=== December 23rd ===
--Nothing ... Nothing ... <gasp> ... Something
-From the opening words of the SolSeed Service
Our symbolic year begins on the first day after the winter Solstice. This day symbolizes the begining of time as do the first words of our service. Take a few moments on this first day of the astronomical year to consider these words. The words are somewhat missleading. It is believed by some leading physicists that the begining of time was just that, the begining of time. Before that moment there was no time. Just as the phrase, 1 Kelvin less than absolute zero, has no meaning because you cannot have less heat than no heat, and just as the phrase, one lumen less than absolute darkness, has no meaning because you cannot have less light than no light, the phrase, one second before the big bang, has no meaning because you cannot have time before the begining of time. A mathematically more accurate metaphor is that just as you cannot go one meter North of the North Pole because the direction North ends at the North Pole, it is meaningless to talk about the time one second into the past from the Big Bang because the 'direction' past ends at the Big Bang.
So begin the year by thinking about how the big question of the temporal origin of the universe, is answered in the most unexpected way. Time itself is part of the geometry of the universe. There was no moment of creation or coming into being of the universe. Time is a direction within the universe and the universe is finite in that direction. Nothing exists beyond the first moment of time.
We are confused by this answer because we believe we are moving through time. The moment we are born we seem to begin a journey forward through time to the moment we die. But this is really just an illusion created by the fact that we remember the past but not the future. In actual fact, we are four dimentional objects which contain pictures of part of a four dimensional universe that we call memories. The parts of the universe that are in the pictures are always in the past direction from the parts of ourselves that contain the pictures. The journey is an illusion that we try to force onto the universe too. We picture the universe travelling through time. Instead we should picture time as part of the structure of the universe. Objects don't really move, instead they are prisms that stretch through space-time.
Take a minute to walk across a room. At the beginning of the minute you are on one side of the room and at the end of the minute you are on the other side of the room. But at all the moments in between you are somewhere in between. When you understand time as part of the structure of the universe, part of space-time, then you will see