Time is relative
30th September 2014
30th September
It seems hard to believe that it is now autumn and another month has past. It has been unseasonably warm and dry for a long time, making the appearance of autumn seem sudden and certainly unlooked for. This suddenness creates confusion in our inner time clock. Our sense of time's passage is relative to our experience of the things and conditions that surround us. The colours, smells, amount of light are all subliminally giving us time checks. When these time markers stop following the normal, sequenced, timeline our sense of time is skewed.
Therefore, if time, as a measure of the passing of our lives, is a relative phenomenon, where time is linked to our senses - then this is where confusion begins. A confusion where time moves at different speeds, depending on the experience. It may feel that time is accelerating, where the past feels unreally distant. This effect can be amplified by the sudden changes in the seasons. The changes seem to make time shift in a non linear and non rational manner. This may be because the change of seasons intensifies the experience of time passing us by, as they mark out distinct parts in the calendar of life.
Too often the past appear stretched out, unreachable, lost, indistinct and no longer tangible. Whilst the present becomes squeezed against an opaque barrier of an unknown future. We are not necessarily looking back but in our need to live in the moment, we sense the moment is slipping away before we can grasp it.
Looking at the past is like looking at the world through a telescope, from the wrong end, the previous year now seems far away, out of focus, ill defined. Making the present foreshortened, and as the past feels distant, It offers little context to make sense of the moment.
To make matters more compelling, Autumn of 2014 has arrived by stealth. Each day there has been subtle and slow changes. Each leaf has been subtly changing to autumnal colours. Before we had time to notice it had already happened. Real time and 'human time' are out of sync.
With these thoughts in mind I ascended the steep, fractured slopes of Whitbarrow Scar. The route passed through thick broad leaf woodland made up off oak, beach, sycamore and ash, intermixed with smaller rowan, white beam, sloe and hazel. Each tree was wearing a rusty autumnal raiment and adorned with mixture of berries or nuts.
High above the whale like limestone scar Of Whitbarrow, the plaintive cry of a buzzard echoed across the Winster valley, whilst closer, in amongst the trees, the nuthatches and woodpeckers searched for food. My every step feel on the husks of eaten hazel nuts, or fallen leaves that carpeted the path under my feet. Tactile and tangible symbols of the movement of time, and the changes of seasons.
On the summit the wind blew away any heat from the sun and long shadows were cast across the broken and fractured limestone pavement of the summit ridge. In amongst the Clints and Grykes Harebells and wild thyme still clung on to crevices and notches. This was a noble gesture, but futile gesture, lacking the intensity and volume of the wild flowers just a month ago. This humble display, However, added extra life and colour that contrasted against the bone like, white limestone.
Soon this hill and it's arboreal slopes will become as equally bare as those 'bones'. There will be another seasonal change and a new sense of time will be felt. Then autumn will seem glorious, but so long long ago.
It seems hard to believe that it is now autumn and another month has past. It has been unseasonably warm and dry for a long time, making the appearance of autumn seem sudden and certainly unlooked for. This suddenness creates confusion in our inner time clock. Our sense of time's passage is relative to our experience of the things and conditions that surround us. The colours, smells, amount of light are all subliminally giving us time checks. When these time markers stop following the normal, sequenced, timeline our sense of time is skewed.
Therefore, if time, as a measure of the passing of our lives, is a relative phenomenon, where time is linked to our senses - then this is where confusion begins. A confusion where time moves at different speeds, depending on the experience. It may feel that time is accelerating, where the past feels unreally distant. This effect can be amplified by the sudden changes in the seasons. The changes seem to make time shift in a non linear and non rational manner. This may be because the change of seasons intensifies the experience of time passing us by, as they mark out distinct parts in the calendar of life.
Too often the past appear stretched out, unreachable, lost, indistinct and no longer tangible. Whilst the present becomes squeezed against an opaque barrier of an unknown future. We are not necessarily looking back but in our need to live in the moment, we sense the moment is slipping away before we can grasp it.
Looking at the past is like looking at the world through a telescope, from the wrong end, the previous year now seems far away, out of focus, ill defined. Making the present foreshortened, and as the past feels distant, It offers little context to make sense of the moment.
To make matters more compelling, Autumn of 2014 has arrived by stealth. Each day there has been subtle and slow changes. Each leaf has been subtly changing to autumnal colours. Before we had time to notice it had already happened. Real time and 'human time' are out of sync.
With these thoughts in mind I ascended the steep, fractured slopes of Whitbarrow Scar. The route passed through thick broad leaf woodland made up off oak, beach, sycamore and ash, intermixed with smaller rowan, white beam, sloe and hazel. Each tree was wearing a rusty autumnal raiment and adorned with mixture of berries or nuts.
High above the whale like limestone scar Of Whitbarrow, the plaintive cry of a buzzard echoed across the Winster valley, whilst closer, in amongst the trees, the nuthatches and woodpeckers searched for food. My every step feel on the husks of eaten hazel nuts, or fallen leaves that carpeted the path under my feet. Tactile and tangible symbols of the movement of time, and the changes of seasons.
On the summit the wind blew away any heat from the sun and long shadows were cast across the broken and fractured limestone pavement of the summit ridge. In amongst the Clints and Grykes Harebells and wild thyme still clung on to crevices and notches. This was a noble gesture, but futile gesture, lacking the intensity and volume of the wild flowers just a month ago. This humble display, However, added extra life and colour that contrasted against the bone like, white limestone.
Soon this hill and it's arboreal slopes will become as equally bare as those 'bones'. There will be another seasonal change and a new sense of time will be felt. Then autumn will seem glorious, but so long long ago.