Some Thoughts on Temporal Pacing

On the way down to Pantheacon, I drove down the 101 along the Oregon Coast. It's a beautiful, beautiful drive, but as I kept driving to where we were going to say for the night, I got to reflecting how my drive was in one sense a journey into the unknown, because I didn't know when I would get to our destination for the night. There was this sense of anticipation, but also a subtle tension of wondering when will we get there. I actually feel the same way when I play a video game for the first time. I don't know how long the game will actually be. I am playing it and heading toward an unknown destination and I won't know the journey, how long the game will take, until I reach the final credits. The same is true with a ritual or technique you learn. The first time is a journey into the unknown, heightened by the factor of time.

Once you driven the route or played the game or done the ritual once, the unknown is changed. It becomes known, partially by your experience of it, but partially because you can also fit it into a temporal pace. You know how long it will take, when you'll be where doing what. You know the time of it and that changes the experience because you have a different sense of where you are and what you are doing. It is simultaneously an experience where some of the unknown is gone, and yet what is known is still an illusion, because what you know is now based on expectation and recognition, which can be misleading.

And there's something to be noted about how time is conceptualized according to distance. We talk about distance in terms of hours traveled, but by the same token, time is also conceptualized by the distance driven. When I reach that spot, I'll know I've spent X amount of time driving. The same even applies to reading a book or playing a game. Whether we realize it or not we use our previous experience as an indicator of how much time is passed, yet again this is misleading, because the sense of time passed is based on your experience of distance traveled, game played, etc, and yet different people can have different experiences of time doing those same activities.

This is only important in the sense that we should never just buy-in to our experiences of life...or the elements that define life, such as time, or space. The experience is subjective and unless we question it and explore it, we run the risk of missing out on the unknown. We take the known for granted and yet what is known is an experience...not the reality.

Book Review: Thinking through the Body by Richard Schusterman

This was an intriguing book that explored the discipline of Somaaesthetics, or the aesthetics of the body. The author discussed the aesthetics in relationship to style, architecture, Japanese Noh theatre, muscle memory, to name just a few of the topics. The book is a dense, academic read, but well worth the effort as it explores the body through a variety of mediums. I found myself thinking about and experiencing my body with new perspectives as a result of reading this book. I'd recommend it if you are interested in developing a better relationship with your body, or want to learn more about this niche academic discipline.

Discount on Space/Time Magic class

Space and time are two elements of our lives that we live with and use every day. In the classic models of magic, these elements are not overtly included. In this class, I will show you how to integrate both of these elements into your magical work. You will learn why its important to factor time and space into your magical workings, as well as how the inclusion of these elements can radically change your understanding of magic. You will also learn:

• How movement and space can be used to construct sacred space.
• How to manifest multiple possibilities using sigils.
• How to create a sigil web that maps your life in terms of space and time.
• How to work with your future and past selves.
• What time dilation techniques are and how to use them.
• How to work with alternate selves and learn from them.
• Free e-book version of Space/Time Magic included!
• Free Tarot Reading included, when you sign up for this class!

Space and Time are two elements that we can’t ignore if we want to really understand magic. This class will help you take your magic to the next level.

This is an eight week class starting on August 1st from 5 pm to 6 pm PST and ending on Monday September 19th. A free e-book version of Space/Time Magic is included!

The cost for this class is now discounted to $165.00 until July 31st. You can pay via check, paypal, or credit card. If paying by credit card, contact me. Payment plans are accepted.

Identity and Time

Each year on my birthday I do an elemental magic switchover to a new element for the next year. Last year I switched from Emptiness to Time. This year, however, I'm not going to switch from Time. Part of it is because astrologically Saturn is a significant influence over the next year and I think I should capitalize on it, but part of it also is because while I did some work with time, I ended up actually working a lot more with the element of Identity. It makes sense actually because when I finished with the element of Emptiness, I felt like my life was a blank slate. And in January of 2010, I was divorced. Needless to say that was also a big change in identity for me, and I felt like much of this year has been an exploration of who I am and what I want and need.

Even getting involved in a new relationship has brought identity changes. I identify myself as childfree, but my partner has children and that's involved some adjustment to how I think about children and my identity in relationship to them. This entire year has been less about time and more about identity, discovering and claiming my identity, as well as claiming boundaries for that identity. I actually think that's one of the more magical acts I've done this year. It's helped me understand the role of identity in magical work, and it's also helped me identify the parts of my identity that I've wanted to change.

This year has been one of the best years of my life. Instead of holding on to the past, I've let go and embraced the present as an opportunity to explore who I can be, and in turn allow that realization to manifest in the universe and in my life. The previous years of internal work have paid off, and my life has come into a lot more focus as I've really reshaped my contractual agreement with the universe into an agreement I can really be behind. And it's going to keep getting better from here.

My work with the element of time is something I'm going to continue with. But today I'm going to celebrate my holy day.

