CURRENT THIRTEEN

In all the hooha about this 'end of the world' or 'end of time' on the December Solstice 2012, very little has been said or speculated about what awaits us in 2013.

Now, as this anticipated and/or dreaded 'Omega Point' in the history of human civilisation is suddenly almost upon us, perhaps, it is high time to consider what 2013 might signify. What is the new 'Alpha Point' if there *is* a significant shift at the end of this year?
Or -and probably more importantly at this stage - *what* is to fill that great void of expectation? For perhaps disappointment may ensue if nothing much does actually 'happen' on the 2012 Solstice and life goes on as 'normal' on planet Earth�

Our culture seems to love the idea of an Apocalypse (whether the Biblical Rapture of the book of Revelations, the spiritual 'alternative' of Mayan end-times or simply the collapse of the materialist empire), even while often dreading and fearing it.
Global havoc and disaster, alien abductions, cosmic revelations or spiritual saviours are much more exciting prospects than the gradual disintegration of our ecology and thus our economy (well duh! perhaps the latter is ultimately based on finite resources rather than abstract credit after all).
This is already happening in its own slow (well compared to an apocalypse, but quite rapid from a historical perspective) and easily-ignored-in-the-affluent-west decline�

But, to begin to avert the real disaster of this more gradual disintegration perhaps we need to perceive Time differently. To reconsider this idea that a peak experience of catastrophic proportions is the only thing that can wake us from our collective stupor (as then of course it may be too late).
Apocalypse memes are entwined with a linear perception of Time, and its associated concepts of a burgeoning 'progress' which looks at the future only in a very short-term-profit based way while attempting to escape the past at breakneck speed.

The Mayan Dreamspell movement has propagated the idea of a more natural system of time and this is, I think, vital within itself. It is perhaps a shame they got caught up in their own intricate system of calendrics which, being based on erroneous interpretations of Mayan cosmology, has lost credibility. Besides, it is far too complex for most people to even consider as an alternative to their regular timekeeping processes.

What is more important, I think, is changing our perspective of Time rather than specifics of computation which may just replace one precise 'clock' with another, albeit one more in tune with natural cycles and seasons.

It is precisely these seasons and cycles which are the essence of the changed perspective we need to reconsider. Simply, the basic idea that time is actually based on such things. Rather than through a somewhat arbitrary construct created by human regiments and systems of socio-political-religious governments intent on controlling their populace.

Interestingly, in terms of all the hype surrounding the transition between the years 2012 and 2013, the numbers 12 and 13 are of great significance in relation to this shift of perspective of Time...

Now let us consider in relation to this timekeeping the nature of the sun and the moon and what they have symbolised and represented throughout our history, and perhaps more importantly now because it has been so overlooked -our Herstory.

In many of the oldest cultures on our planet the solar-masculine and lunar-feminine associations we commonly hold today were originally reversed.

Nevertheless, these days -largely through the work of the Medieval Alchemists and of Carl Jung with such archetypal energies- we generally associate solar energy with the masculine and lunar energy with the feminine. This correspondence does seem to make some sense: the male as relating to outward energy, ambition, reason, logic, science and such powers of the bright and conscious mind, and the female lunar current in contrast delving into the shadows of the subconscious, of intuition, the inner, reflective and artistic. Of course any metaphor taken to an extreme is absurd, and men and women have all of these attributes, and in some cases men may have more of the 'feminine' qualities expressed above and women more of the 'masculine'; but as a statement of general tendencies these correlations work.

So perhaps the dominance of our linear solar clock and calendar are indicators of the overtly 'reasonable' yet often intuitively-retarded civilisation. Perhaps it is high time for a more lunar approach to time? -An increased awareness of Syn (an Assyrian MoonGod)- Chron (Chronos is the Greek God of Time) -icity...

