The date today, 3rd September 2007. Sixty eight years ago, England declared itself at war with Germany. Millions of lives were lost to war and genocide with all their assorted horrors. There is something about this day that you can still reach out and feel. Something dark and brooding as though its influence has never really gone away.

Certain dates seem to touch our lives more than others. I am curious whether anyone reading this has ever noticed a significant date in their lives. For me there’s a single date in November that has kept recurring throughout my life. There are basically two ways (at present) or looking at time. Either we regard it as linear (in which case January follows December and that’s that) or cyclical (in which case we get our heads around the idea that January both follows and precedes December). It’s also possible to accept a complex combination of the cyclical/linear idea, so that you get January may both precede and follow December, but in a given 12 month period it can only do one of the other.

We don’t really understand time at all. Yes, we have watches and calendars to tell us the time, but that’s all they are – measuring jugs for time. It would be like making bread using a pint of water, and believing that just having the water jug in your hand would somehow enable you to make bread if all the other ingredients were missing.

The essence of time – why it is the way it is, why we find ourselves at a particular ‘point in time’ is something I, for one, haven’t grasped yet. Nor am I likely to, if I’m honest with myself. But sometimes a journey begins with questions and thinking…

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info please watch this space!