On Timelessness

My godfather, who is going to be a common topic here, has entire podcasts devoted to the role of time, both what we think we see and the inevitability of death—the end of our time.

He points out, and bless him for it, that much of time for us is our own frustrations about getting things done or undone, about things being in line or not in line with our plans. We don’t so much notice change (which is how time is measured) as we notice that we’re not getting something done that we want to or that our plans for the day are shot.

I think it probably goes without saying, but here it is: we don’t notice much. We’re self-centered, and often far more interested in what we think than what’s happening around us. Even when we’re paying attention as best we can, we don’t notice much.

He says, rightfully, that this is because we don’t possess the capacity to know ourselves—we really think that we are our plans, our perceptions, and our perceptions of other people’s perceptions (which is a good bit of why we get angsty about our plans). We think that’s what we’re here for: to make futile plans, fret over whether or not people like us, and gamble with the universe on whether or not we get our way.

And for most people, that’s true. They’re here, in this life and time, to beat their head against the brick wall that is the universe’s disinclination to comply, and after some time passes, to die.

For some people, that’s not enough. Timelessness means many things. So far, as I understand it, it means refusing to project plans into the future, expect the universe to comply, or try to bring the past as I imagine it into the present. It means living, acting, and perceiving now, with the aid of the spirit.

I had an illuminating conversation with Anaisa Pye last summer, which I can sum up by saying that there’s a difference between what we think exists and what actually exists. The lwa, the law, exists whether we perceive it or not, and in fact the ultimate test of whether something is a universal principle is whether it exists in anything outside our pale, perceived reflections of reality.

That which exists, is. We are whether we know it or not (and most of us can go our whole lives without it.) There’s a whole other reality happening right in front of our noses and we can’t see it.

We can’t see it because we have bound ourselves to time and lack the ability to untie ourselves.