The Time is Now  

Several years ago, a relative gave us Alexa, the little Amazon AI device who tells us the weather, what’s on TV tonight, how many teaspoons in a tablespoon and anything else we need to know. Well, those are some of the things we use it for, although the original intention was for Jeff’s 93-year-old mother to be able to call us easily (voice-activated) from next door if necessary. The funny thing is, no one ever figured out how to connect Alexa to the phone system, so Connie always used the regular phone instead!

The question we ask Alexa more frequently than any other (except maybe “What’s the weather tomorrow?”) is “What time is it?” Her response, as you may well know, begins like this, “The time is . . .” Talk about convenience—I hardly ever wear a watch anymore! It even works in the middle of the night when my eyes are too full of sleep to look at the bright neon alarm clock dial.

But I digress.

I’m writing about Alexa because a while back, I had a fascinating dream. In the dream, all kinds of things were going on, but I don’t remember exactly what was happening. What I do remember is that I called across the living room, “Alexa, what time is it?”

And she replied, “The time is now.” Not “The time is four-thirty pm” or “The time is twelve-twelve am.” Nope! The time is now. 

I don't remember many of my dreams lately, but that one is sticking like superglue to my mind and heart. To think that Spirit can even speak to us through electronic artificial intelligence gadgets!

As I ponder these words of wisdom—could there be any wiser words than the time is now?—I am remembering how I surfaced from my second major cancer journey in 2012 with a deepened sense of my own mortality, and an urgency to look back on my life’s dreams and a heightened resolve to put at least some of them into action.

In the years since then, I have made three of those dreams into reality. I introduced my big brother John to SoulCollage® and led several weekend retreats with him. I was props coordinator for a local theatre production of The Sound of Music. And I am writing and publishing novels!

It's more than a decade later, and Spirit is once again urging me to remember that now is the time. The past? The future? They are not mine. All I have is right now. The time is now. So I am spending time pondering the same questions that I pose to you in the next section. Spend some time journaling with a question that speaks to you this week, or just let the questions live within your soul and see where they take you!

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

1. Look back over your life, what are some of your heart’s longings that you haven’t had time or resources (yet) to realize? Make a list. Choose one and take steps to put it into action. It might be something you’ve always wanted to learn, somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, someone you’ve always wanted to make amends with . . . or . . . or . . .

2. Go through your SoulCollage® cards. Are there any that have to do with time, staying present, creating a life that you love? Journal with them, or create a new card!

3. Do a reading where you draw three cards randomly and invite each one to answer this question: “What do you have to say about my relationship with time?” OR “What is the next step I need to take to give myself one of my heart’s longings?”

Exploring Authenticity and Your Soul’s Essence  

90- minute SoulCollage® Zoom 

with SoulCollage® Facilitator 

Michele Manos from California

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Time: 2pm Eastern

FR*EE for our

KaleidoSoul Kindred Spirit members.

Only $10 for non-members.

Easily Accessible from Anywhere in the World! 

Recording available if you can’t attend "live."

Visit this page for more info now.

I am Cat Caracelo, M.A., a SoulCollage® facilitator, depth coach and artist from Austin, Texas offering my work individually and in global teaching forums through JourneyPath Institute. This column is for all of you who are exploring your creativity and ready to discover more depth in your SoulCollage® journey.

Unwinding Time

Time is a strange and beautiful thing. It anchors us into a space, place and frame, yet it is constantly changing.

We say time flies. The memory comes and it can seem as if twenty or thirty years were just yesterday, or likeyesterday was a month ago or more. 

Although time flies, it also folds, stretches and spins – it is a fluid wild thing.

There are many kinds of time: Cosmic time, Kronos time, Kairos time, Mythic time, and more recently we all experienced Covid time. But the experience of time is unique and individualistic, so being open to the various kinds of time and what you call those experiences, is always what is most important.

Kronos Time is the tick tock of the clock, which feels as if time is made to be a task master, harping at one to catch up, be exact or complete an assignment. Kronos can be represented by the archetype of the harsh parent, the uncompromising boss, the admired but a little scary educator. Kronos is generally about the modern manipulation of time to serve expectation.

Artists often experience altered time or what might be explored as time out of time. This can be explored as a reflection of Kairos Time, which I think of as time beyond time, dreaming time, traveling time. This is the archetypal experience of the dreamer, the seer, the artist or the visionary. This kind of time unwinds and may be experienced as an inner state but one that seems directly connected with Cosmic Time or Mythic Time. The powerful pull of Untethered Time is where one can experience how time can fold, spin, and stretch. 

Covid Time became an unexpected isolation chamber experience where time was sucked out of reality and disorientation became the norm. Time turned into adaptation, having been so abruptly changed through the perception of what it meant to be human and vulnerable. Access to others was so limited and overlayed with fear and anxiety that time was changed by circumstance within the collective.

Consider kinds of time you feel as being important to you: Twilight Time, The Golden Hour, Nap Time. What happens to you where you are held there in those moments of connection?

We do not tend to time the way our ancestors did, but many of us yearn to meet the seasons, phases of the moon, and rising sun with a renewed reverence. Physicists are now questioning time and unraveling it back to what it might be—an illusion. Perhaps at a deep place of inner awareness we are being called once again to enter a mythic space where mists are opening the veil for us to meet time and space in a new way. 

As modern mystics or artists of life, many of us seek wisdom through symbols and are often moved when dreaming, met by magic or held within the mythic reverie of artmaking. 

Ask yourself, if you like, to meet the deeper questions:

• Is Time necessary, fundamental, actualized in all my experiences? 
• Does Time stretch, spin, shift? 
• Can I untangle time, or move into a new field of being outside of time, to have new experiences when I need to or want to? 
• Is Time an ultimate absolute in my day-to-day reality or does it flow and fold? 

Physicists and philosophers suspect that time emerges out of something nontemporal, not continuous but ephemeral. Perhaps time is generated in the mythic realm, in the creative, collective space of growing closer to a knowing that we experience outside of our brains and body. Maybe time has another way to be perceived that we cannot see or sense yet.

Create with the kinds of Time you find most appealing! Pluck the names of specific ways of experiencing time that have been explored within this essay, and find your story of how time is shaped and seen, felt and perceived. 

Maybe include creating a card that might be called Finding Time, Making Space, or Untethered Time. Be curious about who holds the connection to time in your life, and if parts of your self will emerge that want something different or express new ways in which you are ready to meet, greet, and apply time in your life. 

Look for different opportunities to be inside of time…

Cat Caracelo, M.A. is a SoulCollage® Facilitator since 2007. Cat is the founder of JourneyPath® Institute and is dedicated to creative inquiry, healing, transformation, and depth. She guides, coaches, and mentors individuals and leads groups worldwide, incorporating expressive arts and transformative process into all facets of her offerings. Please visit Cat’s website to explore art-as-process and personal myth along with information about coaching, classes, trainings, and retreats.