One of the biggest
questions that we face is what your
place in the world around you is.
You can look around and everything is so darn big
and complicated, that it can make you feel small
and powerless. But I can
tell you
that is the furthest from the truth. Once you see the world , well in
fact the universe, as I do everything changes.
We have to understand the whole not as this large complex
machine but as thousands of smaller
machines that affect each other. The
analogy that I love to use is the old fashioned Swiss watches. If you ever looked on the inside of one you
saw all these small gears and somehow they worked together to tell
time. Each gear was round and went around on its own
special frequency and put together with other gears they went at different speeds, but they made a specific speeds for the second,
minute, and hour hands for the watch
to function properly.
And what does this
have to do with
the world and your part of it ? You
are a gear, you are unique and you just have to find your proper location in world and everything
will run perfectly.
Let’s go large scale and work smaller. The center of the Solar system is the
Sun, around the sun
are several planets and other
large bodies. These bodies orbit the sun at a set speed that forms a unique dance.
Tiny Mercury is going the
fastest, and the slowest is Pluto ( I
still consider as a planet). Each
has a gravitational field and
they balance with the sun. The Sun is not a fixed point, it
wobbles depending on where the other planets are located around the sun.
The Sun’s gravity is so
large as well that it plays
with the Earth’s oceans. The Earth ‘s tides are created by the sun and the moon , the various orbits create regular intervals in the tides. These tides affect the ocean life in
many ways, certain animals patrol the
shore at low tide for an easy meal.
The moon’s orbit is a fixed gear as well. It has a 28 day
cycle that affects the life on
this planet. The word Lunatic is a reference to the belief that a full
moon makes people go off the deep end.
Human females generally have a 28 day
menstrual cycle that is believed
to be connected to the moon cycle.
It takes the Earth 365
daily rotations to circle the Sun one time. The Earth completes 365 rotations or 365 days to
complete one year. Each Planet
has their own day span and year span. Such as Mars that has a day
just a little longer than the Earth day. However it’s year is almost twice as long as our year.
Due to Global tilt, the Earth experiences 4 season in a
year. The seasons are inverted when you compare the northern and southern
hemispheres. Each season is roughly 91
days long, and they maintain this rhythm because that is how the Earth’s gear works.
As the seasons change ,the climate changes and the way life reacts to these changes is unique to each
specific species. Some animals hibernate, some migrate, and some grow
extra think fur, some have a short life cycle and just die.
Each species is a gear on the earth, the earth is like that large Swiss watch. When all the species work in balance and rhythm the world is a
wonderful thing. The Wolves and the deer
are an excellent example of connected gears. In places like the Yellowstone
National park there is a battle of survival and balance every year. The Deer and the Wolves must be in balance.
If there were too many Wolves they would kill off too many deer, the following winter would cause a food
shortage for the wolves and they would
starve. If there was very many wolves the deer population would grow too
much for the vegetation to support. And
then when fall and winter would
come around, the deer would starve. Thus
a cycle is created with the proper
balance. As long as that balance is
there the two gears will spin together
easily.
We as humans and residents of this planet are gears as
well. We must find the proper balance
with the outside world to keep our gears
spinning. As long as humans keep expanding and altering the world around them
, their gear is growing and affecting the way other gears operate. Humans have cause the extinction of many animals, we have destroyed that gear,
causing a gap in the Earth
Mechanism, and disrupting other gears
from working together and properly.
Inside the huge Human gear there are over 6 billion smaller
gears that try to function
together. Each gear is a person, you are one of those gears.
There are vast areas of non-functioning gears,
thus causing the large human gear from turning freely. You
can look at this huge gear in
many different ways. You
could look at it with money perspective , where those who are established are larger than those in
need. You can perceive it in a theological
sense, that group of gears is for the Christians, and a
different grouping is the Muslims, both
are working against each other achieving nothing. In small
clusters and in single units there are gears working hard to move forward, those could be
pagan people trying to work for the
world.
In the Business sense of the large Human gear there are
massive gear groupings like Wal-Mart and Microsoft. These business grouping are a collection of
its employees and customers. If a group
goes on strike or there are economic troubles, each grouping can cause other groupings to have troubles. Wal-Mart is a massive collection of gear
systems , each being a store, the store is reduced to its employees and the
gears they represent. When you look at Wal-Mart in that manner, it no longer is
huge. You are not being hired by The Wal-Mart CEO, you are being hired by the Store manager that is smaller gear, just
like you.
Now take that and
look at
the world around you. You are a part of the world now, you didn’t have to do
anything special to achieve this.
This is no test to find some
special placing after you die, you are
already a gear spinning making other gears move. You
have to decide where you should
be placed for a better functioning you and world.
You don’t have
to change the world around you, you only
have to change the corner of the world
that you live in. See where there are gears that aren’t working well, you might be the gear they are in need to resolve a situation. There
could be a family in need, and you can work
to gather items they need to get back on their feet. In
that situation you connected people in need with people that
can help and you were able
to get the family’s gear to start
turning again.
Being Pagan is like a
gear as well, all situations can be
viewed as collections of gears. As
Pagans we honor the earth and the many
cycles of life. We celebrate the
changes of life and death, and when we understand all these cycles , our life
fits in smoothly and starts to turn easily.
We develop a relationship
with the world and our lives
become less complicated.
I want to share with
you a special moment in my
life. I was
raised a Christian, but had many issues with
staying Christian. Thanks to the internet and freedom of being a single
guy, I did a lot of research about my Scot/Irish roots. I
needed to clear my thoughts and figure out what I was going to do. I went
to Springbrook State park
and walked on one of my favorite trails. I was
thinking out loud trying to remove what
didn’t make sense to me. I
removed many of the principles of Christianity from my
list of logical thinking. I then
decided that I could not be a Christian
anymore because it didn’t make any sense
to me. And that I
would walk the path of Paganism, everything changed that moment. With
Christianity I was to keep myself separate from the world, because this life was just a test. At that
moment I considered myself as a
part of the world and universe and I have been happier ever sense.
I considered myself
an animal just like those in the woods, lake, and elsewhere. I
realized my actions affected the
world around me. I had to take
responsibility for my actions. I now finally found my purpose,
to make the world a better place.
