It Is Not An EITHER/OR World : Cyclical Time, Covert Fortune, and Harmonious Struggle
‘The Gathering’ Print by Real Fun, Wow!
2020 has arrived. And so have we.
Time is a mind-bending (and mind-bendable) phenomena. I often feel as though I'm swimming through a sea of leviathan technicolor bubbles when I ponder the nature of time. Any fellow bewildered fish out there? The concept of linear time has never really resonated with my innate perception and embodied experience of this thing we call Life. I prefer to float in the self-sustaining rhythmic current of the lazy river that is cyclical time.
This truth was potently present for me last Tuesday eve as I sat silently for hours in ceremony with a few dear friends by the sea; drinking tea by candlelight, watching the tide dance and the stars and moon shift across the sky to welcome in the New Year.
When we contemplate the tide, we are destined to honor the lunar cycle which has no beginning nor end, yet still affords us the luxury of consistency and reinforces the platform of faith from which we can confidently dive into the sea of surrender.
When we gaze at the stars, we are traveling back in time. We are seeing them as they were many moons *wink wink* ago. If, for instance, a star is 100 light years away, we are seeing it as it was 100 years ago. *mind blown* But to us, we are experiencing its beauty in the present moment - this is our reality right now. In effect, NOW and THEN, PRESENT and PAST, have merged. On an essential level, this distinction does not exist.
“The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it's all we'll need.” ― Ann Richards
Beautiful artwork by Em Romano http://www.taureantrade.com/
When we tap into the cyclical rhythms of nature and expand our perspective beyond the narrow gaze of our mechanistic forefathers, we can transcend the intellectual propensity to categorize and conform natural phenomena (including ourselves) into the relatively rigid confines of 'modern' science/culture/religion/you get the gist [all born, on one level, of a wondrous human curiosity, but on a deeper and more pervasive level, of an anxious pursuit of control undertaken by the human psyche (when divorced from the wisdom of Spirit which rests within all)]. *mic drop.
We can allow for the presence of paradox and uncertainty, of chaos and change, because we know deep down that there is no final destination, no end point on the wheel of time. The Whole thing is an EVERLASTING cycle of transformation.
Life’s explicit duality & implicit unity, the mutually-defining & eternally transforming nature of seemingly opposite poles, is stunningly represented by the ancient Chinese symbol of yin-yang or taijitu. This interplay of Yin and Yang gives rise to the Five Phase System of organizing natural phenomena, a system which informed various fields of early Chinese culture, including feng shui, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine, music, military strategy, and martial arts, and is very much still alive in Chinese Medicine today.
A note on the Five PHASES (versus Five ELEMENTS)
If you’re at all familiar with Chinese Medicine, or you’ve come to me as a patient, chances are you’ve heard of Five Element Theory (and if not, let’s chat!). However, what you might not know is that the more apt translation of this system (known as Wu Xing) is Five PHASES. This is relevant to our conversation around time when we consider the distinction between the resolution and inertia of an element in opposition to the fluidity and enigma of a phase. Seems to mirror the contrast between linear time versus cyclical time, right? It should come as no surprise that the more common translation (i.e., 5 Elements) of Wu Xing “arose by false analogy with the Western system of the four elements. Whereas the classical Greek elements were concerned with substances or natural qualities, the Chinese xíng are ‘primarily concerned with process and change.’"
More on Wu Xing in future blog posts…)
When we get wrapped up in a stagnant narrow way of seeing things, we are quick to judge events as good or bad, fortunate or unlucky, but as cyclical time reminds us, these events are not isolated, and one cannot possibly know how they might lend themselves to the unfolding of the greater story; to the sumptuous and labyrinthine evolution of Life itself. As the farmer in the old Chinese parable teaches us, the only valid response to life's happenings is "we'll see."
“Every disturbance, whether resolved or not, is making space for an inner engagement. As a shovel digs up & displaces earth, in a way that must seem violent to the earth, an interior space is revealed for the digging. In just this way, when experience opens us, it often feels violent & the urge, quite naturally, is to refill that opening, to make it the way it was. But every experience excavates a depth, which reveals its wisdom once opened to air.”
-Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen
Our proclivity to judge, to assign value to, to react based on transient sensory impulses, to live according to our enculturated ways of being, to serve the voices in our head born of anxiety & ego, so often silences our deeper intuitive capacity for knowing & choosing indelible beauty & truth in this life. And for finding respite & reverence in the universe of coexisting opposites dancing in harmonious struggle in which we exist.
‘Celestial Sisters’ Print by Real Fun, Wow!
Whatever we may be facing - be it painful or pleasant - is a transitory yet indispensable wave in the tide that shapes the shore of our lives. The [healing] journey is not linear & may not intend to enchant (despite its proclivity toward the miraculous), but there is immeasurable beauty in the scars that once were wounds and untold wonder in the perpetual cycle in which they transform. More often than not, the most seemingly infelicitous moments reveal themselves as cherished gifts once we are able and willing to acknowledge their necessity in our protracted awakening.
“Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world.”
-Rachel Naomi Remen