Episode Summary
Even with all of the progress we have made through COVID, somehow, time is still a spiral. Join us for a look back at the 1-year anniversary of the lockdown where we explore the concept of time and how it helps us make sense of life.
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Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes.
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Full Transcript
I was listening through the library of Shame Piñata shows recently, and was struck by how little has changed since our discussion of COVID time was released back in March of this year. That was the one year anniversary of when the pandemic really took hold in the US, when the lockdowns started.
Since March, things have opened up a bit more. Kids are back at school. Grocery stores are busier. And at the same time, that sense of liminality, that sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop still feels like it's here with us. So I invite you to join me in reflecting on that one-year out episode. I invite you to dive back in with me, into the spiral of time, into an exploration of what time give us, how it serves us, and what it means to us... all with the goal of finding our own center in the midst of continuing liminality.
Torres: First, I have to say, like, I don't... I know you were putting like the toilet paper tubes in a little area in the bathroom but I wasn't sure why and now you have them out on the table and I'm noticing they have like a... it's like a journal... it's really cool.
This is my husband Rodrigo sitting with me and 47 empty toilet paper rolls.
Torres: ...look, I have a collection of paper rolls with stuff written on them and I'm like...
I used them as a way to mark our progression through the pandemic.
Thomas: Here's the very first one.
Torres: Oh, wow. Yeah, and we're, we're about there. It's almost a year now.
Thomas: Yeah. It was March 18 I think when we went on lockdown.
Torres: Wow.
Thomas: So this is March 30 '20. And then there's a March from '21 there at that end.
Torres: 3/2/21. That was two days ago.
Thomas: So I dated them and I have them arranged them arranged by month so we can see how many we used each month.
Torres: Ok.
After a while of just dating them, I started also writing little journal entries on them.
Thomas: What do you got there?
Torres: Ah, let's see... let me grab one of these. 8/1/20: My podcast is...
Thomas: …now…
Torres: …now available on Alexa. And it's written around the tube so it's like, you have to turn the tube around to read it.
Thomas: Right. It's an interactive journal experience.
Torres: Yes. It's a spiral with time.
Time is a spiral - right now and always. And COVID time is a ride all its own. Whatever your experience of time has been in the past year, join me for a look at what time gives us and the benefits of letting go. We'll also explore our own personal connection to space and time so we're not so thrown by the world around us.
This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. So how are you doing with time right now? Do you have enough of it? Too much of it? Do you feel lost or are you right on track? Do you know what day of the week it is? How sure are you about that? I've been having a hard time telling which way is up for about a year now, and it's disconcerting and I know I'm not the only one. I've heard several people say in the past year that it's difficult to focus, it's difficult to keep track of what month it is, difficult to gauge the passage of time during the day. Was that 15 minutes? Was that only two weeks ago? COVID has really been messing with our ability to keep track of time, mostly because it's a completely liminal space that's asked us to give up the framework we've used our whole lives.
I found an article on liminality recently from Alan Seale, the Founder & Director of the Center for Transformational Presence. The piece was written in 2016. Seale, who could probably never have imagined how impactful his article would be in the early 2020's tells us that, "The word 'liminal' comes from the Latin root, limen, which means 'threshold.' The liminal space is the 'crossing over' space – a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. It's a transition space."
Time is a super interesting thing. We feel secure when we build routines and expectations based on its constant presence. We mark time with concepts like generations, lifetimes, stages of life, annual patterns, weekly schedules, daily routines. Let's take a moment to consider what COVID has done with these concepts. It's become difficult to connect across generations which has kind of separated us from that intergenerational space that's so rich an important. The National Academy of Sciences recently published a study showing that life expectancy in the US went down in 2020 due to the pandemic, so there's a hit to our concept of what constitutes a lifetime. Along with that, the life expectancy reduction for the Black and Latino communities is 3 to 4 times that for the white community. That very statistic threatens to erase any gains we've made in equity on its own. Stages of life and the ways we mark them have also been affected. Graduations, weddings and other gatherings designed to mark the stages of life largely abandoned for almost a year. We're missing those rituals, really missing them. And lastly, as you know, our annual, weekly and daily patterns have completely changed.
This is no small thing. I know you know this, and I just really want to say that whatever you're feeling right now, and whatever happened the last time you maybe suddenly just lost it over something small, you're not imagining things. This is weird. We didn't build our lives to make sense of this. An extended period of liminality with no warning and no psychological preparation is pretty brutal. COVID time to me feels like living inside a jar of sand and water that's being constantly shaken. Kinda like a snow globe, but without the pretty winter scene creating a calming sense of place.
