Sunday morning time-travel
Sunday mornings have a sort of gentleness to them. Time takes on a different form and simple things offer such richness. The glimmer of the sunlight through the window. The little blackbird bobbing on the washing line. The freshness of the dew-laden grass in the morning air.
As I sit here on my porch enjoying the feel of warm breeze on my skin and that first delicious sip of coffee, time slows -and with it my attention grows. I’ve entered slow-time.
Slow time is a phrase that’s doing the rounds at the moment, brought to life in the west by the writings of Bayo Akomolafe who shares an African proverb: “These times are urgent. Let us slow down”.
Yet slowing down is not a function of speed; it is a function of awareness. When we pay attention and become more present, we enter a different state of mind; where we look beyond what rests on the surface and start to see the bigger picture unfolding around us. Slowing down allows us to see what is in front of us, to become more conscious; to reflect more, ask bigger, more beautiful questions. Slowing down means becoming accountable to more than what rests on the surface.
One of the biggest shifts in my life happened when I recognised that ‘Sunday morning’ was a state of mind, and therefore something I could experience at any time. I can appreciate the gentleness of Sunday mornings first thing on a Monday. Or in a meeting on a Thursday afternoon. Or after work on a Friday night at so called ‘rush-hour’ time. I have the capacity to enter slow time whenever I wish – and experience that the more I do so, the richer, deeper and more infinite the world becomes.
Which brings me onto Deep Time.
For anyone unfamiliar with Deep Time, it is a geological timescale measuring the 4.6 billion years of Planet Earth; a timescale which is vastly, almost unimaginably greater than that of human lives and imaginations. It is a phrase for the unimaginable hugeness of time. Many years ago, I took a Deep Time walk with a group of friends, guided by the ineffable Dr Stephan Harding. We walked along the Devon coast-path for 4.6km, each kilometre representing a billion years of evolution of Earth. We walked and walked and walked, and learned as we walked about the formation of life on earth at each of the stages of evolution; stopping at milestones to hear about the formation of the moon, the development of multicellular life; the evolution of vertebrates, plants, amphibians, mammals etc. After several hours, we neared the end of the walk and could see where we’d parked the car.
At this point, Stephan took out a 30 cm ruler.
“Dinosaurs have just arrived”, he declared.
We knelt together around the ruler and he showed us with his fingers, mere inches from the end of the walk when humans arrived. He pointed to millimetres from the end of the ruler and explained this was when industrial revolution took place - just micro-moments from the present moment in which we find ourselves.
Seeing the history of life in this way completely reframed how I felt about the world. Having been educated to think only within the tiny limitations of human history, I had suddenly been gifted a sense of awesome expansion that completely changed everything. Whilst extending the mind into million-year timescales can feel daunting, thinking about deep time can be an astonishingly sublime experience. Humbling and filled with reverence for the majesty of life on Earth.
This short video is a great starting point for anyone new to Deep Time, plus lots of great lesson ideas for exploring Deep Time with kids in the free Changing Climates resources from ThoughtBox.
When we begin to stretch our minds in this way and allow for time to shift, other ways of thinking about time come into our appreciation. Which brings me to the third state of time: Long Time.
When it comes to thinking ahead - beyond our own lifetime – many of us are surprisingly ill-equipped. Whilst we may be able to reflect upon our children’s future lives, possibly the lives of their children, we struggle to think much beyond this. As such, most planning and future thinking is done in short timescales, frequently resulting in short-term thinking.
Seventh-generation-thinking is an insight emerging from many indigenous peoples, one of the most famous being the Haudenosaunee confederacy from which came the Seventh-Generation principle. The law of Seven Generations advises on the wisdom of considering the impact of any decision we make on those born seven generations hence.
“Am I being a good ancestor?” is a good way of framing long-time thinking, welcoming us to be making decisions for the good of life far beyond our own stretch of mortality. When we think about the impact of our actions well beyond the lives we live in, we suddenly welcome a much deeper, more compassionate way of acting and of being. We allow ourselves to put the wellbeing of future live at the forefront of our intentions.
I love The Children’s Fire from Mac McCartney as a beautiful way to practise long-time thinking, as a pledge to the welfare of currently unborn children. Echoes of long-time thinking are already coming into western governance, with Wales having a Future Generations Commissioner in their governance structure. The Long-Time Academy is also a great podcast to help stretch the mind into different timeframes, timescales and ways of seeing ourselves.
Whilst 9-5 may be a familiar rhythm of time to map our lives around, it falls horribly short when offering us a way to thrive together in a changing world. These times are urgent and welcome us to shift how we live, reflect and act in the world. The invitation to pivot life around slow-time, deep-time and long-time allows for a much deeper, much wider, much wiser rhythm to enter the mind and is a powerful way to respond the challenges and opportunities of this incredible, beautiful world; with awareness of and compassion for life well beyond our own colouring our minds and our actions.
