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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.