CHAPTER 1
The Times, they are A-Changing
"Fantasy is the golden shine which lies over the existence and which rises over the greyness of everyday life."
— Wladimir Lindenberg
Would you like to heal without investing too much time? Would you like to recover during your daily routine? Would you like to transform during your nights? Would you like to change, deepen, expand, and center your life? Would you like to live in rhythm with yourself and with all there is?
The earth and the stars have always set our rhythm. We call the period the earth requires for turning around itself "day" and "night," or nychthemeron. For all the other smaller divisions, the cosmos does not have any standards for us. So it seems that the Sumerians have already dissected time in hours some five thousand years ago. It was probably somewhere in the middle of the fourteenth century that the hour became an official quantity. The seconds counter was added only with the rise of industrialization in the eighteenth century. Therefore, today a day counts 24 hours or 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds.
What an abundance of time! What do you do with it? Do you let it slip away? Do you fill it up? Do you shape it? Do you take your time so it is really yours?
The phenomenon of time remains one of the best-kept secrets of the world. The ancient Greeks even gave time divine faces; it was often something holy, so it was something healing. "Time heals all wounds" is another vernacular expression we all know. Time, as such, can nearly be denominated as an archetype — an unconscious pattern of ideas that structures us from inside and straightens our lives in a way. The nature of this archetype is unconscious and can only be experienced in its effect and in its symbolic meaning.
This archetype is subject to the changing times. Today we are living in a very special space-time. In past centuries, not only the zeitgeist changed but also our understanding of time, our time structure, and its contents changed. Life is not the same as it was centuries ago. Time appears quicker and shorter, but it is perhaps more efficient and goal-oriented too. We think that we have less time at our disposal, although we have much more free time during the day and in the overall picture of our lives.
All these changes also have an influence on our everyday lives and often drive us to live hastily. This modified world creates and nourishes many chronic diseases. They are symptoms — cries for help of today's time.
The phenomenon of time has shaped time in the way we regard it right now. Billions of years ago, space-time exploded into life. Very many years later we - the human race - gave them divine faces. We drove on their carriages through the rhythms of day and night. In the course of time, the gods of time were dethroned and murdered; time itself became their butcher. While digitalization increased, time was cut up — and then it went on to cut up us. We call this condition "burnout" — the flame of time almost expired.
In modern times, we have fallen out of the rhythms of time and life. We are living in a time where rituals have started to break up; it is a time of decomposition of both individual and social healing and nourishing time structures. Not only do we have shift work, with its dissolution of rhythms, but we also have inventions that are apparently neutral to time, such as the light bulb, the airplane, medicine, and so on. All of these deeply influence how we experience time. If you search for more examples, you will definitely find them. Just look around.
When the times are changing, it's time to change ourselves, as well.
Time as an archetype has two sides: one, where it runs out and decomposes, and two, where it deepens and completes us. In business life, "time is money." Simultaneously, procedures come into our collective consciousness that can stop time, as inspired awareness, and open the gates to now or the flow into creativity. Thus, we can be liberated from the entanglements of time until only the essence of time remains — the moment that is open, fulfilled, and creative here and now.
Our body, with its trillions of pieces of wisdom, is still swinging in the rhythms of the world, which have surrounded it naturally, and time still accompanies it despite all modernity. The recurring rhythms of day and night have caused us, as living creatures, to develop a multitude of inner clocks; these inner clocks have to be synchronized repeatedly in today's modern world. Recovery will be affected in harmony with these rhythms.
Therefore, in this book we connect with the rhythms of day and night and draw from their symbolic depth. Every day and every night, we dispose of profound symbolic and healing insight. Every dawn shines through our confidence, and every sunset floods our farewell. Every night shelters us, and every day enlightens us. In the light of the sun and in the sparkling of the stars, the cells of our bodies are stimulated to live in the rhythm. With every sunray, we internalize warmth and light; with every starry sky, we absorb the dark width of apparent endlessness. We swing in resonance with it.
In the following explanations and exercises, we will awaken these old rhythms anew. As the suggested practices are often exercises of imagination, you can even do them if you are not in the forest or in the sunshine. You can imagine being in an airplane between two time zones, in a high-rise building, or even in a cellar.
Inside you will find access. Your inner wisdom knows the sunrise, the zenith, the setting sun, and the night. Elicit these pictures, and nourish them, and then they will nourish you. Yes, they will satiate and fulfill you.