Thirteen of course has a bad reputation. But from whence did this superstition come? It is a very feminine number, associated with the lunar currents and thus also the reflective menstrual cycles of women. It has been prominent in the agenda of the patriarchal priesthoods for millennia to vilify and demonise women. They are the most obvious thing to project the blame onto when men 'fall prey to their baser instincts' ie the natural appetite of sexual desire which the mainstream religions have denigrated in their perverse separation of spirit and flesh, or macrocosmically of heaven and earth. And so we have the 'unlucky' number thirteen, and Friday the 13th is of course especially wicked as the witch's number is combined with the only day of the week named after a Goddess (Freya) rather than a God (with the possible exception of Mo(o)nday, although that's more ambiguous).

The Babylonians created the 12:60 time system which we use today, so it is interesting to reflect how some of its core mythology reflects the kind of fragmentation this system has spawned:

The primal feminine Chaos Serpent Tiamat was divided in twain by the sword (the weapon of the air and the mind in western occultism) of the solar hero Marduk. Thus we have the division of fluid and chaotic natural time (ever the dragon of the tide-driven sea) by solar and patriarchal cults into artifices of calendric calculation to control civilisation.

So if we've managed to stretch our 12-trained brain to 13 moonths, perhaps we can now take a step further and extend beyond 12 o'clock to 13 o'clock in the microcosm of our day.

Midnight has often been called the 'Witching Hour' and with good reason, or rather beyond-reason. It is the apex of 'normal time' and thus a window beyond�
...To fit a thirteenth hour on our nicely-symmetrical and mechanically-ordered clockface, we will have to warp it somewhat, Dali-style, and the hands may spread out at every oblique angle or simply fall off this melting edifice. We find ourselves in a timeless space, a magical crux as the business and duties of the day slip away into dreaming, where time indeed behaves quite differently. Even science has shown that we have hundreds (at least) of dreams every night, and only our conscious recall filters this. We seem to often experience long dreams in 'real-time' (by normal waking perception) and yet they may have actually occurred in the mere fluttering of an eyelid.

There are of course some who make use of this witching hour -which of course extends beyond the parameters of the clockface's mechanical contrivances into a fluid 13- while awake. Witches, magicians, artists (of all kinds not just visual) and sorcerers have long used the dead of night, when the collective work-a-day mentality of the general populace is usually soundly asleep and a psychic peace descends, to find the trance which transcends humanity's usual constrictive time-consciousness. They seek the spaces in-between, the stretch or warp of time in creative or/as magical trance, bridging the subconscious (dreaming) and conscious parts of our brain. When we get lost in the activities of unmitigated creation, we forget the clock and venture into unmapped 'territory'.

In addition to magical ritual and artistic or musical creative trances, meditation too is useful for transcending linear time -in the process of stilling our mind, time seems to cease along with our activity and our thoughts, until eventually we return to its stream refreshed.
'Territory' is enclosed in quotation marks above because time is not space; yet we are constantly mapping time onto spatial planes to try to understand it and regulate it. Really time is more fluid than space, or at least more amorphous than the matter which fills space.

Right: Frame from Chaos Clock Part I

The clockface is a cultural recension of the sundial and the calendrical cycle. Beneath its circular mask and turning cogs is a far more ancient Wheel, inexorably turned by six spindle-fingered hands which also weave the threads which spiral twixt the great spokes, the loom of Fate, She who is Three.

Of course now we have square and rectangular clocks with digital displays. At least mechanical cogs and gears were round; but our modern society's obsession with straight angles takes us even further from the wheel. The cyclical nature of time is disguised in boxes of curveless functionality, even as time itself has become a mere linear regulator for structures of control and imposed order in our lives, rather than the rhythmic ebb and flow of seasons and tides.

The Witching Hour is only one gate beyond conventional time-perception, of course. While the psychic space in the middle of the night and beyond is a potent portal, the true adept can with a bit of effort access the trance of Thirteen o'clock from anywhen.
And so it is with calendars. If we are to go 'beyond time' at the end of 2012, surely this 'has already happened', since beyond-time cannot be constricted to the artifice of time's parameters. This is the problem I have with the idea of time 'ending' at a certain point, in time! I do hope, however, that more of us can collectively move into a more fluid and natural perception of time and into the Dreamtime beyond solstice 2012...

