The tree of life is one's inner axis that grows from the depths of the earth and reaches to the heavens. It connects together the primal opposites of the temporal and the eternal. It is life lived from the "still center of the turning world" and it embraces the deepest human mystery: that we are eternal beings living in a world of time.
I have learned to understand time and thought as a spiral: neither a straight line that must go always forward, even into a precipice, nor a circle that must remain forever stuck in repeating past experience. Instead, a spiral, which curves always backward in order to curve forward. What makes time and life into a spiral instead of a straight line or an endless circle is setting aside time for reflection, rest, renewal. That renewal time is the curve that moves the spiral onward. This lets us re-view where we have been, so that we can go forward.
Embrace the open moment, recognizing that each moment may be experienced as a new birth and as a spectacularly open time, when what we do can make a difference to whether the human race grows or dies.
Time ... The ancient ones knew that there was a relationship between time and light. That light has no time. Nothing can travel at the speed of light but light itself. If we approach the speed of light, we must become light. When we become light -- a Child of the Sun -- then time is dissolved. We all know that our deeds today affect tomorrow, that our smallest gestures influence destiny, that the future of our species changes constantly with every action of every living thing on Earth. Time is polychronic AND monochronic -- it does not fly like an arrow only. It also turns. Like a wheel. (He traced a circle in the air with his fingertip.) When these two kinds of time intersect, that is sacred time, ritual time, when you can influence the past and summon destiny from the future.
The orphan boat of my heart
Crosses the unsteady, undulant
Ocean of Time.
There is no future in spending our present worrying about our past.
All things are accomplished through waiting. Time is the vehicle. If we perseveringly maintain a correct attitude, the force of inner truth is able to work. It penetrates gradually to all that needs to be influenced. To rush anything, or impatiently force results, only causes setback. At best we achieve surface reforms that in time revert to the same problems. Steadfast waiting -- working sincerely to hold correct principles -- leads to slow but permanent changes for the better.
The announcement of autumn comes in
Silence. Listen!
The atmosphere is muted. Listen!
The yellow, red, gold-brown leaves rustle,
A few green ones peak here and there.
They tell of another season gone
... another season coming.
Another season of blustery cold winds,
snow and ice. A time with only
the peep of the sparrow.
Another turn of the wheel of Time.
Another turn of the wheel of our lives.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flow,
Hold Infinity in the palms of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.