We are linking the natural rhythms with various trainings that are mostly exercises of imagination. In our realm of fantasy, we are creators of our lives where we can reign and rule and develop our creativity to the fullest extent. So we can make the source of time divine again and bind ourselves to it in order to find ourselves a home in the time. "Our true home is the current moment," expressed Thich Nhat Hanh, a well-known Buddhist monk.
Just as if the whole evolution of this universe seems to be revealed in this very moment, imagine its subtle information in a drop of water, in every molecule, and in every atom swinging across the entire cosmos.
In this drop, which you might possibly drink in a moment, you can notice that it mirrors its surroundings. It can also mirror time; you might see the deep kiss of two atoms, the fantastic creation of the young earth, or the evolution of living creatures, all of which have been developed out of the water. They have taken the ocean water with them just inside. You can sense it dancing in your cells and all around. You can even experience yourself through this drop — a fluid pearl in the choppy ocean we call life, separate and deeply connected with all there is.
In every moment, you can look into the depth of this world and shape it. For this purpose, you leave your everyday consciousness, which likes to get lost in the dimensions of time, and you look inside, recognize, and transform.
Actually, it is quite easy. It is simply about changing your attitude during your daily routine — your thoughts, sensations, feelings, inner pictures, and most of all, posture. Push away the veil of dull routines, make your way out, and begin an enthusiastic life, just like in the following exercise.
In this exercise, we will develop healing imaginations. In order for you to realize them directly, I have italicized them. It is better that you close your eyes, although your eyes will need to be open so that you can continue reading. So please understand the text first, and then shut your eyes and dive into your inner world of pictures. Enjoy it! Shape it! You are the creator of your very own life!
In the case above, you might imagine it this way:
Please close your dear eyes. See the veil, shadow, and fog that surround you and spin a cocoon of dullness around you. Experience apathy, loneliness, and fear.
Then start to shape. Lift the veil of your existence, and as you exhale, blow away the fog that wraps around your soul. Break the chains that hold you back, or break down the walls.
Breathe out! Look! The sun rises, lightens your darkness, and enlightens your mind. Let it become light in your heart. Go out and play! Move yourself and feel free forever.
Such a metamorphosis or transformation does not happen via your intellect but via your inspiration and enthusiasm. The brain is inspired by enthusiasm to create new neuronal networks and, along with this, new experiences.
If you do not feel enthusiastic right now, then remember or create enthusiasm. We all have lived through feelings of enthusiasm, fascination, and curious anticipation. Go back in your childhood, where you will probably find some of them. Just remember the warm love of your mother or the tender shelter of your father. Remember Christmas, a tasty ice cream cone, or your first love. If you cannot find any nourishing pictures in your real life, then just imagine them as if they were real. Imagine you are a child who is cared for. Imagine being the friend of Buddha. Imagine experiencing the deep joy of the morning birds. Or just take Julia Roberts's smile, and put it on your face. Connect yourself with healing pictures to anchor the new experiences. Bring these pictures in your body. Embody enthusiasm.
As soon as your body gets moving, thoughts and sensations start to form a river of the enthused life, which the psychology calls "flow." It is not important for your body, whether you believe in your own enthusiasm right now or you doubt it. As long as your body is imitating a jumping movement, and the corners of your mouth move up toward your ears, your body is releasing "happy hormones," which strengthen and deepen your anticipation.
This will have a deep effect on your inner attitude toward yourself, the people you meet, and even the things around you.
You do not need to sip your coffee hastily any longer.
You may enjoy it now.
Moreover, you can feel better in your body and lead it into a new posture for finally shaping your own creativity into the daily routine. Therefore, you do not need to solve problems, but to abandon them.
You may now bind the neuronal networks (which have tied your brain with the everyday routine) with awakening, joy, and creativity. In addition, an individual melody is flooding through your activities in a healing way. I have composed a lot of music in these pages as an example, as much as is possible within the frame of a book. Many of the chapter titles are song titles, so you can sort of dance through this book. Music — particularly your favorite music — connects your brain to the special phases of life. With music, the weaving of a new network is often easier.
From the possibly countless visual memories your brain produces every day, these healing pictures will guide you into hidden worlds inside yourself. Moreover, I will tell you stories again and again and plunge you into the mythology of ancient cultures. Please be inspired by the pictures. Stories are like mirrors — they provide possibilities for a solution, offer protection, can easily be remembered, inspire fantasy, and create closeness to our culture.
Please also find some listening exercises for further inspiration on amazon.
