Ya know what I wanna do?
I want to abolish all clocks in my orbit and live exclusively on Solar Time for a solid year, just to see how that feels.
It’s not gonna be easy, but man, I really want to. I mentioned it to Michael this morning when the sun was just to the edge of the roofline (12:30pm by the clock but not by the sun, that’s for damn sure – high noon my ass) and he was extremely intrigued and immediately started figuring out logistics about things like having to be someplace at a specific time because most people live by the clock and not by the sun, and said, “This sounds like a fun way to spend a year of retirement.” And I’m thinking, “In for a penny, in for a pound, my dude; if you can do it for a year we can live this way.”
Because it’s got to be amazing, right? To allow oneself to come into coherence with the natural rhythms of the solar cycle, to be that much closer to Gaia consciousness, to the collective Allness that is an Animist’s dream. To trust that no matter what time anybody else thinks it is, the Time is Now, and we’re exactly on Time.
The Romans lived on solar time, with big sundials marking the hours in Rome. An author I love, Lindsey Davis, refers to the hours of daylight shifting quite a bit between summer and winter, and how that changes the way business was done in the city. (Davis writes marvelous Roman murder mysteries featuring her dashing, Cary Grantian detective, Marcus Didius Falco.) Things move at an entirely different pace in the winter than in the summer.
Inconvenient? Well, sure. But … maybe also really cool. Or maybe I’ll hate it. I don’t know. I suspect that I will not hate it at all.
I’m going to try it during the winter holidays when I’m on break, just to see what happens. I’ll cover up all the clocks with masking tape, take the big clock down off the wall, and see how it feels to get up when I wake up, eat when I’m hungry, and tell time by what’s in the sky, not what’s on my phone. Nights will be just one big NOW, with creative projects, magical workings, shamanic journeying, and flickering candle light bathing the whole thing in spooky splendor! Ooh, I can’t wait! Come on December!
Thing is, winter is often not very sunny, so my pocket sundial (yes, I am that geek) will probably not be terribly effective a lot of the time. Well, you never know. I will just do the best I can. And honestly, when you’re in Now, who needs to know what Time anybody else might think it is?
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