Time, Impermanence & Patience: A Guided Practice To Reclaim Your Minutes

Non-duality, when applied to the concept of time, offers us the exact portal we need into present-moment agency, self-determination, conscious choice and gasp!..... FREE WILL.

Time Witchery is one of the most potent iterations of Spirit & Embodiment Work that I am blessed (cursed?) and honored facilitate in this lifetime. ⌛️

I think a lot about time, we all do, whether we want to or not. But more so for me than usual since the July ‘24 Capricorn Full Moon arriving at the door step of my own awakening and owning of perimenopause, and the body changes I am beginning to undergo. A friend and social impact co-conspirator of mine recently linked me to the Embodied Astrology podcast about the feminine aspect of time, connected to the Cailleach, a Celtic Goddess honored in my own direct ancestral lineage. And though I am nonbinary (I am all genders and no gender thank you very much), I related deeply to the choice to SOFTEN over time. To choose to continue to love, show up with presence and embodiment in the face of the enormous upheaval our waking world is going through right now.

And it all got me thinking even deeper about time… and more specifically how to support folks working with time in a way to reduce their overall suffering of time.

My liberatory work in the world shows up at the intersection of Spirituality and Solidarity as a Systems Change Facilitator, a Queer Dharma & Meditation Teacher… and also a Witch (I can hear the traditional Buddhists crying right now). So you’re damn right I’m going to work on all the ways we collectively, can reclaim our time from the hellscape that is late-stage capitalism collapse. 🤝

A little about this Time Witch thing…

I am descendent from a lineage of world famous watchmakers, the Elgin Watchmakers, who emigrated from Prague, Czechoslovakia into the Chicago, Illinois region in the late 19th Century, colloquially, Elgin, Illinois. I have to believe, that these ancestors who traveled through Ellis Island to escape Prague in the 1890s, did so because of their watchfulness, making their exit from Eastern Europe before fascism took hold with WWI. I also have to believe that their “get the fuck-out-ness at all costs” can meet my PRESENT DAY watchfulness of “wow fascism didn’t go anywhere it just spread out, became more insidious, and now it’s rearing up to reach it’s peak just in time to coincide with climate catastrophe”… and alchemize me into making choices different than all the one’s that that got us here in the first place.

I speak a little more about my Czech lineage in this Substack (which has some of my self-portraiture created when I was a full time artist trying to survive the pandemic), in connection with the Orloj, the Prague astronomical clock that has many fascinating facets of history. Notably, its period of inactivity due to being fired upon by the N*zis during Prague Spring - one of the most spectacular examples of democratized decentralization & nonviolent civil disobedience (also part of my ancestral lineage). Now, I’m not saying my ancestors had a part in making the Orloj, but I’m also not not saying that… I’m just saying that we Czech folk really know how to make time…

I wouldn’t be able to alchemize this present moment continuation of intergenerational oppression & harm that we’re all in without zooming myself out and doing the Time Witchery of connecting solidarity with the study of time.

Here are the 3 threads that I consider to be Time Witchery:

1. PRESENT - Reclaiming time from the capitalist machine which leads to…

2. PAST - Timeline (aka intergenerational) healing which leads to…

3. FUTURE - Soul expansion through utilizing time as a container for collective transformation.

And now we have arrived at the reason I am sharing this Substack with you today. Your healing. ❤️‍🔥

I facilitate STL Queer Sangha, a Dharma & Meditation Group, each month here in St. Louis, with the express purpose of cultivating Spiritual Solidarity. Which coincidentally, has a lot to do with those 3 threads of Time Witchery up there. Last month my Dharma talk and guided meditation was on the topic of Time, Impermanence and Patience, the practice of healing from the harms of “time.” I decided I wanted to pull over what I sent out via my Spiritual Solidarity Monthly Newsletter to my rebranded Liminal Messaging Substack here, and also provide you with the entire recording of my Dharma talk & practice on reclaiming time.

I read SciFi for the same reasons I read World History. 🤓

One reason, is to remind myself of the pleasure of imagination; to allow my mind to wander creatively and explore a moment or situation that isn't the present. Another reason is to keep my systems thinker brain on its toes; to connect the patterns, to widen the context; to read accounts from brilliant minds generations or centuries ago that were awakening humanity to the same messages, warnings & possibilities found in today's futuristic fiction.

There is one through line between SciFi and World History, and that's TIME. ♾️

Time is the container of our lives. It is the one variable on the planet Earth that remains both constant and chaotic...but how can it be both?

Time can very much feel differently. It can seem to speed up when we are experiencing a flush of nervous system activation, or slow down, as if it were almost taunting our experiences of enormous pain. Time also effects our experience of the world if we hold any identities that are culturally non-dominant: class, disability, chronic illness, race, gender... you might be noticing how time effects you differently just by reading this...

Time can be a cruel BITCH. And it can also offer us a pathway of liberation. 💥

One of the things that draws me to practice Queer Dharma and Engaged Buddhism is the concept of non-duality. All Universal Life is not an either/or, black/white, right/wrong, good/bad. Non-duality offers us a spectrum of experience in both/and/neither. Something to really think about as we march down this time road towards a replay of yet another potentially disastrous Presidential elections in history (*special note - this Dharma talk was given prior to Biden stepping down… see… time move so goddamn fast, this was just last month).

Non-duality, when applied to the concept of time, offers us the exact portal we need into present-moment agency, self-determination, conscious choice and gasp!..... FREE WILL.

The Impermanence Of Time Is Both Our Cruel Master And Our Spiritual Guide. Both/And. ☯️

This Dharma talk & guided meditation are best listened to and integrated as you wind down for the night, or fresh in the morning when you are feeling the pull to connect with a healing practice. Don’t try to listen to it all on the fly, it won’t work (reclaiming time is not multitasking trying to get healing at the same time as doing work - give yourself time). The talk includes various prompts to engage you to think about how these concepts apply to you, if you’ve got a journal, this is a great exercise to link into your reflective embodiment practice.

And if you’re in St. Louis, join in-real-time at STL Queer Sangha!! This practice group is meant to connect folks through Spiritual Solidarity… show up with your imperfect, messy, rawthentic self and connect with others out here practicing being their best self AND showing up to make the world a less harmful place.