The dark aspects

So, Hermes, as a guide, has proven both elusive and instructive. It is part of his charm. But he is also now pointing me into a new direction, one which most are fearful to think too hard on, after all, who likes to ponder their own deaths too much, except maybe some goof ball emo with too much time on their hands and a mommy who pampered him too much.

But this isn’t about wallowing in self pity or indulging in thoughts of death to be cool, this is about coming to a true realization of one’s own mortality and then facing the possibility that it may be coming rather a bit sooner than one might hope. It is about finding yourself feeling sick, or feeling your body do things that you can’t explain and which remind you that there comes an age when things just start to go downhill.

I am taking this part of it as a warning rather than a simple reminder, but I am also taking it as a chance to ponder the concept of non-existence.

That is not as easy a thing to ponder as you might think. We exist, so we have no clue what it means not to. Truly conceptualizing such a thing is really rather impossible unless you can catch small little glimpses of it as you try, but then, as you grasp it, it disappears because once you do you are no longer pondering actual a lack of existence, but a a non-existence based on the thought of non-existence, which in itself is not non-existence.

I say this because I do not actually believe in an afterlife. My meditations on the nature of the universe and the Gods have convinced me of this, and so, once I sit and ponder my ultimate death, I must try to conceptualize, to truly bring to mind, an idea that dying means a total and ultimate lack of awareness. That once you die all things you were simply cease and are gone. That I will have no sense of being, no sense of perception, nothing.

It is difficult.

Yet to ponder Hermes is also to ponder all the potential that is in us as living creatures.

Hermes seems to be saying that we can transcend, not to become Gods, but that as we live, we can transcend and in this life leave behind a legacy that makes others feel and understand things that they might not otherwise have understood. That while we, the people who live, may die our impact on the universe remains and reverberates through it in small and large ways that only the Gods can predict into the future, and even then, that future is unwritten and therefore unpredictable.

Every choice I make affects the future, even if it only alters the flow a little, it does so, and me today affects tomorrow, and even after I am gone, my presence will have affected the flow of time and, along with all of us, will have set up the tapestry of the past on which the future always depends, and the present, well, the present is that beautiful place where all the potential and probability collide and the hands of the Fates set the threads into place.

Hermes, and his darker aspect as Psychopompos, is one that may seem to lead some to believe in an afterlife, but to me, it is a reminder that our time is limited, and maybe sitting on my ass and watching life go by is not a good idea. So, I should go, make love, dance, sing, explore new music, new people, new places and by doing so make my little section of the great tapestry more beautiful.