Tide: Prophetic time, written not in clocks but in natural processes with physical duration, including the ebb and flow of water drawn by the moon, periods of a day (eventide, day time), and spiritual festivals, rooted in the natural world. Tides are not read by intellect, but by bodies and are written in the substance of physical life. They are its spiritual manifestation, a substance such as breath, or the ancient force called aether, which filled the ancient Greek air, and on which all other forces flowed. As such, tides are forces of duration and lastingness (tide me over till dinner.) A person who can read the physical world in its tidal rhythms, is a prophet or a spell-caster, who can translate natural power into social constructs. From that transference (or reading or channelling) of power come such terms as “woe betide my enemies!” and “tide me over till dinner.” Tides are a form of far-seeing, read with the body. It would be right to call them natural time, but not right to compare them to clocks.

Anemones in an Ebb Tide, Mackenzie Beach, Vancouver Island