Time and Wind
By Lisa M. Payne
Time is like the wind. It is invisible until it decides to devastate or ravage surroundings; its magnitude then noted and measured. The erosion of wind and time leave indelible reminders of our impermanence. Soul demarcations, fleeting remembrances gone on the wind.
A gentle zephyr caresses one's face and heralds summertime. A playful windy pushing scurries us along and announces autumn time. It is the harsh winds of winter, however, that remind us of our limited time on earth. The toll of humongous winds cull our mortality. Wind and time move unseen yet, on the other hand, are all too familiar.
Time and wind are interlacing interludes as menacing harbingers. Idle meandering conversations as the wind rustles in the leaves overhead. Was it time well spent in the arbor of friendship? Brash, strident voices railing like a hurricane outside. Was this not time wasted in the abode of family?
The ripple on the pond reminds us the wind is there. The crashing wave on the wind burdened shore sometimes makes us wish it wasn't such a relentless reminder. Wind and time changing our surroundings from what is known. Wisps of change and transition blown like clouds across our spectrum. Was the view so bad?
I did not believe in the wind until I saw the windmill churn. I did not believe in time until I saw the pendulum swing. Invisible forces made manifest. Registered for the otherwise immovable soul. Wind is like time did you see it, were you there? Did you notice it, did you care?
I turn my face into the offshore wind and know that time is comfortable in the now.
TIME: Echoes of the Past, Guarantee of the Future
By Nancy M. Davison
Time, we are told, is a state of consciousness, a construct by the concrete mind so that humanity can fulfill divine purpose. Universal consciousness combines time and space. Time itself is a brain event, occurring in no other kingdom but the human.
We moderns often let the concept of time get in our way. In our culture, punctuality is important and we resent those who are chronically late, considering it an insult to have to wait, especially when we are on time!
On the other hand, in some Native American and other tribal cultures, time is relative to the importance of the event. If one is going to work and a family crisis arises, one automatically diverts attention from work to family. The employer, or whoever is waiting, is expected to understand that something more important has occurred, the immediate need is to be fulfilled, and that's that. This is also the slant of the Ageless Wisdom teachings, wherein we are told that quick response to real need is one of the higher psychic powers. Thus time is bent to accommodate the true need while lesser needs go rightly unfulfilled.
When I sit down to write, time disappears for me, I am no longer conscious of the progression of minutes or hours. They are constructs, after all, and I find I am more creative, more able to flow with divine rhythms if I forget to look at the clock. Years ago I wrote "Wupatki" as a study on the interference of today's unnecessary details in the world of reality:
Wupatki
On our way to the Grand Canyon we stopped to see the ruins at Wupatki. I merged quickly with the red rocks, knowing that if I listened I would hear the sounds of ancient life. Too many visitors had stopped that day; there were too many words, too many exclamations of studied delight. There was no mystery, no question. Those ancient people had lived and worked, then moved on to a better place. I knew those things, but I wanted to hear the stories from yesterday's voices. The voices of today wouldn't let me.
It seems to me that part of our job is to see through time, to get on the other side of the illusion of separation. We think we are separated from yesterday's voices, but we need to remember that they are our voices, telling us stories of events and circumstances that we have experienced and expressed in many lifetimes. When we learn to hear them, the sounds of our words will echo from the canyons of the past, through the present and on into the future.
So Many Breaths
By Charlotte Schmid
I sit by the cabin's window, looking out into space, or is it looking into time? My gaze does not know. The cabin is small, too small to hold all the dreams I had over time. But this is the space I occupy at this very moment in time, and it feels to be mine. Time never feels that way. Time is never mine, always moves on – I do not know to where.
The huge boulder next to my cabin is over 400 million years old. Four hundred million (400,000,000) years! How many life spans would this make? How many life stories could be told in such a time frame! The boulder, crystallized energy in the form of a rock, is frozen in time. Will it still be the same rock 400 million years from now? Or will it have dissolved slowly, smoothed by rainwater?
Did I ever take the time to sit at the window with my mother over a cup of tea? Did we look together out into time-space and share our deepest heart-thoughts? Did we pretend time would go on forever for us and never think that someday it would end? Did we take the time to sit and just be, be with so many breaths? So many thoughts and so much love.
Sometimes, time seems to stop though not really so it is just sort of make-believe. But sometimes I think time does skip a moment so that we can catch our breath and remind ourselves that time is more than we invented it to be.
I push the lace curtain on my window a bit to one side. This might make it easier and give me a clearer view as I gaze into time, trying to understand it. My window cannot be covered; it must be clear to see through in order to understand. I think of the time gone by, so irreplaceable, the time I could have used better, the time I knew was mine to live fully. But now it is gone and the time ahead I do not know. It is a stranger still. I only know that my very personal time is finite in the long, long and never ending time of the All.