Happy birthday to me

Endings and beginnings

Today I helped a couple of my friends pack up a truck. They are moving to Seattle. For the last year and a half they lived next door to me so I got to know them pretty well. In thinking about them leaving, I also got to thinking about the changes in my life for the last half year. I got a divorce, started writing again, got involved with someone new, helped my friends move, and a variety of other things. You know, life... And there's not something overtly magic or mystical about all these changes, but when I think about the element of time, I also think about endings and beginnings. Time isn't just the awareness of the rhythms of the universe, though that certainly is a big part of it. Time, or at least human awareness of time is the marking of events, the recognition of endings and beginnings, the significance of connections and their changes. Life is change and time is how we mark it.

So I watch s other people's lives are changing and also see my life changing and I mark it with time, I mark it with dates...I find a way to make the when significant so I can remember the what. And that makes time significant as tool and as an event.

So life changes, there are endings and beginnings, transitions...

Time as a necessary illusion

Tonight I did another visitation with the spider goddess of time. Before I did so, Elephant briefly reminded me to stay present, even and especially in moments of feeling boredom. When I visited the spider goddess, she showed me a new technique where I could create a silver thread of time to an event or person, if one hadn't existed before. This approach complements the editing technique I learned from her the last time I visited. The main difference is that you are essentially creating a new connection as opposed to editing an existing one. You can even create context specific strands of time. In other words, if there's a specific context that you want to create for a situation or person then you put that into the strand that connects you to the event or person.

Afterward the spider goddess and I discussed time itself. She pointed out something that she has said before. The sense of time a person has is dictated much more by awareness of natural rhythms and cycles than an actual force of time. The conceptualization of time as a force is a useful illusion that has its own rule, which can be used to manipulate the awareness of time a person has. It's something I can understand. I know that my "age" is more or less an arbitrary number used to explain the physiological process of aging and that day and night are terms used to understand the changes brought about by the rotation of the Earth around the sun. The concept of the flow of time seems to be more of a comfort illusion than an actual reality. The word when allows us to situate a place and space as much as a time. Even the spider web is another concept tool for the illusion of time. It works, and certainly something happens, but her point is that time isn't so much of a mysterious external force, so much as its a perception and explanation and a method for sorting out and indexing changes. We create time to explain and understand the changes that occur in and around us, but you have to wonder if time would even exist as a concept if there was no one thinking about it.

Review of In Search of Time by Dan Falk

This book presents a "history" of time, with a heavy focus on physics and how physicists throughout history have approached and tried to conceptualize and explain time. The author does an excellent job of presenting a wide variety of both contemporary and historical perceptions of time. I enjoyed reading this book because it provided some food for thought on how I understand and conceptualize time. I recommend it to anyone who finds the concept of time fascinating and wants to learn what others have to say about it.

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5 out of 5

Cells and Time

Today I did another meditation with the cells of my body for purposes of developing a better understanding of how they interface with time. The understanding I got from my interaction was that time was a cyclical indicator of not only their activities, but also lifespan. The internal clock they have, when functioning correctly regulates the lifespan and keeps the body communicating and working together. I got the sense that cancer, when it occurred, seemed to occur partially because the time function of the cell was no longer calibrated with the rest of the body. So it seems that time, as cells experience it, is essential for regulating and synchronizing the communication between cells and keeping the body functioning. It's a schedule keeper and regulator, which suggests that tampering with it could lead to unpleasant consequences. I'll be continuing further work in this area, and as always I find it fascinating to plumb the depths of the body and how it interacts.

Body consciousness experiment

Today I decided to start working with the consciousness of my body and its perception of time. My first step was to do a meditation where I got in touch with the consciousness of my body as an overarching consciousness. In other words, instead of trying to connect with just a cell, I would try to connect with my entire body's sense of consciousness. I think my approach to this was informed by being human, and the human tendency to think of consciousness as singular. I'm not sure how effective that was, in this particular case. I did start out small, with one cell, and thought that I might connect with the entire consciousness by getting the cell to communicate to other cells a consistent message. This did seem to work to some degree, as I got to a point where I had a definite impression I was in touch with what I might consider to be a body consciousness that was comprised of multiple consciousnesses that were focused on communicating together to communicate with me, but it didn't feel (for lack of better word) right. Nor was it really helpful for me, in terms of working with the sense of time. Instead what I did get was a communication of urgency, which pushed me out of trance and got me into the bathroom. I can't say the body didn't communicate, for it surely did, but I think I will take a different tack to this experiment next time. Still you can't know what will work until you try and trying this approach did help some. I just don't think it's the right approach...

Working with Purson part 2

This morning, after my regular meditations, I decided to do a working with Purson. In this working, we ended up discussing the limitations of the concept of time. Purson noted that time is ultimately a subjective experience, used as a way of indicating change. But time does not age us, nor does it cause a building to go back to nature or cause the sun to rise and fall. We might attribute those events to time, because time is a comfortably abstract concept that can explain all of that. the reality is that nature is responsible for these kinds of changes. Just as water and air erode a rock over time, so to does a building gradually get changed by the caress of nature. The sun doesn't even rise, so much as the Earth moves around it. And as for the human body, the biology of the body inevitably changes, so that eventually death occurs.

