[
Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<em [...] "mso-bidi-font-style:>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
<p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://krasskova.weebly.com/1/post/2012/05/pagan-blog-project-k-is-for-kronos.html">http://krasskova.weebly.com/1/post/2012/05/pagan-blog-project-k-is-for-kronos.html</a></p><div class="paragraph" style='text-align:left;'><font color="#000000"> You know the week’s letter is a difficult one when I have to resort to Greek terminology in order to find an appropriate word! Still, the concept of <em style="">kronos</em>, or time, is worth discussing, particularly from a spiritual standpoint. You see, there are two Greek words used (particularly in theology) to indicate time: <em "mso-bidi-font-style:="" style="">kronos</em>, which means regular, mundane time and <em "mso-bidi-font-style:="" style="">khairos</em>, which means the right or most opportune time. Some theologians also use this latter word to indicate ‘ritual time.’ I’ll be talking about khairos next week; this week’s post is all about good old kronos, the here and now, temporality, and the process of rendering it sacred. <br /><br /> Those of you familiar with Greek theology will recognize that the word ‘kronos’ is often associated (incorrectly, I might add) with the God Kronos, sometimes pictured with a scythe very much like contemporary images of “father time.”(1) Kronos was the offspring of earth (Gaia) and sky (Uranos). When Uranos offended Gaia by banishing Her more unsightly children to the depths of Tartarus, She gave Her son Kronos a scythe and urged Him to deal with His father. Kronos fought Uranos, eventually castrating Him with the scythe and later banishing Him to Tartarus as well. In an odd bit of cosmic juxtaposition, the Goddess Aphrodite sprang from the place where Uranos’ severed testicles fell into the sea. Kronos was in turn overthrown by his son Zeus. Knowing that it was foretold that one of His own children would overthrow Him, He had attempted to prevent this by swallowing all the children He had with his wife and sister Rhea, but She hid Zeus, giving Kronos a stone to swallow instead. When Zeus was grown, He freed his brothers and sisters, defeated His own father in battle, and banished Him to Tartarus. <br /><br /> The later Romans adopted many aspects of Greek religion. They syncretized Kronos with the Roman God Saturn which accounts for many of the seasonal and calendrical attributions later ascribed to Him. <br /><br /> One of the things that I have noticed in my study of ancient Greek is that the Greek language has a specificity that English often lacks.(2) There are multiple words, for instance, for love: is it erotic, platonic, friendship, familial, romantic, etc. The language is painfully precise in its use of verbs when it comes to indicating when and for how long a thing was done. Whereas in Latin, you have one word that can mean a dozen things, in Greek you have a dozen words that can refer to various shadings of a single given concept--hence the careful specificity with regard to time. <br /><br /> Time is important. The way we engage with it, after all, is finite. I sometimes think of it as a river raft upon which we ride. The river will go on long after we have left the raft behind. It’s important then that we engage with the time that we are allotted wisely and well. Very few of us—myself included—actually do that though, and if we cannot navigate kronos effectively, will we even recognize those moments of khairos when they appear? <br /><br /> As someone deeply committed to developing devotional consciousness within my religion, I would like to posit a different way of looking at kronos. Each moment of our lives, each mile on that river of time, every second of the daily grind, every minute of our mundane lives is a chance to pave the way for khairos, those moments that the Gods are apt to seize and within which we can be transformed. Kronos creates and readies one for Khairos. It is the foundation, the architectural structure upon which those points of khairos rest. Understanding that has the potential to change the way we relate to every other aspect of our lives. It has the potential to change the way we relate to the very concept of ‘mundane’ or ‘mundane time.’ When we focus on living our daily lives well, we are building khairos. <br /><br /> Spiritual engagement takes practice just like anything else. Everything has the potential to be part of that practice; everything can be spiritual. Someone once asked me who is more likely to write a best-selling novel: the one who sits on his ass waiting for inspiration to strike, or the one who writes all the time, who practices, who gets out there and engages with the work? I think the answer is obvious and in many respects it’s the same with spirituality. Every moment of kronos is good, precious, and meant to be savored in and of itself, but it is also a moment of preparing oneself for khairos.