Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

54 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

of Time moves in cycles, and what goes around comes

around again. This is especially obvious in the Circle

of Life—the journey of every living being from birth,

through life, to death, and around again to rebirth. As

we see the Wheel of the Year turn through the sea-

sons—from the new birth of Spring, through the rip-

ening of Summer, to the harvest of the Fall, to the

barrenness of Winter, and around to Spring again—

so turns the Circle of Life for each of us.

Such life circles are never closed, but are open-

ended instead. They’re not so much like a ring, but

more like a coiled spring—a spiral, an open helix,

like the DNA molecule that gives the blueprint for all

life. Each time we come round, we are a bit further

along in the course of evolution. That evolution is

one not only of body, but also of soul, for each time

around, consciousness is increased. Inanimate stones

are crumbled by bacteria into soil, out of which grows

grass and vegetables. Herbivores eat the plants, and

so the spirit of vegetation ascends to the level of ani-

mals. Carnivores eat the herbivores, and the herbi-

vore spirit moves another notch up the food chain. In

each lifetime, we gain experience and learn lessons,

and our wisdom and consciousness grow ever greater.

However, what comes around in the course of evolu-

tion is not ego consciousness, the sense of self the

student has in this incarnation. The consciousness that

is eternal and evolving is collective, a field shared by

all beings. One of the things a Wizard does is to “tune

in” to that extra-personal web of relationships and

information, benefiting every time from his exchange

and identification with it.

Just as we grow from a tiny embryo in our

mother’s womb into a baby, a child, an adolescent,

and finally a mature adult, so has Mother Earth grown

through all the ages of life from single-celled organ-

isms through simple invertebrates (creatures without

backbones), to complex animals with skeletons and

sophisticated nervous systems. The entire evolution

of life on Earth can be seen as the embryological de-

velopment and maturation of a single vast creature:

Mother Earth Herself. We call Her “Gaea,” as She

was named by the ancient Greeks, and we are part of

Her body and Her life. Our souls and Hers are One—

like tiny droplets of rain are all still One with Water

everywhere.

There is a famous expression that describes this

Great Truth: “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.”

This translates as: “The development of the individual

re-traces the development of the species.” Only phy-

lum really means a much broader category than “spe-

cies.” Chordates, the phylum of which we are a part,

includes all animals with backbones, as well as some

simple creatures with only a basic “spinal cord” and

no bony spine to contain it. But each of us, as we

grow from a tiny embryo, goes through all the devel-

opmental stages of all our ancestors, from being a

single cell through having gills, a tail, and being cov-

ered with fur—and all before we are born! And in the

same way, our individual development mirrors that of

Gaea Herself, repeated endlessly in each generation as

we, like She, evolve towards ever-greater consciousness.

Lesson 6: The Cycles of Time

To a Wizard, it is clear that Time does not move in a

straight line, but in spiraling Cycles. The hands of the

clock go around, but move forward one hour in each

turning. The days of the week come around again,

but move forward through the months. The seasons

turn through the great Wheel of the Year, and Spring

always follows Winter—but the years roll forward

down the centuries and aeons. All things appear to

move through Time in circles, but every circle is part

of a larger circle, which is also moving, and so noth-

ing stays in the same place. Nor does it just go for-

ward. The next larger cycles carry us forward one loop

for each turning.

On a cosmic level, those spiraling cycles con-

tinue.... The Earth turns from day to night and the

Moon circles around. But the Earth and the Moon are

also circling the Sun through the seasons—along with

all the other planets, moons, comets, and the rest. But

this doesn’t bring us around to the same place each

year, because the solar system is also circling around

the galaxy, along with all the other star systems. Of

course, the galaxy itself is also moving through the

cosmos...and so it goes.

Here are some of the Cycles of Time that we have

charted. Some of them are very regular, almost like

clockwork. Others may seem far less regular, and in-

deed we are still trying to determine a formula for

them.

Geological Ages (37 million years)

The longest Cycles we have experienced in the

history of life on Earth are those we call Geological

Cycles (Ge was the original Greek name for Gaea,

Mother Earth, and all sciences and magicks having to

do with the Earth—such as geology, geography,

geomancy, geophysics—begin with ge). Like the ages

of a person, from infancy through childhood, adoles-

cence, maturity, middle age, and old age, the Ages of

the living Earth have been charted and given names.

Based mostly on the names of locations where rocks

and fossils of those periods were first found, here are

the names and lengths of time (millions of years =

“my”; millions of years ago = “mya”; and “ya” = years

ago) of the Geological Ages, beginning with the first

one in which complex living organisms appeared. This

is called the Cambrian Era, and all time before it is

simply referred to as “Pre-Cambrian.”

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