Field Note #6: The Waters of Time

The latest rains arrived this week, bringing with them a familiar feeling.

Whenever the weather becomes especially alive here in Belize, I often find myself sensing the presence of the ancient Maya. Living off-grid and so closely with the rhythms of this land, I sometimes wonder how connected we are with those who have lived here before us through the shared land, just at different times.

That reflection led me somewhere unexpected.

Recently I've been exploring astronomy and astrology—not through labels or systems, but through direct embodied experience. Rather than trying to understand the heavens intellectually, I've been listening for rhythm, movement, and relationship.

That curiosity gradually landed in water.

For some time now I've been exploring how much of life seems to move through the language of water.

The body.

Breath.

Movement.

Even the forms of Nature themselves.

Then another question quietly arrived.

What if time also behaves more like water than a straight line?

If time has currents, countercurrents, spirals, eddies, and returning tides...

what changes in our experience?

As I began trying this on, I noticed something surprising.

At first it felt disorienting.

Almost as though my familiar relationship with time had disappeared.

Then one thought stayed with me.

Have you ever noticed what happens when you step off a boat?

While you're on the water, your body isn't simply standing on a boat.

It's continually participating with the movement beneath you.

Without thinking, you respond to every rise and fall.

For a while, you and the water move together.

Then you step back onto solid land.

For a brief time, your body still expects the rhythm of the water.

It feels unsteady.

Not because something is wrong...

but because you're being invited into a different way of participating.

I found myself wondering whether this curiosity about time feels much the same.

For most of my life, I've experienced time as something moving past me.

Something I watched.

Measured.

Followed.

But what happens when time becomes something we participate in?

Perhaps, like stepping onto a boat for the first time, it feels unfamiliar before it begins to feel natural.

As always, this isn't an idea I'm asking you to believe.

It's simply an invitation to try it on for yourself.

Notice what resonates.

Notice what doesn't.

Notice what new questions arise.

I'd love to hear what you discover.