Time beyond humanness
By Bianca Crapis and Beth Hill
How do you feel about time? In modern-day culture time is a commodity. We never have enough of it, we always want more of it, we desperately seek ways to save it. Time is a linear ‘thing’ that is always being ‘lost’, and consequently everything becomes imbued with a kind of urgency. Philosopher, writer, activist and professor of psychology, Bayo Akomolafe says “The times are urgent, let us slow down”.
The idea of slowing down in the face of crisis might seem counter intuitive. However, we invite you to consider the impact of rushed thinking or action to address climate collapse. We need a different relationship with time to ponder the kind of world we want to participate in and create. Environmental activist, author, deep ecology and Buddhist scholar, Joanna Macy writes that “until we break out of this temporal trap, we will not be able to fully or adequately address the crises we have created for ourselves and the generations to come.”
Deep time is a concept that we can explore and practice to discover a new relationship with time. Deep time refers to the immense span of time that goes beyond a human life, beyond remembered human history and human civilisation. It invites us to consider all the time that has spanned before our current point and all the time that will be after our lives have passed. To connect with the vastness of all the unknown causes and conditions that have led to this moment in time, and all that stem beyond us into the unknown futures. It is an offering to become comfortable with our tiny human position in the vastness of time unfolding, and time as something which is inhabited by other living beings – animals, plants, trees, insects, rivers – all with distinct relationships with time that challenge our human-centric lens.
Invitation to Practice: Meditation on the Elements
This month’s invitation to practice is a 15-minute guided meditation that invites you to experience deep time by journeying into the elements through our own bodies. It’s an offering to explore how parts of the earth that existed long before us have been central to the development of our species and invites us to see the world with new eyes. Eyes that see through deep time and can experience gratitude for our place amongst the earth’s history.
You can listen to the meditation here.
Following the meditation or the reading above, you might feel called to reflect on the following questions.
How does recognising the expanse of time and the place of humans in that history of time change my relationship to the current climate?
What becomes possible to imagine for the future of the world when I step out of a narrow experience of time?
What quality of being do I feel called to invite into my life after contacting deep time? Humility? Appreciation? Connection?