Left: The 13th-Tribe Weaving on Glastonbury Tor UK, Global Anahata Chakra Working 2003.
Photo by Geothro.

In Qabbalistic Gematria, the Hebrew word 'Achad' has the value (when adding up the values of each letter) of Thirteen.
Achad means Unity or one-ness. Thus are the Twelve Tribes woven into One, the Thirteenth Tribe which -according to Hopi Indian prophecies -unites all the peoples of the World.

The model of Twelve and a Thirteenth which is One that Unites them is prevalent throughout many cultures: All-father Odin and the Twelve Aesir of Asgard, Zeus and the Twelve Gods of Olympus, Jesus and the Twelve Disciples, and King Arthur (or the Fool Parzival?) and the Twelve Knights of the round table. The last of these is reflected in the landscape of Somerset UK(centred in Glastonbury) where much of this mythos apparently played out. There we have the shapes of various creatures mirroring the constellations above -the geomantic Glastonbury Zodiac. There is an additional thirteenth sign, which now looks (somewhat unfortunately) like a dog (and its tail is wyrdly a place called Wagg) but apparently once resembled a unicorn.

In his book 'Arachne Rising' (MW Books, 1977) James Vogh posits a rather different (but equally magical) zoomorph for the mysterious Thirteenth Sign of the greater (rather than geomantic) starry Zodiac -the Spider.

Vogh's in-depth exploration of this 'missing sign' has been revealed as a hoax, however some of the real hirstory he presents as a foundation for his speculations is significant, particularly the thirteen-tree calendar of the nature-worshipping Druids.

Despite its historical validity or Not, the connective nature of the Spider does ring true as representative of a missing sign, since such a 13-sign Zodiac would be lunar. The spider's web connects earth and sky, even as the sea ebbs and flows with the moon. She is aware of every subtle vibration along Her delicate creation's silken strands. Deep ecology, anyone?

Astronomers (rather than Astrologers) have since posited the presence of a Thirteenth zodiacal constellation in the form of the Snake-handler, Ophiuchus.

Snakes and Spiders: what do they have in common? Magic. The Serpent features in the creation myths of almost every culture, and usually symbolises Time. The Spider as the archetypal weaver is almost universally representative of Fate, that intricate tapestry of life.
Time and Fate are ever entwined, even as the pattern of the spider's web echo the serpent's spiral, the spiralling golden mean that enlivens sacred geometry at every fractal level of nature's vast loom.

She who is Three -the Moerae or Three Fates of Greek myth, 3 Norns to the Norse- and yet One. Probably the oldest known 'triformed' Goddess is Hecate Triformis, She who has six arms (and therefore eight limbs, arachnean) and sometimes three faces and presides over the transition from life unto death -the cyclicity that is the very essence of time.

That as 3-in-1 She has eight limbs is not the only Arachnean element of the Goddess of the Wheel: The Three Fates are the spinner, weaver and cutter of life's thread. So we have the Goddess as Spider, birthing and devouring. Parallel in the East is the Great Black Goddess of Time, also 8-limbed (though of a singular fearsome visage) : Maha Kali.

We are spun upon the Wheel of Fate, our destinies interwoven with those of others in the intricate tapestry of life, and we die when She snips our line. No wonder men love and often fear the awesome power of Woman, She who holds the keys (and Is the Gate) to birth and thus also to death.

Methinks 2013 May well be the year of the Spider, spiralling us back into lunar conscious.

Post December 2012, The linear march of progress (presumably) continues unabated- or does it? Nothing happened?

Nothing happened. Nothing all-ways happens, that is Her play.
She the great dark void from which we spring, and to which we ever reTurn...

Feel Her great web, the matrix of life, and its myriad interconnections...

A longer more in-depth version of this essay will be published in DYSLEXICON #8: Dreams, Time Travel & Spiders, soon available from Oneiric Imprint.

Some of it will also be eventually incorporated into the book 'Time, Fate and Spider Magic' to be published by Avalonia Press in 2013.