

Beautiful clothing, china, teapots, and table settings are all symbolic of striving for beauty. Beauty is an end to unto itself and is a trait of the Divine. As children of the Divine, we can choose to adorn ourselves and our surroundings with beauty, even in a world that systematically devalues and tries to destroy beauty. Good manners and pleasant conversation are symbolic of giving honor to each other and of engaging in harmonious social behavior.

As I am writing this, I can hear arguments and complaints about these events being far from harmonious. Even at the tea, I heard stories of gossiping and subtle, and not so subtle, unkindness surrounding such events. I have no doubt that women have used these events to compete with each other and to judge one another. Yet, to avoid such events because of these things is to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

Yes, women have traits of excessive competitiveness, just as men do. Women can be mean to each other and gossip. We are all imperfect human beings, and we all have faults. Those faults are not intrinsic to the feminine principle, however. In fact, the feminine principle, in its highest form, is the antidote to these faults. Beauty, gentleness, and kindness in manner, dress, and decor, if truly embraced, can go a long way towards the healing of ourselves and our surrounding world.

I am so glad and honored that I was a part of one such feminine hold-out in this modern, hyper-masculine age, and I hope that I can find more such feminine hold-outs in the future.

Mormor's Backporch

Category: Ponderings and Reflections