Sgrios Mass: On the Gods and Time

As we enter this most holy quarter of the cycle, I always tend to become wistful and reflective. The sun recedes and abandons us to the impending perils of the cold winter; the trees, in their sadness, drop their leaves reminding us that often to preserve ourselves we must give up the very thing that sustains us. Aye, as you walk the paths cluttered with Autumn's detritus it is quite the chore not to confront your past, or worry your mind over the future's oppressive openness. Time is a devastating force, and seemingly impervious to the influence of the Gods.

Though we number our passing years in honor of the great god Deoch, there is no Temuairian god who presides over the passing of time. While time seems to be the law that governs the passing of the seasons, I've heard Gramaillian scholars make claims that it is only through His rule that time passes at all. Even among the Gramail faith these views are considered fringe, and, to the enlightened among us, it is a laughable concept.

Each God could make a claim that it is their good work that makes the time flow, as it does, ever forward like the muddy waters of the Shashi river. But since we are making hypothetical claims to the throne of time, would Sgrios not make the strongest claim to that mastery? Is death and decay not the ultimate measure of time's influence? Does our anger not soften with each passing sun, and the burning homefire of love not reduce to cinders in the fireplace overnight? One might measure this force simply in terms of lifetimes, making death the ultimate marker of time’s presence.

Seeking rule over time would be counter-productive to our Lord of Chaos, though. For, how many of us have sat in a painful lecture thinking surely an entire double-moon has passed when it was naught but a matter of hours, or, conversely, spent an entire sun enjoying themselves when they assumed only a short span of time had passed? This chronological inconsistency is the punchline to the joke any God might tell about having mastery over time itself. None can quantify this mysterious measure, just as none can measure the wind.

When you leave here today, I urge you to be mindful of the time that passes. Engage your emotions; feel the passions ebb and flow. Feed your pleasure, deprive your pain. Seek your own control over time’s influence. Find inspiration in that last green tree that refuses to acknowledge the commands of the seasons. Go with God, dears, and may shadows shelter you.