God created the world in 6 days. The boulder next to my cabin is 400 million years old. God must have created and spoken in a different time frame. So did Brahma where one night and day count 4,320,000,000 human years.
"Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are" goes the nursery song. Light, traveling so long and so far that by the time we see it, the source of its origin may long be gone, changed and vanished. But light still travels on to other worlds to be seen. Can we catch a little spark from it when it brightens our world? Can we bring a bit of this light to the lonely hearts for whom time stopped long ago? Can we catch a glimpse of a rainbow spanning from one time zone to another, from one plane of consciousness to another?
God created the world in 6 days. Then the creative force took a day of rest. Our earthly day consists of 24 hours, or 1,440 minutes and we average 80 heartbeats per minute. From this it follows that one day's rest in our life means that the heart beats 115,200 times! We rest and the heart beats on! Chronos or Kairos, time goes on eternally.
I pull the lace curtain back over the window. The cabin now speaks softly and the boulder tells its own stories.
I listen to Time.
Time on My Hands
By Ford Boyer
Time can be measured from a pico-second (a trillionth of a second) to vast periods of geologic or galactic time. It can be defined as recognition in the brain of a sequence of events, a continuum that lacks spatial dimensions or, as in physical science, a single concept that recognizes the union of space and time, as in Einstein's relativity theories.
One of the more important aspects of time is our experience or awareness of the passage of time. We measure the passage of time by comments such as: "there's not enough time in a day", "too much time on my hands", "there's only 24 hours in one day", or "I can do only so much in a day." Such thinking allows for paradoxes in life because, although there may not be enough time in a day, we "find" time to spend hours watching the tube rather than reading a good book. We spend extra time "getting ready" for the day rather than spending a few moments in prayer or meditation. We use more time shopping for the "toys" of life than we do listening to the problems of a friend or volunteering at some local organization. Some people spend hours surfing the net but never take the time to speak to the next door neighbor.
For many, time is all important while for others it means very little. Some seem to flow through life in a rhythmic, fulfilling manner while others rush helter-skelter here and there fighting for another moment to do . . . nothing! Just fill up time and all will be well. For some, filling up time is a way to escape from deeper reflections not only on existing personal psychological problems but on larger problems such as family, community or world problems.
When we are sick, time seems to drag on forever, but when we are healthy, time flies. When we are depressed, time is an unending vacuum, but when we are happy, time is a roller coaster of thrills and fulfillment. An unhappy relationship brings months or years of "time wasted", but a happy relationship brings endless years of joyous loving – with an occasional up and down period, of course.
Some people use so much time searching for happiness and love they have no time to enjoy the moment. Or, they search for "things" and the search is a limitation in time and space. There is no time for more transcendental experiences; a possible space where time may not exist yet it is a possible state of being where connectedness, love and joy may be found.
Some may wallow in the time and space of self pity never knowing the time and space of self-forgetfulness; that period of just "letting go", that freedom of loving detachment. There may be hours or days of pondering on the "I cant's" rather than using time for the "I can's". Pondering on the "cannots" is, in essence, a form of negative meditation while the "cans" are times of useful energy output in space.
Some search for perfection in the slightest thought or act not realizing that time spent loving our imperfections is one method of clearing out those very imperfections we see as disabling us. Time spent in loving compassion for our idiosyncracies nourishes the soul and expands our compassionate understanding of others, thus creating a more inclusive time and space.
With more inclusiveness comes more responsibility and, necessarily, a more diligent effort to use the mind in a timely manner. To learn to use the mind efficiently is not an easy task; it takes practice and training, but the rewards in time and space are incomparable to anything previously experienced (so I'm told!). And, our experiences are what we perceive them to be. Can we say then that our perception of time is its own reward? If we change our perception – our thinking – of time, can we expand it or despand (that's not a word but it sounds good), shrink it?
Anything is possible, even a Grand Time in the Great Scheme of the universe and it may be that the Great Time really is – Nothing! Someone once gave me a small rock on which was painted the words, "Nothing ARE perfect" and it may be that those words exemplify the Grand Time of the universe of which we are all a part – time and nothing truly are perfect. It is how we use time/ nothing in our perceiving that matters in our daily living, whether we see time shrinking (despanding?) Into a non-usable commodity or expanding into useful, inclusive and compassionate thoughts and actions.
Our thoughts and actions occur over a period of "seventy and six" years, so we are told, but in this new and exciting millennium we find more and more "seniors" living to 100 years and beyond; some still thinking and actively using time, others sitting or lying, staring blankly into – Nothing!
If you are in a hurry and can't wait, someone WILL find the time to DO IT. What will you be doing at 70 plus 6?