What does time do for us? Or to be clear, what does an organized sense of time do for us? I think it gives us stability and maybe even sanity. At the very least, it provides a lay of the land, a framework, something to base our expectations on. But maybe we need to even be more fine-tuned in discussing this. It's not that time isn't flowing normally right now, right? Two weeks is still two weeks during COVID, but the thing that's weird is it doesn't feel like two weeks. I thought that I would get used to the flow of time in COVID and eventually it wouldn't be so disorienting, but that actually hasn't happened. I think that's because we're still in the liminal, threshold space, and the big question "When will this be over?" still can't be answered. So there has to be some benefit from this weird time we're in, some way we can grow from it. We'll be right back.
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Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with us! If you enjoy listening to Shame Piñata, you can support the show by sharing with a friend or co-worker. We're into our 2nd season now (yay!) so all of our first season episodes are available on your favorite player and there might be one there that would really call to someone you know. And thanks!
One thing we can definitely do is practice disconnecting from our attachments and embracing the feel of flow. We might realize we're already doing this multiple times a day once we start paying attention. We can also use this time to reframe our view of the world and how we show up in it. We can fight for making a better world, a more equitable world. I have a quote on my desk that I look at every morning from writer Roxane Gay, something she said a year ago when the pandemic started, "The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For Black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free." And this is a chance for all of us to change the way we live, who we connect with, what kind of media we consume, and whose words we surround ourselves with. We are being offered the chance to see things from a different angle.
And as Alan Seale says, "Herein lies the power and the gift of the liminal space. The liminal space shakes us out of our habitual lives. It draws us out of what we have known, yet does not allow us to know what is coming next, or when. It’s the chrysalis stage for the caterpillar."
So how do we keep track of time within liminality? Here are a few ideas. First, routine events can help: A daily walk, a weekly lunch, a monthly treat. These are things our subconscious mind can begin to rely on for comfort and stability. And they can even weave in some connection if we want that. There's number two, regular social connections. I've been lucky enough to be part of a family that's held weekly Zoom calls for almost a year now. Before COVID, visits were few and far between, but we just celebrated our 50th call last week. (I know because my uncle keeps track and he held up a big 5-0 sign as we began the call).
If you don't have regular social connections in your life right now, consider looking online at the activities and groups you find interesting. So many things have moved online right now. It's possible to attend workshops and ceremonies on the other side of the world. And if you can't handle any more screen time, consider events that might allow you to call in rather than connect online and maybe take a walk while you listen.
Third, nature is still happening! The Earth still turns every 24 hours, bringing the steady rhythm of sunrises and sunsets which can be very potent times to observe the majesty of life on our planet. And the moon still pulls on the waters in our bodies just as much as she pulls on the waters of the Earth. You can mark the month by her changing light and if you choose to honor the new moon or the full moon, know that there is a very rich history in that tradition. And of course there are the many sabbats around the wheel of the year as celebrated by the earth-based religions throughout time. Here in the northern hemisphere we're coming up to Spring Equinox later this month which will of course be the Autumnal Equinox in the southern hemisphere. And that brings us to the mid point between emptiness and fullness, a moment of balance. And balance brings us to ritual.
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We can create rituals to mark the significant moment in our lives. As social psychologist Shira Gabriel says, "Rituals mark the passage of time as sacred." We can also use ceremony to center ourselves when things are topsy-turvy. Here's a simple ritual sketch we might use to find ourselves even within the flow of COVID time.
So first we might create an intentional space by finding a still corner of the house or maybe taking a walk to find a quiet space in nature. Then we might take a few deep breaths and really feel into the body. What does it feel like to be sitting on this thing? What is the feeling of the air on my skin? How many sounds can I hear?
Next we might get in touch with any spiritual guides, Goddesses, Gods or entities we work with or connect to the numinous however we experience it with gratitude and humility. Connected to this greater force, we might notice that our breathing has softened a bit and that we feel just a little bit calmer.
We might then bring our focus to the wide field of time, seeing ourselves in the very center of it, complete and whole, grounded and calm. Noticing how it moves in spirals, how it dances around us and holds great complexity. And yet at the center of it, we are focused and deeply connected with our own self, our own presence. Sound healer Aleya Dao talks about the golden river of light that flows at our core. We might connect to that pure essence of self as we watch time go by like a movie.
We might begin to sense the many ways that our core essence transcends time, transcends the grids our mind creates to make sense of it. We might come up on a younger version of ourselves and feel moved to share something we've learned with them. We might seek out an older version of ourselves and ask for some wisdom to make this COVID time easier.
Mostly, we can rest in the deep knowing that all time is now and all space is here. This ceremonial experience of time transcends the limits we've known before, and allows us to heal in new ways. When we're ready, we can return to the space we're in, take a few deep breaths and maybe move our body around a little to come back to waking consciousness. And we might want to write down a thing or two of what we experienced in the open field of time.
So how are you keeping track of time right now? What's working for you? Drop us a note on the shamepinata.com website and we will share your tips in an upcoming show.
Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can support the show by subscribing on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.