Yet so often is much if not all of this attributed to time, partially because we use time to measure the rate at which these changes occur, but partially because time has become a metaphor for change. Purson's point, however, is that it's important to recognize the limitations of that metaphor so that we can understand and work with the concept of time with more accuracy.

He suggested that I work with my body's sense of time more closely, specifically working with it on the cellular level so that I could understand how time works on the biological level. So I have my next experiment set out for me...how gracious Purson is!

At the same time, We discussed how the biological markers of time are what allows a person to find variants of him/herself or if you will possibilities of him/herself...which makes sense. I did such work using the DNA as a way of finding possible versions of myself.

Purson also noted that the concept of time is really useful for working with possibilities, because it lends itself to helping a perceive those possibilities and bring them into reality.

Overall an interesting session. I have some directions to move in with my time work, some of which is a continuation of previous work, but from new angles.

Clock time and natural time

I've been thinking further about natural perceptions of time vs clock time. Jean Houston, as far as I can tell, was the first person to overtly note a substantial difference between clock time, and natural or internal time, in her book The Possible Human. However, As I've been musing on this subject, I've also noted that even in everyday consciousness the perception of time can vastly differ depending on how time is measured. Let me give you an example. An acquaintance and I were discussing the formation of modern education in the U.S. the other day. The modern education system was developed during the industrial revolution as a way of moving people out of an agrarian approach to life and more towards an industrial model. In an Agrarian approach time is measured by when the sun rises and sets. It isn't parceled down into hours and minutes, and instead is much more rhythmic, in tune with the day light. Now take people out of that approach to life and put them into a factory, and you end up having an issue, because the way those people approach time affects how they approach work. To get around that you put them in a setting where they are educated about time through the example of having periods of time that are used to measure how long they are in class and how much time they have for a break. And then afterwards they are trained for a very linear approach to work. You have only to look at today's average work day to see this in effect. So many minutes for a break, so may for how long you work, the rest you schedule what else you want to do.

That conversation came up in way that I'd say was odd, if it wasn't for working with the spider goddess of time. Ever since I worked with her, she's been showing up in different ways and while I didn't see her when I was having this conversation, I definitely felt a divine nudge that there was a lesson here, and was reminded of my classes at clarion, where this very subject was discussed at some length as to why classrooms are arranged the way they are spatially...it's a factory setting. Students lined up in rows, ready to be processed and put on the line.

I've had a few moments of alternity, where time has seemed to stretch out. I get that every so often in general...time expands, my sense of possibilities changes, everything seems elongated, crystalline, fitting together perfectly. I'll see it occasionally as I drive, but sometimes as I walk or doing something else...time stretches out, becomes a parchment of silver webbing, shining strands of possibilities, and the sense of time changes, becomes much less overt. It's only when I look at a clock that I'm really brought to a linear awareness of time. The clock constrains, restrains, and otherwise confines a sense of time to a very immediate moment. I look at the clock and I see a specific time: 9:29:39 and only that moment exists. Everything else, all other possibilities fade in the glowing green digits of time that express exactly this one moment of linear time, which my entirety exists in.

I can see why clock time has become so prevalent, so important to the work world for instance. It is the engine which drives people to perform for whoever they work for, the way of rating the exchange of life for the means to sustain that life.

Yet how much is missed out on in the obsession of clock time, when we lost the natural rhythms of life to the growing gleen digits that mark out how much time is left for a person to work, or for that matter to live? Where is the seamless experience of time as not just one moment, but a sea of infinite possibilities, or the silver paths of the web the spider goddess lives in? We find it when we can let go of clock time, let go of the need to look at the very face of time that binds us...When a day becomes much more than just one hour passing after another...it becomes full of possibilities and adventures and so much else.

Give me natural time any moment of the continuum

Radio Show update

I just had a fascinating radio interview with Laura Sherman, the Chess Coach for the Imagine your Reality radio show. It's the first interview I did, but Laura and I had great rapport and I definitely plan on having her back on the show. She offered some really good insights about Chess and how it can be applied to your life. To listen to the show, please go here. I really enjoyed this show, particularly focusing on a topic such as chess and how it applies to manifesting your imagination into reality. Among other things we discussed how chess can improve your reading ability, how it can help you strategize your life, and how it can even be applied to your understanding of space and time. If any of you find the radio show interesting, I have two other episodes I recorded: How to turn Imagination into Reality and how to turn re-action into action. I'll be doing another episode on the connection between Language and Reality on Tuesday September 23rd at 9 Pm Pacific Standard Time. Listeners can call into the show if they want and I would definitely welcome listener input and questions.

Here's a summary of the upcoming show: In this show, we'll be exploring the connection between language and reality. We'll be focusing on how writing can be used to create reality, the value of affirmations, and how pre-writing exercises can help you not only write a good paper, but also plan how you'll take your imagination and turn it into reality.

Some readers of this blog might be puzzled by this kind of interview and it's applicability to magical practice, but listen, and I think you'll find some interesting perspectives on visualization and space and time, as well as how a game as chess can hone your skills. I might add, that part of experimentation is entertaining perspectives that seemingly have little in common with the usual perspective for how things are done...but how we learn is influenced by the willingness we have to do something different from everyone else.