<br /><br /> It is not a terrible thing, this goal of making each moment precious, mindful, and imbued with spiritual awareness. It’s a matter of shifting priorities, of learning to look at the world and one’s life a little differently and it enhances everything. Poet Henry David Thoreau spoke of wanting to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”(3) The key to that is mindfulness and active engagement. This is the way to navigate kronos. It leads to an awareness where in the end, it isn’t just those moments of khairos that are sacred; it’s all sacred. It all becomes khairos. <br /><br /> In this way, there are no small actions. There is nothing insignificant. Or maybe it’s all insignificant until the dance is completed. Either way, we can choose to live in a way that invests every single part of our lives with meaning. We can choose to engage, to be awake and conscious, to live fervently and passionately each moment of our lives on Midgard. That’s no small thing at all. <br /><br /> For this and many other reasons, I think time is sacred. It’s something to be treasured. I have friends in poly-amorous relationships and the coin of those relationships (from what I’ve been told) isn’t sexual fidelity, but <em style="">time, </em>time shared between lovers and friends. I know in my own life, being as busy as I am with a fairly brutal program in grad school I have very, very little free time. The time I parcel out to my friends –and I know it may not seem like a lot—truly is a precious gift at least to me. All of this has caused me to look differently at the very concept of time. <br /><br /> I’m lucky. I am by nature über-punctual (to the point that my adopted mom, who was Swiss, used to joke that I may not have gotten the Swiss house-keeping gene – my biological maternal ancestry is Swiss and German---but I sure did get double the punctuality gene. I could only concur. LOL). The whole concept of “Pagan Standard Time” seems idiotic, discourteous, and downright rude. I make it a point, out of respect for the people with whom I’m interacting and the work itself to habitually be punctual. (4) That being said, even I had to learn over the years to center my life around my spirituality. It doesn’t just happen. One doesn’t just develop devotional consciousness. One doesn’t just become spiritual. It’s a matter of personal discipline, working consistently to re-prioritize and to incorporate these things into one’s life, working to change the way you move through the world. Some days will be better than others but in the end, it takes practice, and attention, and most of all the conscious gift of <em "mso-bidi-font-style:="" style="">time</em>. <br /><br /> It benefits us in the long run to make that gift. It allows us to live in a world full of the brightest of colors, a world alive with meaning, possibility and most of all connection. It makes the sacred something that is lived and cherished here and now, not something that’s far away, untouchable or reserved only for a select few. It trains us as it were, to pour ourselves into living, and into loving the Gods, and into being better, more involved human beings. It also connects us to something outside of ourselves. Many indigenous traditions teach that one should evaluate one’s actions based on the effect those actions will have not just on oneself or one’s children but on the seventh generation. That’s good advice but it’s advice that’s impossible to follow unless one is living in a way that is aware and awake, in other words, consciously engaging with the flow and mystery of kronos. <br /><br /> Time is a magical thing: give a little bit to any particular endeavor and just watch your abilities blossom. This holds true not just in devotional work, but in the most mundane of things too. I first learned this as a ballet dancer: you practice every day or you suck. Every day of lost practice shows immediately in what one is able to do. As a philologist-in-training, I have to study Latin and Greek every day. If I take a day or two off, it shows. I’m rusty. Slow. I lose skill and facility. The words don’t come as quickly and I miss so much of their nuance. Spirituality is no different. Hell, <em style="">life</em> is no different. There may be times where I choose to take that day off, mind you, but I know exactly what I’m sacrificing. <br /><br /> In the end, I don’t think that it’s those moments of khairos—blessed gifts though they might be—that define us so much as how we engage with kronos. It’s the quotidian, the every-day, the mundane things that make us who we are. It’s what we do when things seem the most un-spiritual. It’s those choices, the patterns, pieces, warp, and weft of a life that determine who we are and who we can become spiritually and in every other sense as well. In all things, however, that which determines excellence, that which moves possibilities from the realm of chance to the realm of potential is time. Kronos is indeed the best and most precious gift we can give …to anything, including ourselves. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> Notes:<br /><br /> </font><ol style=""> <li style=""><font color="#000000">The actual etymology of Kronos’ name is disputed. It is likely drawn from Indo-European roots meaning ‘creator’, or at the other end of the spectrum “cutter”. This is still debated by scholars today. Still, later Classical sources all the way into the Renaissance associated Him with time. This association largely comes from the Romans having syncretized Kronos with their own God Saturn, a God associated with seasons, the harvest, and the flow of time. </font></li> <li style=""><font color="#000000">All languages have their unique aspects and elements. This is not in any way intended to denigrate English! I was once told by a woman who spoke seven languages that there were things she could express in English that she couldn’t say in any other language. </font></li> <li style=""><font color="#000000">This is a quote from p. 66 of “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau. This edition was published in 2012 by Empire Books.</font></li> <li style=""><font color="#000000">This means, by the way, showing up at least five or ten minutes before any scheduled activity so that I don’t hold things up by puttering around and getting settled at the moment the activity is scheduled to begin. Time is precious and calls for respect, most assuredly when one is infringing upon the time of another. </font></li></ol></div>
geeky
excited
amused
blah