Temporalis Codex I: The Horizon of Being

On the Presence That Evaporates
By Aevalis the Chronarch, Celestial Archivist of the Hours

“The present is not a point in time.
It is the knife that cuts us free from what we were,
even as it bleeds us into what we will become.”
— Aevalis the Chronarch, The Horizon of Being

I. The Falling Moment

Aevalis wrote that time is not a river but a wound that never closes.
Every heartbeat is a small death; every breath, the birth that replaces it.
The Celestials of the Hourglass Order called this the Falling Moment — the instant of becoming that perishes as soon as it appears.

In Luminaria’s theology of existence, Being is defined by its collapse into Was.
This mirrors Heidegger’s concept of temporality, in which Dasein (the aware being) is always stretched between what has been and what might be.
The present is no refuge; it is care — the anxious awareness that one is already vanishing.

“To live,” said Aevalis, “is to lean into disappearance.”

II. The Threefold Light

Celestial philosophers speak of Three Lights that mark the sky: the Dawn, the Zenith, and the Dusk.
These are not suns but modes of existence.

Light Temporal Mode Philosophical Parallels Symbol Dawn Possibility Projection toward future The Promise Zenith Presence The fragile now The Flame Dusk Remembrance Return of the past The Shadow

Aevalis used them to illustrate ecstatic temporality — being stretched across time’s expanse.
He taught that the soul’s balance depends on its dialogue between lights: too much Dusk breeds regret, too much Dawn delusion.

III. The Burden of Presence

The mortal races envy immortals, believing endless duration means freedom from decay.
Yet Aevalis warned that immortality is suffocation by presence — to exist forever without the relief of ending.
The Hourglass Order practiced the Art of Allowing Loss: a daily ritual where they erased one cherished memory at dawn to remain human in spirit.

Philosophically, this reflects Heidegger’s notion of “being-toward-death” — that mortality gives life authenticity.
Without the horizon of ending, experience becomes flat, stripped of urgency.

“Eternity without loss,” wrote Aevalis, “is not life but glare.”

IV. Kairos and Chronos

In mortal chronomancy, Chronos is counted time — seconds, turns, celestial rotations.
But the Celestials worship Kairos — the qualitative moment when meaning descends.
The first is the rhythm of clocks; the second, the rhythm of revelation.

Aevalis described time as a double helix of order and grace.
Measured time allows civilization to act together; sacred time allows existence to matter.
This division echoes classical Greek and Christian distinctions between temporal sequence and divine intervention.

Thus, true chronomancy was not control of duration but discernment of the right instant — “catching the breath of the universe as it inhales.”

V. The Echo of Care

In Being and Time, Heidegger names care (Sorge) as the structure of existence: we are defined by what we attend to.
Aevalis turned this into liturgy.
The Hourglass monks would carve a single name into crystal and carry it until it wore smooth — a physical embodiment of care eroded by time.

They believed that each act of attention fixes a moment into history, rescuing it from oblivion.
Care is how the universe remembers itself.

“Every kindness delays the end,” he said.
“Every cruelty hastens it.”

VI. The Wind That Forgets

But care alone cannot preserve.
Aevalis warned of the Anemo Nulla, the Wind That Forgets — entropy as divine mercy.
If nothing were ever lost, existence would drown in its own memory.
This concept anticipates Ricoeur’s narrative identity, where forgetting is necessary for the story to continue.

The Celestials performed Rites of Unbinding, releasing memories into starlight so new stories could take their place.
Time feeds on what it sheds; meaning requires death.

“To forgive,” wrote Aevalis, “is to allow time to breathe.”

VII. The Horizon of Being

In his final sermon, Aevalis described the horizon not as an end, but a curvature — the visible limit of comprehension that bends endlessly ahead.
To exist is to walk that curve, never seeing the full circle but trusting that it closes somewhere beyond sight.
Here he united metaphysics and faith: time as both exile and homecoming.

He concluded:

“All that was will one day return,
not as repetition, but as recognition.
The horizon moves because we move —
and thus, it never ends.”