Even when the clock is running, your deep look inside will change your daily experience of time. If you take your time it might even see that time will grow and space will widen.
Stress narrows not only time but space. You may feel that physically when you hardly manage to inhale enough air to breathe.
When time is becoming scarcer, it is helpful to give space to time, which means to lend sense and possibilities to it. We will fill this space with ancient and modern sounds, poems, and myths, as well as the beauty of day and night. We will stabilize this by doing daily exercises that are connected to the rhythms of the time. In the womb of these reliabilities you can develop. I hope that you find that many daily tasks become easier and easier. Your days will become more fulfilled, and happiness will find its way into your reality more often so that your life starts to become successful, healing, whole, and holy.
I will introduce a first song, "Father of Day, Father of Night." In 1970, Bob Dylan wrote it as an anthem about his Jewish heritage, but it only became famous a few years later, when Manfred Mann's Earth Band performed it. Because you might not agree with a Jewish or Christian god, I will give you my own neutral version:
Wisdom of night, wisdom of day
Wisdom, who taketh the darkness away
...
Wisdom of time, wisdom of dreams,
Wisdom, who turneth the rivers and streams
...
Wisdom of minutes, wisdom of days
Wisdom we most solemnly praise.
CHAPTER 2
Take Your Time
Take care on this day, as it is your life.
Welcome to this wonderland, the land of possibilities in which wonders happen every day and the great secret of life reveals itself. Do you sense the sunrise, whose rays are caressing you carefully? Do you enlighten your midday with clarity, power, and awareness? Do you worship the width of the starry heavens, which opens your soul?
Fulfill your wonderful body with the magic of the day and the magic of the night until it shines, beams, and twinkles like a diamond that breaks the rhythm of time in the colors of the rainbow. Experience how it reveals its knowledge about healing, luck, wholeness, closeness, harmony, and balance, until you know, feel, and intuit the power of time — transformed, fulfilled, creative and always whole. Awake for this very moment!
In this way you can dream about your day and enlighten your night. What are you doing right now? Surely you are reading this book! Maybe you want to put it down right now, thinking that you have to do something better. You don't have the time!
However, maybe you are also fascinated by a particular curiosity, and this is what keeps you reading. I wish you the enthusiasm for the whole width, depth, and fullness of this moment, and I hope that you have the feeling of a home in time that you can trust. I imagine you as happy, healthy, and open for all the wonders of the world and the magic of time.
Right now? In this moment? Yes, now! Pause for a moment. Look around. Where are you? In a bookshop? At home on the sofa? Or in the middle of a colorful meadow? Have a look at the sun. Do you sense the rays tickling your skin? Or do you breathe in the smell of boiling tea? Do you drink the colorful world of pictures of the four seasons? Do you internalize your life? Do you want to externalize your existence?
Maybe you know the following story: A wise man was asked curiously, "You are very busy, but you're always concentrated. What is your secret?" He answered directly and clear. "If I stand, I stand. If I go, I go. If I sit, I sit. If I eat, I eat. If I speak, I speak." He was interrupted hastily. "We do the same thing. Why are you lucky with all that and we are not?" The wise man remarked, "Maybe this is the reason. If you stand, you are already walking. When you walk, you are already running. When you run, you are already at the goal."
What about you? Are you already planning your next duty while you are reading these words? Are you brooding over your past, or are you looking anxiously into your future? Are you here in this moment or somewhere else or even nowhere?
You are breathing — that's for sure. Your heart is beating. Your wonderful body is metabolizing within one hundred thousand biochemical processes a second. And while you are reading this, every thought, sensation, and attitude is having an impact on the biochemistry of your blood, on the neuronal network in your brain, on your mood, on your posture, on your environment, and even on the unfathomable depths of this world. What is happening in your spirit is echoing throughout the whole universe. That is what the Tibetans already knew.
Please shut your eyes. Allow pictures, colors, and sensations to arise in your thoughts. Visualize how they flood your whole body, emerge from it, and waft around the earth until they apparently (but only apparently) get lost in space.
Every one of your sensations changes and shapes your life, those of your loved ones, and last but not least the life of mankind.
"What a responsibility!" you might moan. Yes, what a great responsibility, but also, what a chance!
Stop for a moment. Please close your eyes.
Breathe out. Liberate yourself from all that is old, unnecessary, painful, agonizing, and dark. Breathe out. What do you experience in this very moment? What is now? How does this moment smell and taste? How does it feel? How does it look? How does it sound? On what do you concentrate your attention? What meaning do you give these sensations?
