The Vagaries of Time and On Being in the Now Moment

In the past few years, we have experienced a lot of shifts, collective chaos, angst, fear, the uprooting of density and the dismantling of the old-outdated patriarchal structure and systems. All of this has affected our experience of time in a given day. It isn’t really a stretch to say that we are in the midst of an existential crisis that depending on the energy of the moment, the hour, the day or the week can feel like time is slowing down, speeding up or even ending. While all this has been happening, we have also moved through huge shifts in the flow of time, not just experientially but scientifically in 3D reality.

We went from however our lives were structured and scheduled pre-pandemic, to a full global shutdown that sort of made time stand still to a certain degree. During this period, depending on your perception and view, you may have experienced a leisurely lengthening and spaciousness of time or you may have experienced a sensation of time being interminable and of your days being filled with boredom and a sense of never-ending sameness. Your view of things and of time over the past few years determined the experience you had. To be sure, your experience also varied depending on how well you were using your spiritual practice to support you in being in this now moment.

For me, my experience of time in December 2021, and January 2022, was that those months moved as slow as molasses and went on forever – like a year not a month. And then February and March zoomed by in a way that my egoic left brain mental mind could not actually process. I have had to keep resetting my brain to align with the calendar which shows that we are about to enter the second quarter of 2022. In the midst of all of this, I have observed that more clients have rescheduled appointments than ever before ~ in fact, one client made an appointment and then rescheduled it four times in just one afternoon. The same has been true of appointments I have made with practitioners of all kinds that have been rescheduled to an extent that has never occurred with these practitioners. It is as if we are all relearning how to manage our time.

Sometimes within this shifting time, my experience has been that I simply cannot do what I planned to do in the day. Sometimes the day is full and over before I’ve even looked at my to-do list. Other days everything is done before noon and I cannot believe I still have the whole rest of the day. Either way, there has been a complete shift in my ability to produce, create and be productive. In this wonky process, I have had to bear witness to the resurfacing of limiting ideas, beliefs and old patriarchal judgments I thought I was done with so much so that in a discussion with my friend and colleague Kris a couple of days ago, I realized that I was being as hard on myself as the worst bosses I have ever had. It was quite an eye-opening moment to realize I was being a very unkind boss to myself.

To move through this experience of the vagaries of linear time, I have had to be kinder and more compassionate to myself and others. I have had to stay more grounded, to breathe more mindfully into each moment and to surrender, trust and allow what is … whatever that is whether I like it or not. I have had to resurrect an old intention that “I AM releasing all judgement, attachment and expectation.” I have had to remind myself in those moments that are loaded with density and crud and angst and sadness, that this too shall pass. And to remember that each moment holds the opportunity to BE, to see, feel and experience the beauty and the blessings and the miracles available when we connect to and hold the frequency of love, joy, and happiness.

When I do this work to be present to each moment, I am more able to observe when all aligns in time as it did yesterday when I arrived home at the exact moment that a young mother with two small children were picking some oranges off the tree in my unfenced front yard. The mom looked sheepish and said, “it’s for the kids.” Her daughter, who was maybe about five years old, was eagerly devouring an orange that she held up to me with a smile saying “it’s good!” I smiled back, told them to wait and went to the garage to get a bag and a long-handled picker since I had already picked most of the oranges on the lower half of the tree. They filled the bag and there was so much love and delight on their side for the unexpected bounty and on mine for sharing the oranges that are too abundant for me to eat (and I didn’t even have to pick them to give them away!). Couldn’t have been more than five minutes tops but because I was fully present and engaged in the moment, it was never ending in a glorious way. As this small family of orange lovers walked away, the little boy who was about two years old turned, smiled and said “thank you.” Observing the divine timing of this whole experience, the blessing and miracle of it has refueled me and allowed me to be ever more present to each moment so that I am neither falling back to the past nor leaning forward to the future.

All of that said, for those of you like me (and my student and friend Pat) who are science geeks, and to soothe my egoic left brain mental mind, I also did a little research to update myself on the science around time and how it is shifting. Scientists who study man-made time, especially those working with the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) that officially measure the length of a day, have found that time is indeed moving more quickly as the Earth is spinning on its axis faster than it has in a half-century. Each day on this Earth is now shorter than our manmade 24 hours, owing to the increase in the speed of earth’s rotation over the last 5 decades. The year 2020 included 28 of the shortest days since 1960 and 2021 had even more. And yet, what length of time are we talking about in this scientific analysis of the shortening of time given the Earth’s more rapid rotation? According to IERS scientists, on average historically since man began measuring time in a linear way, with respect to the Sun, our Earth rotates once every 86,400 seconds, which equals 24 hours, or one mean solar day. In 2021, scientists found that an average day was about 0.05 milliseconds shorter than 86,400 seconds. Over the entire year, atomic clocks – which have been keeping ultra-precise records of day length since the 1960s – accumulated a lag of about 19 milliseconds. Doesn’t sound like much and yet for our internal clocks aligned with the circadian rhythms of the Earth, we feel that shift which is why it is ever more important for us to be present to each moment as doing so will lessen the dissonant effects of this organic natural shift in time vs the stasis, immobility and unconsciousness of our linear clocks that tend to dictate our day.

Viewed alternatively from a higher conscious mindful perspective, none of this time shifting matters in the least when we are present to each moment, when we are being in this now moment. So my friend I offer to you this advice in these shifting times, use your tools as aforesaid to stay present and BE. It is there that you will find everything you need to flow in the frequency of love, joy, happiness and miracles. It is there that I will meet you and we can BE together.