Time…
It has become the master of our lives, without us even noticing it. A time that runs away. A time that we want to catch and that escapes us. Time that is always too short. I never have time….
How about taking a time-out?
Isn’t the arrival of the winter solstice the perfect time to give yourself some space? A breathing space? A return to your inner lands?
And yes, I am talking about space, because time only stops when it is connected to a space. In this world of instant communication, isn’t it the place that makes all the difference? Shouldn’t we start talking in terms of space and not time?
Because time is so fleeting, unpredictable, impossible to grasp…
Yet time is indeed multiple. In our Western society, it seems so linear, so fast, like a frantic race in which we must not lose a single second. Because if we get out of the race, out of the frenzy, we take the risk of stopping, of looking, of becoming aware, perhaps of collapsing? Yet time is anything but linear and regular. It is cyclical, it is slow and fast at the same time. It can be lightning fast for you and endless for me in the same space. It is an entanglement of diverse realities, of truth that intertwines. Time cannot be compressed into a single unit of measurement. It is not the sand that runs out regularly in an hourglass. On the contrary, it is anything but regular, it is compressible, distended, random, cyclical. It is alive.
So if it is alive, could we choose to live it differently? To give it another pace, another taste? Would we be willing to take away the power we give it?
What if we chose that today we have time, that it stretches? What if we decided that every space could be invested with the same intensity of presence? What would happen?
Our quality of presence is a way out of linear time. When we fully experience every taste, every smell, every look, every breath, time expands. A space opens up in which we can fully unfold. We don’t necessarily need to slow down but to invest our spaces differently, to connect with time in a new way and to embody it.
What if we had the courage to stop the repetitive patterns in our lives, and simply try a new timeline. A line that would allow us to breathe? Thinking about breathing, we are the only animals that hold their breath. The only ones who stop breathing. Have you ever realized how many times you block your breath? Or stop yourself from letting life flow through you?
What if during the solstice you try to take a space for yourself, a space to breathe continuously. A space to put what really matters back into the centre of your life. In our race against time, we sometimes forget what is really important to us. Is it always at the centre of our lives? Do we take the space to celebrate this essential?
