What If Nothing As We Know It Is True?

Is it still Sunday where you are?

Or has the sun pulled back its night robe to reveal its flesh?

Are you beginning a new month?

Or is Spring the actual start of a new year?

Is time moving too fast?

Or perhaps you're just struggling to keep up with where you've already been?

As April emerged from the illusory fog of March, I found myself looking to the ephemeris to ground my understanding of where we abide, and throughout it all I kept thinking one thing: what if we're not late and never early, but simply always on time... because what if nothing as we know it is true?

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII initiated a new calendar which was quickly adopted by most of Catholic Europe. The reform altered the Julian (Old Style) system of leap years and by removing ten days from October 1582, adjusted the timing of the Easter observance so it better coincided with the spring season. It was an attempt to rectify some problems with his predecessor Julius Caesar's calendar which saw Easter as a moving target each year, floating further away from the much needed symbolism of the sun passing over the equator (the Spring Equinox) to collide with Jesus' resurrection.

Ten days vanished.

Just like a finger snap.

Catholic Europe – Austria, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland and the Catholic states of Germany jumped ahead the rest of the continent as Protestant and Orthodox churches refused to comply. Eventually they would, and once Britain adopted the calendar, the British Empire spread the Gregorian calendar across the globe.

What if everything everywhere is a construct?

Calendars seem like inconsequential things that just help us to keep in sync with one another, but in actuality they are a social tool used in systems of power. Systems used by mankind to track, organize and manipulate time have most often been arbitrary, uneven and disruptive, especially when foisted upon the rest of society without caution. History shows us that calendar reform has been initiated mostly by emperors of ego, churches of colonialism and politicians of greed.

Jumping timelines.

It's been a few centuries now of running on a calendar cycle that moves something like a treadmill, but one thing remains still – the spring equinox is a time of rebirth and renewal. It is not a time for resolutions you won't keep, but reform you can initiate. There are different calendars in different parts of the world, held by different cultures with specific customs. We are in a deeply interconnected and globalized world and somehow we find ways to synchronize our timing so we keep in lockstep with the general population.

But since time is a construct, calendars are arbitrary, days can vanish, and leap years are a party trick, what is possible when we decolonize ourselves from timelines? I suppose I am asking you if what you think is true will still exist if you cease to operate as you have been for so long. I suppose I am asking you if there is another story more suitable for you on another timeline?

This month, I want you to consider if your life is true for you, or true for others. You will know by your willingness to jump timelines or stand still in the reality you already abide.

'til next Sunday!Z.