I have a very curious relationship with time. It both fascinates and frustrates me. Many years ago, I remember learning that time is a man-made construct and doesn't actually exist, at least not in the way that we have been taught. And then time began to confuse me, although it probably always did to some degree.
You see, most of us that are alive today in Western cultures know clock time. This absolutely was created by man. It helps us keep track of appointments and arrive at meetings or gatherings on tim and it is useful for these purposes. It is the time that most of us move by. It also has a darker side, in that it allows us to sell our lives one minute at a time....and I won't expand further on that just now, but I think most can relate.
And then there is another time, which I just refer to as Earth time. Within this concept of time, there is time of the dark and time of the light. Sean Donoghue shared that in western cultures, farmers still mostly keep to this time....except when they also must make appointments and have meetings. But day to day, they mostly flow with Earth time.
I have shared before about the biggest message that I received from Covid, was to "slow down"...which meant ditch the urgency, move more towards pleasure, move more slowly, less forcefully....essentially flow.........and I am choosing this more in many big and small ways. And this involves the element of time.
Take our chickens for example......we do not let them out to forage at 6pm. We let them out to forage about 2 hours before darkness. At darkness, they wander into their own coop and up onto their roost. They move by Earth time. If we try and round them up before darkness, it is a chase and capture game that nobody enjoys. Dinner also falls under this category, as does lunch and breakfast. We eat when we are hungy, which is body time, which I feel is also Earth time. And I know, but am not incredibly well versed, in how melatonin is produced or hindered due to the lightness and darkness.
We were designed (by who, what, or where is still under speculation) to move with Earth time. And yet most of us operate by clock time. There are certainly moments in everyone's lives where they ditch the clock time. If you go camping or hiking, you are paying attention to the light time and the dark time, rather than clock time.
The more I make small choices to move with Earth time, the more at ease and relaxed I feel. I notice more starkly the tension that sets in when I have any sort of anything that is at a specific time - which with 5 children, there are many things that fall into this realm. I understand that I am noticing it because of the contrast - NOT because I am suddenly experiencing tension. I was always experiencing the tension, but it was pathological and constant and so I did not know what it was like to not be in that state. Now that I do, I can make different choices, where I can, to move more in Earth time.
I belive that I and probably most people probably are in Earth time much of the time and we simply don't notice it. We are too caught up in adhering to clock time. Simply by bringing awareness to the Earth time choices we do make, can bring ease.
Where are you flowing in Earth time in your life?
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