Death and rebirth at the bottom of the ocean

I'm starting to write some of the short geology stories, and I'm finding it difficult, but enriching. The writer in me wants to draw all sorts of analogies, but the universe and the planet operate on such grand time scales that their beauty is hard to express in terms of our short seasons and lives.

As pagans, we see the seasons of the year as they come and go. The phases of the moon as it passes. The signs of the zodiac, for those that follow it. The children of the Earth see these cycles, and need these cycles. But for the Earth herself, they are like seconds on a clock, passing very quickly. To her there are greater, deeper cycles. And we can see those cycles if we pay enough attention.

Deposition cycles are some of the clearest examples. They read like tree rings, telling stories of periods from years to millenia to eons. And when you know what you are looking at, it is absolutely awe-inspiring to see it.

Some of the biggest, most beautiful structures, that fit the cyclical view the best, are turbidites. In the deep oceans on the continental shelf, there is a constant flow of gravel, sand, and silt laid down from rivers like the Mississippi or the Nile. They slowly pile up in a rather haphazard sort of way until, like an overbirdened snow pack, they give way and rush down the slope in huge avalanches of sediment, burying everything in their path. These sheets are tens, hundreds, even thousands of miles across and travel miles down slope.

What makes them so beautiful, and so breathtaking is how the sediment settles out. Just like in your middle school science class, the debris sorts itself by size, first depositing gravel, then sand, then silt, then clay. The richest, finest layers settling out on top With layer upon layer piling up like this, you can see nice, clean lines indicating each cycle. And in the clay layers you can often find tracks and even remains of plants and animals that, in a grand cycle of death and rebirth, thrived on the rich, marine beds before themselves being buried in preparation for the next cycle.

And just like the animals of the temperate climates above the waves need the cycles of cold to lay down what is to become new, rich soil for spring, here life needs the renewal of rich mud upon which to build the next generation.

And so the wheel turns. As above (the waves), so below.

Interplanetary Pagans

So here's one from way back in my days as a baby pagan in the 90's. I've asked this one before, and eventually I arrived upon the fact that I was over thinking a bit and just slow down. But the question is still unanswered, and perhaps is one of those questions that has more than one answer.

Much of the pagan world focuses on cycles of nature and peculiarities of the local environment. When I lived near the ocean, my practice keyed into that. In a few short years my family had developed a handful of traditions and rituals that would make no sense without the ocean and tides.

But what about space? My one case of personal celebrity mania is on Elon Musk, a man who speaks with certainty about travelling to Mars and starting a colony there. But what would paganism be there? There are seasons. There is weather. Some of it would be hard to work with, but it's there. But what of the four elements? Fire is pretty hard to come by on Mars. Water as well. Wind and earth are no problem at all. Can the four element model adapt to that reality? I suspect so, but what would it look like?

And how about the Moon? This was my original hangup. There's a little bit of water there. And an inch or two of atmosphere that is so completely unlike our own, even scientists hesitate to call it an atmosphere. And that's not even dealing with the fact that the lunar cycle is effectively meaningless on the face of the Moon. On the other hand, you are standing on the very face of the Lady. How's that for a personal connection with deity?

And there are complications with even wider patterns in space flight. For those who follow astrology, the rising and setting of the Sun in the houses are tricky. The planets have a whole new characteristic of motion that basically throws the whole chart out the window. I'm not an astrologer. Perhaps that issue is more solvable than I imagine, but it takes a little thought to work it out.

And how about casting runes or using a pendulum from orbit? Or pouring libations when the libation in question neither falls nor has any desire to stay in the libation dish, to say nothing of the irritation of one's fellow space fliers by the crumbs and stain-inducing liquid from cakes and wine.

Perhaps I am over thinking this. I know I am. But it's not without precedent. A few years ago some devout Muslims flew in space. They had to get official word from an imam as to when they needed to pray and how they work out where Mecca is from orbit. Paganism will adapt to space just as it adapts to areas with a rainy and dry season versus the temperate four. But what will Martian paganism look like?

The deeper story of stones

Since I was very young, I took an interest in nature. Not just nature, but rocks. Like the dinosaur geeks so many boys my age were, but I ended up taking some coursework in it and it has played a role, as one might expect, in my pagan faith.

And one important thing I learned from that point of view is that the story of rocks are as important as the correspondences they represent. In my view, perhaps more so. I'm not pretending I'm the first one to come up with this. But it is a point of view I hold quite deeply.

As a geology student, I was taught how to read the rocks. How to look at individual crystals, their shapes, sizes, and orientations. How to look at the angles the ancient beach sands are sloped at and the criss-crossing bands of quartz running through them. How to look at whole mountain ranges and tell the story of the skin of our Earth. It dawns on me that while geologists eventually break out their mass spectrometers, chemicals, and polarizing microscopes, the end result is always a story. And stories are what paganism is all about.

These stories are ancient and modern, dynamic and catastrophic, and yet quiet, still and slow. You can go to Hawaii and find crystals that are minutes old. In the deserts of Western Australia, you can find crystals that are nearly as old as the Earth itself. And I am blessed with the background to look at one rock face, today, and tell a story billions of years old. (Please don't read this as me being a professional Geologist, I am at best a skilled amateur.)

I tried to write all of this down once. But I think the better angle is to write a series of short stories about these deep cycles. I'm terrible about commitment, at least with respect to personal habits. So I'm not going to promise a weekly feature, but I'll try to write something semi-regularly.