One day, googling at random, surfing, I guess you could say, I came across a wall clock for sale. The numbers around the face were replaced with the word "now." Clever, I thought, but for someone who celebrates the now moment, is there need for another clock?
I spent a year studying with the late Paula Sunray, a spiritual teacher and author who moved through life with her purpose always in mind. Every Monday night, I listened with others as she reminded us what it meant to be human. We were told that life takes place in the present moment. She would ask, "What time is it?" And we would say…"now."
I find it interesting that we call ourselves human beings. In my mind I always insert a comma. We are humans, being-but most of us usually forget what it means to be.
Like you, I sometimes allow culture to get me sidetracked. My purpose for being is not to buy and sell. However, we’re told that good Americans do what they can to participate in the economy, especially in times of war. After the attacks on September 11, President Bush announced that tax cuts would go ahead as promised. His administration urged us to "go shopping."
My desire for more "things" is waning by the moment. My wife and I are in the process of downsizing. Our son has gone up to university in Duluth, so we put our split-level home in Woodbury on the market. We now sit and wait [a psychic said for another ten months??] for it to sell. In preparing the house for sale, I moved a lot of our stuff into a storage unit. Our house does seem nice and clutter-free now. But, I ask myself [several months later] what exactly am I storing? I cannot remember what we have packed away. And now I am wondering if we even need any of that stuff anymore. We seem to be doing just fine without it.
Christmas and the mad scramble to buy more things for friends and family are upon us. My heart tells me that this is a spiritual holiday, that the reason for the season truly has been hijacked by more commercial interests. The paradox is, our nation’s economy seems overly dependent upon this spending frenzy at the end of the year. It’s a make-or-break time for many retailers. And what about the children? Is there any more surprise left on Christmas morning? My instincts tell me that kids are becoming more demanding about what they expect to get. Something has to give. How can we please the children, the economy and a desire to no longer be pressured to get all of our presents bought in time?
I’m not alone in the feeling that time is speeding by faster than in the past. Is that because of higher frequencies, a quickening of our third-dimensional experience, a shifting into higher dimensions? Perhaps it is just a taste of what we will experience with 2012, the end of the world as we know it. I have a theory that each human is being grounded more into the present moment. We are more attracted to the experience of being present. A consequence of that, perhaps, is our perception that time as we know it, measured on clocks, is speeding up, because we are no longer living so much in the past or future.
I took off my watch 12 years ago before jumping in the car for a road trip to Sedona. Working from home, I’m often at a loss as to what day of the week it is. Nonetheless, I still keep a sideways glance at a clock on my computer desktop. I wonder why sometimes, because I am finding that rarely do I really need to know the exact time anymore. I wake up the same time every day without an alarm, and the setting sun tells me when it’s time for me to walk my dog. What else is important?
I am convinced that we all could live instinctually without clocks telling us what time it is. Every other species on the planet lives without external time pieces, so why can’t we? There’s something known as "Indian time," referring to the Native American’s penchant for doing things when he feels called to do it, as opposed to when the clock tells him to do it. I like the idea of doing things at the "right time." It feels more natural. It seems healthier, as if a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I think this is exactly what we do as humans, being.
