It is fairly well known that time moves differently between the human world and the Otherworld, although its less clear how exactly that works. Katherine Briggs suggest that the fire festivals act as a kind of anchor between the worlds, and also suggests that while humans cannot navigate the flowing tides of time the Good Folk can and regularly do. I've seen a lot of talk across the years by humans trying to sort out how this might work and trying to understand the concepts. I thought here I'd write a bit about what my Other friends have told me on the subject.
I admit its a lot to wrap your head around, and in some ways is contrary to how humans perceive things, anchored as we are in our perspectives.
I also want to add quickly that I have been previously told that while humans think in two dimensions - either/or, but/and, now/then - the Good Folk think in 5 dimensions which can roughly be described as three physical dimensions, existence, and time. Thinking in time isn't, as I understand it, as simple as thinking about the past or future but is more like constantly perceiving past/present/future and one's place within the flow. Its more encompassing than the human understanding of the concept. I'll be totally honest when this was told to me I didn't fully understand it and I still don't, but its probably worth sharing before we go further.
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| Hawthorn in fall, pic by author |
So, having discussed a bit about the way time works differently for the Good Folk and also about how they may perceive it, and reality, I wanted to share something that was told to me in a dream several years ago. This relates to the idea of time but also to the way that the Good Folk themselves (or Themselves) view humans based on this, and the way that effects relationships they might have, of any sort, with a human.
I was talking to my Other friend and it got into discussing them relating to humans and time and perspective. And she put it this way:
"Imagine that for humans a year passes in an hour, while for us it is merely an hour. You may accomplish a lot in an hour if you focus on it but an hour can also slip by virtually unnoticed if your attention is elsewhere. Now imagine that you tell someone you will do a thing for them and perhaps you do right away but perhaps you dally and when you realize *hours* have passed its actually been years for them in the mortal world.
Imagine that you grow exceptionally fond of someone only to watch their life pass in what, to you, feels like 3 or 4 days. No matter how you may try to cherish each hour, still they pass quickly. Of course time flows as it does but for us a year truly does seem to pass so quickly, no matter how anchored we may seek to be in the human world. You can choose to connect to someone who only lives 3 days, or 3 months, or 3 years, but it does not change how fleetingly they pass."
So, basically, what she was saying is that humans might perceive the Other as mercurial or inconsistent when in fact they are simply operating on a different time scale and may or may not act in what humans consider a timely manner (pun intended). And that this different time scale also effects how they may or may not connect to individual humans, because generally to them humans are as fleeting as spring flowers are to us.
This isn't to say they don't follow certain tides of the human year, which they do, but the impression I got is that to them these are more like a daily routine than the yearly cycle we perceive. Its a very different perspective. And of course these are all just loose analogies to convey the wider point, not literal comparisons.
