The arrival of the fall month of September causes us to pause and notice the passage of time.
We feel the change of season this month, the eternal march of time.
We’re in the September of our calendar year. Some of us also think about being in the September of our lives. September is about time.
Time might not exist, you know, outside human experience. In that respect, the experience of time might be like the experience of beauty: something that exists not in the objective world but wholly in human experience. This is depth psychology.
Our human experience of linear time spans the past, present and future, of course, but we also experience the circularity of time in the cycle of the four seasons and in ideas of reincarnation. The Maya carved round stone calendars representing hundreds of thousands of circular years in time.
If you combine linear with circular, you get a three-dimensional spiral. The three-dimensional spiral is an icon to space-time theorists, on the edge of theoretical physics and metaphysics, a paradigm of change. We know little about time, more about gravity.
The best expression of circular time I have ever seen comes in the form of a poem, the lyrics of a song in The Lion King.
Circle of Life
From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to be seen than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
Some say eat or be eaten
Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give
In the circle of life, it’s the wheel of fortune
It’s the leap of faith, it’s the band of hope
Till we find our place on the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life
Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars
There’s far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
In the circle, the circle of life
This is our time. All of us are in the September of this year; Many of us are in the September of our years, or November, in the Circle of Life. Take heart: Beauty abounds and is ours for the taking. Behold the gifts of September, in the circle of time.
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