Reclaim Your Sacred Time
/Every breath is a reflection of cosmic pulse.
The macro rhythms of cosmos are reflected in the micro rhythms of waking and sleeping, heartbeat and breath. Removed from the planet’s cycles, we can’t hear the voice of the infinite mother who speaks our unique path into being….
How can we reclaim our relationship to time, rescuing it from ‘never enough’ to the fullness of sacred time so that we’re living each moment of our short and precious life?
“The story of the circle is a love story; it weaves us into something much greater than the story of a small, disconnected human mind. The regenerative currents of nature weave us into the Great Mystery and the Great Web of Life” - Marysia Miernowska
Time: Linear or Circular?
Since before recorded history, mystics have hailed the eternal present as the ultimate pilgrimage site.
The primacy and solidity of linear time is an illusion, a gift and a curse rooted in the unique limitations and gifts of the human mind. While we can’t operate modern communities without mutually agreed upon times for interaction, even the clock is shaped like a circle, not a line.
The state of yoga is described as kalotara or the destruction of time, in which we awaken from the illusion of past/future to become one with this moment now. Ritual, like the dreamworld, creates a container of ‘time outside of time’ inviting an expanded state of consciousness where our experience of the space/time continuum breaks down.
Our ancestors, like all other beings living close to the Earth, lived within a different understanding and experience of time as circular versus linear.
Post - industrial revolution, humans have become more and more isolated from a relationship with organic cycles of light and the need to interact with these cycles for survival, a process which has supported the fantasy of linear time in the collective cultural imagination.
A far cry from the organic and universal models of seasonal, moon and life cycles, the cultural mythos of ceaseless youth and productivity is the foundation of the capitalist experiment of racial, class and ecological exploitation.
The shackles of linear time fit neatly into the consumer framework where all of life is a never ending climb towards bigger! better! more! as if life were a never ending summer bonfire. Unfortunately this framework leaves us depleted, ill, isolated and struggling to chase an impossible ideal, generally for the ultimate financial benefit of the ruling class. It’s time has come.
How can we be the change and embody the shift from an egocentric, materialistic, anthropocentric, competition-based society to a soul-centric, eco-centric, cooperation based, compassionate and sustainable society?
How do we get our bearings amidst generational layers of violent cultural mythologies?
The Wheel of Life is a simple and practical tool for personal, community and global transformation. As a visual depiction of the cyclical nature of time, it is a modern attempt to understand the world in which our ancestors lived and to trace our way back to a regenerative way of life.
The wheel offers a model to slice through outdated cultural entrainment to reconnect with the essential blueprint, the basic, bare-bones reality, of the more than human world so we can anchor our evolution in physical reality versus the ever shifting culturally produced stories of the ego-mind.
Our ancestors lived within layers of universally observable, repetitive patterns which are plainly mapped on the wheel:
the daily light cycle created by the rotation of Earth via the sun
the monthly moon cycle created by the moon’s relationship to the sun
seasonal cycles created by Earth’s shifting axis via the Sun.
These cycles mirror both the life cycle of all sentient beings as well as the inner process of the human psyche.
While I’ve predominately studied and practiced this model in wise women traditions as a form of embodied ancestral medicine, the Wheel of Life has also been beautifully adopted by contemporary eco- psychology as a model of optimal human development and a design tool for creating life sustaining societies (see the work of Bill Plotkin).
This wisdom has been kept alive by global lineage holders and is returning to human consciousness en masse during this period of global awakening.
Through nature based analogy and by mapping ancient, primal archetypes onto the cyclical simplicity of daily, monthly and yearly cycles on Earth, we travel the wheel through the human life cycle,“taking root in a childhood of innocence and wonder; sprouting into an adolescence of creative fire and mystery probing adventures; blossoming into an authentic adulthood of cultural wisdom, grace and holistic tending of the more than human world” (Bill Plotkin).
Stepping into circular time by understanding and structuring your month, your year and your never ending personal growth around the Wheel of Life is a healing and liberatory practice of reclaiming trust, acceptance and inner empowerment as a way of life.
The Wheel of Life guides us to remember that we are one with the interconnected web of all life. The grandiose egoic drama of human separation is but a temporary oversight - like forgetting your umbrella during a storm.
Remembering that the cycles of our own lives and societies are not independent from but follow the same rules as all of nature invites us to step back into mystical relationship with the unfoldment of our own inner evolution.
Circular time invites us into the experience of our life as a prayer in dialogue with our ancient ancestors and the wisdom of the Earth.
The extent to which we are willing to bravely interact with the larger cycles around us versus denying or ignoring their influence is the extent to which we can individually achieve health and balance and the extent to which humans may survive on this planet.
Curious about how to
cultivate a sacred relationship to time?
Reflection Questions
1) How can you honor the turnings of the wheel by carving out small moments for consciousness and intention during major transitions (from day to night, new and full moons, between seasons, between breaths)?
2) Which areas of the wheel of life do you feel most comfortable and familiar with? Which scare, repel or confuse you? Why?
3) Everything lives somewhere on this cycle, in a state of constant evolution, dying and being reborn on it’s own timeline. Where would you map the development of your current love life or partnership, your spiritual identity, your business or professional identity, etc.? In other words, what areas of your life have stagnated and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, honoring their organic cycles, which areas demand the energy of youthful growth and which are asking for the surrender and release of the wisdom of fall?
4) All societies rise and fall. While death is constantly occurring so is birth. What parts of you are you willing to let die in order to birth a world you’d be proud to pass on to the next seven generations?
You’re invited to share your reflections or reactions below
Read More About the Wheel of Life in my blog articles: