At Pantheacon 2017, I was fortunate enough to a perform sacred service in the hospitality room hosted by the Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC). Shrine scenes for Hestia, Aphrodite, were held by different priestesses. I held my Patron, Eris.

The details of what happened during this sacred service are, of course, private. It’s between the pilgrims who came to visit and Eris. What I'd like share is what happened as O/our time of service was coming to an end.

ATC’s High Priest, Dusty Dionne came into the room where Eris was receiving pilgrims. He informed U/us, “Great lady you have 10 minutes more.” Time, and for that matter distance, are concepts that Eris seems to have a loose or at least very different understanding of we mortals.

Eris left with me with a message to convey. “Dusty, for Eris, there is only now and later. She has a limited and different concept of time.”

“What about, before?” he queried.

I didn’t have an answer.

I didn't think about it very much at the time. Admittedly, I was a bit euphoric from this session of service. In my life, it’s been not often that I have been able bring a message from a god to pilgrims in a very tangible way. For a deity so often associated with discord, Eris has a profound way of pulling on the one thread that brings simple questions, with complex answers, to the foreground. Understanding Her lessons takes much time and reflection.

I keep a journal of my lessons from Eris. Whenever I work through a lesson, I try to reframe it into the form of question. What is the problem or question I am trying to answer? In this instance, I concluded I wanted to know “What does now really mean? Is it simply a point in time or something more?” Mediation and with Her guidance, I’ve written this article.

I’ve concluded that now is the culmination of every

· Past choice and decision we make

· Conscious choice made by others that directly affect us or our environment

· Influence(s) from things in our environment (a bird flying past that causes us to turn our head, a tree/building/obstruction we go around, an apple in the path of the protagonist)

Now is a point of arrival. Now is a series of intersecting waves of influence that emanate from events and choices. It’s a rich and complex state of being to be studied and appreciated. Bad times come too, those are lessons for us that may serve us in the later.

Much of studies, rituals and general work we do in our spiritual and mundane lives involves being in or getting to the now. Being mindful and understanding our surroundings or circumstance of who we are at a given moment is something that every witch or Pagan appreciates. We’ve learned or been taught to ground before, after ritual or when doing spell work. Times of stress or other deep emotions are other good candidates. At those times, we’re brought back from the loss of being the now. Being mindful and in the now are possibly the best things we can do for ourselves and maybe everyone else too.

When I'm invoked with Eris there is a timeless quality as well as deep sense of connection to the all. There is at once a profound awareness of everything around me and the sense of everything reduced to a single point within me. I am often blind yet keenly aware (Others who have been within the sphere of influence while invoked with Eris have experienced this as well) of my surroundings.

Now is a single point, the apex or perhaps an all-encompassing sphere of everything around me. Everything I am, everything I touch, everything that's affected by me have significant and profound consequences in the here and now and everything you do or you are in the process of doing at some point become your past and everyone else’s past. It’s an important lesson from Eris about self-control, mindfulness and minding what you do and to whom. As witches, we are constantly taught that our intents, thoughts and actions make the world around us. As within, so without.

There's an adage "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." While that's true, being mindful that this now will become everyone’s past, gives you the one and only opportunity to change or affect it. Standing on this horizon you can anticipate the changes you will make in the future and alter them. This is, perhaps, the only real form of time travel that exists. It is profoundly important that you recognize every action, every intention has a lasting effect in ever widening spheres of influence. What you’ve done to arrive at the here and now is more important than your study of the past. As with any line, it’s made of a series of now points. You don't move through time, it is time that moves around us.

Steering vs Navigating

One thing that I've learned is to steer and not try to navigate the currents. Let things be and happen in their own time and accord. The advice I most often get from my guides is the same. Stop trying to force life into happening. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare or have prepared yourself through discipline, education, practice and training. It does mean that trying to force things is less likely to get the result the universe needs for it to have. Be in the now instead of making the now.

Imagine being dropped into a rushing river. There are many things you can and can't control on the river. You can't control the current, you can't control obstacles or other things in the river. You can reach out to them. With the right effort, you may alter your course but you’re still in the river. All you have is your personal state of being. Your mental health, level of physical performance, stress level and mental preparedness for how you make it downstream.

What of Later?

Later is the apex of choices made (the latest now you can see/touch). and the intersection or merging of for lack of a better term the lines of choice that passed through your life. In some traditions, these are sometimes called threads.

Somewhere in all of this is a lesson about the Wheel. That is, if you go far enough into the future perhaps we do end up in the past, a past or somewhere else along the spiral, circle within a circle.

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This is one of many lessons, that a priest has learned. What lessons have you learned from Gods as pilgrim or priest? We’d love to have you share as much of your personal journey as you care to. Have a lesson or other story to share? Write to us at editor@atcwicca.org

Blessed be.