It’s time… A rough time. A moment in history that feels undeniably broken. A strange time. Difficult. These are dark times. Unprecedent in many ways. But not so new in other ways. Where are we headed? Time will tell. It’s time to ask ourselves some questions about time.

Time is a concept I feel both eager and nervous to discuss here. So many things about it feel too complicated to put on the tip of my tongue, or the tip of my pen (or the tip of my fingers, as they type this). And yet it’s been nagging, poking me from the inside, demanding that I take a little time to explore it with you. 

I like to take my time. I don’t want to rush things. I’m tired of rushing my kids. I love Summer Break with them. I love being in the flow… when inspiration becomes a river of creativity. When the kids and I stay out on the beach and watch the sunset, even though it means a late bedtime. There’s something about the way the western world functions that pulls you away from relishing an experience, from allowing the forest to speak to you, from staring up at the night sky and basking in vastness. Nothing takes you away from presence more than a tight schedule. Finish on time. Be there on time. Time for the next thing. 

I’m not trying to say; “be here now.” Sure, be here now, that’s important, it’s just not the only way that time works. And no, this moment is not the only thing you have. Memories are important. Planning is important. Context is important. Perspective is important. The beauty of time is that it’s complex, layered, and full of wrinkles. 

Yes, wrinkles have something to do with the interest and the intense relationship I have with time. But that too, is only one facet of time’s construct, function, and direction. The arrow of time is real. I am not as young as I used to be. I am not as old as I will be. But there’s more to it. 

Somewhere between awe and terror, between weeping and wondering, between trying to work with it and just watching it cascade, there’s a spiraling intensity to time that I just cannot turn away from. Some people are able to move through life without thinking about it too much. They brush off the ways that time tries to tangle them up in knots. And if that’s you, you might not want to keep reading. 

A question that my eight year old had a couple of months ago provoked a conversation about the speed of light, and how the light of the sun takes about eight minutes and twenty seconds to get to earth. He said it makes his brain hurt. But he also wanted to keep talking about it. 

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with trying to understand big concepts that permeate the universe (thanks, Dad!). What is the nothingness that was before the big bang? What does infinite mean? And if the universe is infinite, but it keeps expanding, what is it expanding into? How come you’re telling me that some of the stars I see if I look through a telescope actually no longer exist? Time and space are woven together. WTF?!

I was always in touch with the scary feeling of how quickly time moves. I felt like I was growing up too fast. I wanted to hold on. I wanted to stay with my parents and not have to leave and go into the world on my own. I wanted to keep the preciousness of childhood for longer. I wanted my parents to stay young forever… The thought of them dying one day was unbearable. Still is. 

And now, at this stage in life, time feels like water running through my hands. The kids and the wild metamorphosis happening right in front of my eyes. A new person emerging, and emerging, and more, an old skin shed, all at a pace that spins and twists around before the hands can touch, or the brain can register the change. The aging of not only my parents, but my own. Who is this? The mirror asks. The filled up schedule that feels like a spiderweb, keeping me from getting to the things I promise myself I would do, and the years… the years just evaporate.

Do you ever feel like time swallows you alive?

This is something the Hindus have a goddess for. And she happens to be my absolute favorite since she came into my life, even before I knew she was a goddess of time. When I started to learn about Kali, I was attracted to her skulls and bones and intensity. To her lolling tongue and the madness in her eyes, to her belt of severed arms and the ornaments of snakes. I was pulled toward the ferocity of her face, the darkness, the wildness, like a moth to a flame, I was in the vibrational power of her roar, I could feel her all around me and inside me, enveloping. 

Kala, in Sanskrit, means time. Kali is the fierce power of time. Time is death. Time births you. Time eats you. Kali is the devouring nature of reality. She’s the Great Mother. She’s the womb of existence. She’s the wonder of life. She’s death itself, because life cannot exist without it. She’s decay, because time is cyclical, and decay is fertilizing, and nature needs to renew itself. She’s the compost pile. She’s the worms, the fungi, the bacteria, the flies. She’s the ocean; the vastness, the depths, the waves. Primal. Primordial. She’s the forest; woven of fallen trees and the ferns that grow out of dead wood, of creatures that eat what’s no longer alive, of new sprouting trees, shooting up from a soil nourished by all that is falling apart. 

Kali is scary. Death is waiting for all of us. Time does eat us alive. Kali is a goddess known for her darkness, but her darkness is also known as the great power of love. You come from it, you’re held in it, and into it you dissolve. Not just once, but continuously. Not just at the end of your days, but with every breath. We are destroyed. We are renewed. 

The power of life, of death, of time, is so much greater than us, so much bigger than our mind’s capacity to understand or comprehend it. 

In the cyclicality of time, we can see that history is moving, like nature, through seasons. Seasons of progress, of flourishing, of movement toward more inclusion, of improvement in human rights, of less war and more tolerance, of the arts emerging triumphantly from dark ages. These are not perfect times. Perfection is not something the universe offers. But these are periods when people think humanity has made progress on important issues. 

When we think we made progress and that progress will continue, we think we live in a linear reality. 

The arrow of time does exist. My kids, indeed, grow. I am aging, there’s no doubt about it. But linear is not the only trajectory. 

In the cyclicality of time, we can see that there are also seasons of decay. Dark ages arrive. Bigotry and xenophobia gain momentum. Fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise. The progress that was made before is declining. Dying. Dissolving. Human rights – particularly women’s rights – are in danger. The arts suffer. Doom and gloom permeate the thoughts, the feelings. And there are vampires that feed off of people’s fears, problems, and suffering. 

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I highly recommend Stefan Zweig’s book; The World Of Yesterday. I think it helps gain perspective. Looking at Europe before World War 1, during the war, between the wars, and some of the second World War, through lenses of art and culture is insightful, and helps view where we are now through more facets and prisms. 

The times we’re living through are apocalyptic. There’s no simple way to make it all go away. There’s no one way that we need to look at this. We know that time will move in all different manners, through many different forms, and that change and familiarity will weave our reality in more than one way. I’m not trying to sell us ways to cope with the devastation, the rage, and the grief. I’m trying to live with the mess, with the pain, with the struggles, and not forget the sweetness, the pleasure, the magic. 

It’s time. There’s more. So much more. But it’s time to close this circle, knowing that the wheel of time will keep spinning. So I’ll work on part 2 of this exploration. In the meantime, we can remember that we are part of a vastness. That how we tend to view time is super simplistic and limited, and that weaving the web of time and space in our minds may not be graspable, but can be contemplatable. And perhaps a contemplation such as this can help us breathe more meaning into a time that tends to flash meaningless in neon. 

Thanks for reading. I’m so grateful for your presence. If this is somewhat interesting for you, please share it with others. Your support in this way means a lot to me!  

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All my love,

Hagar