Time as a Spiral

Happy Spring Equinox! As with so many things, my connection to this celebration is entangled with drawing closer to my ancestral cosmologies and nature.

In the British Isles, archaeological evidence shows that ancient cultures of this land were likely infused with relationship to time - but not in the same way we experience time today.

Time is indeed an experience, and a measure of space and place as much as passing minutes.

In the past, what we can reasonably infer is that time was more experienced as a profound, embodied awareness of the movements of nature.

Cultures immersed in nature were/are not set apart from the natural ecological unfolding of time, as expressed by the phases of the moon, animal migrations, plant and tree growth, and an immeasurable wealth of other such phenological indicators.

Nature awareness has most often given rise to the idea of time as cyclical rather than linear - we see this everywhere in nature, and within our own lives.

In the ancient British Isles, this knowledge of the nature of time is perhaps the inspiration behind the prolific spiral image.

This is why the very first class of “Enter the Otherworld” will include teachings of ecology-based time, and how this can be interpreted from the ancient prehistory of the Isles.

What does this mean for us living in modern times? For myself, even though I feel deeply connected to the cyclical, spiraling nature of time, it’s still difficult to let go of the linear-based model that our lives are based on today. When we engage with ancestral wisdom in today’s world, it doesn’t mean we can go back to some idealized picture of the past. Instead, our inquiry is around how ancient knowledge can inspire and guide us today.

How are you marking the passing of the seasons today?

Many blessings!