The spiritual and mundane aspects of uncertainty and fate.
(Image description: A photo of four drop spindles. From left to right, the first one has dark red fiber wrapped around it, and the second one has blue. White fiber is twined around the third one, and another has dark red fiber around it.) Credit: By Pschemp – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11607457
I’ve been mulling over what topic to write about for this week’s post, and the different topics all sounded good to discuss. However, they also felt like they had a “not at this point, write about it later” quality to them.
I suppose I’m starting to think of my posts as produce that let me know when they’re “ripe enough” to harvest, so to speak. Occasionally, some posts feel “good enough” and are sent off into the world. Seasonally appropriate analogies aside, all of this hemming and hawing helped me decide on the subject.
Overall, all of this indecision drew me to the topic of uncertainty. It’s a common theme of human existence that all of us share at one point or another to greater or lesser degrees. It’s normal in the human range of emotions to experience.
Humans face uncertainty in different forms. Relationships can falter and cause us to question what the future of them will be. Health is an ever-present concern, as we can be healthy one day and ill the next. This is especially so for those with chronic health conditions. Economic and financial issues factor into the precariousness of many problems.
The last time our species had to deal with a pandemic was when our great or great-great grandparents were alive. It brought its own uncertainty, as the one in 2019 did and still is. There’s still underlying questions of “What is the new normal?” or “When will I be able to do x?”
Regardless of how we face pandemics or other ordeals, big or small, we eventually have to figure out some answer of “why is this happening?” and “how does this problem affect my perspective of reality?”
For Polytheists and Pagans of various kinds, there’s concepts like fate and destiny that play into our own theologies. I can’t speak for anybody but myself on the matter, so I’ll offer my take on the subject from a spiritual point of view.
My practice falls under Celtic Polytheism, with more of a focus with Irish and Scottish deities. The Greeks had the Moirai and the Norse had the Norns, deities who spun fate with fibers composing the tapestry of life. Each strand stood for a life. As far as I’ve been able to see, the closest Celtic Polytheistic equivalent are the Matres and the Matronae, but their connections to fate are speculative.
In Scottish folk traditions, there’s songs used in spinning and weaving for different magical purposes. Magic could then be considered as a means of affecting the outcome of fate, depending on your view of how that all works.
Where I’m going with this next might seem a bit left field, but bear with me.
In the film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”, the character Sarah Connor has the quote “No fate but what we make”. Regardless of your opinions of the franchise, it brings up an interesting point.
Following that line and connecting it to the figures discussed above, where do these divine weavers get their fibers for their spindles and looms? How does this unknown supplier of materials tie to uncertainty?
What if humans create the fibers through our actions and our intent? As we make decisions and carry them out, the fibers are created. When we face uncertainty of all kinds, we are the ones providing the materials for whatever controls outcomes on a grand scale.
You could consider it as the universe experiencing itself or one of the above goddesses doing their craft, watching as the colors and textures form a part of the larger tapestry. Some of our personal fibers are crafted from the materials of uncertain events and others from our reactions to them.
This can indicate that mortals aren’t helpless figures in their lives, but that we have an active role to play in the creation of the great tapestry of the universe. We’re the ones informing what that picture will look like.
When it comes to uncertainty, all we can do is collect and experience these fibers as they come into our lives. Perhaps the divinities are less the directors of mortals’ lives and more weavers of the universe’s fabric, in which our stories are a fraction of the cosmic whole.
That possibility means that we’re not just being pulled along for the ride; we have a certain amount of influence on our direction. It signals that we’re important, even with our minute input into the tapestry of creation.
We’re unaware of this as we go about our lives, making decisions and acting as we must. We are the ones who have to do the initial twining of the fibers to contribute to the tapestry, taking the first step even with uncertainty in our shadows.
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