Sacred Time

“For something to be sacred it can be beautiful, precious, powerful, intimate, immense, vital, or ancient.

Anything can be sacred, but we treat so few things as if they were.”

Sacred Beginnings

In May of 2019 these words began a trip which would span 2 months and 11 states, ranging from the alpine tundra of Colorado to the desert outside of Carlsbad Caverns and the length of Highway 1. I wanted to look at treating space as sacred, not because of what it could do for me, but because of my relationship with it.

This trip was spurred on by a job I hated and dozens of rejected job applications. I had an apartment that I loved but could barely afford. It had been 3 years since I graduated but my career was nowhere near starting. I didn’t know where I was going, and I was miserable. So, I quit my job, gave up the apartment, and drove off into the “great unknown”. Of course, I was hoping that this trip could lead to a job or start my career. It didn’t. I came back from the “great unknown” to the very familiar, now without a job or place to live. I crashed with friends and family and sent out dozens more job applications. I got one interview and then never heard back. I still didn’t know where I was going, and I was still miserable.

Time is a type of space. It’s a landscape made of minutes and days, mountains made of daylight and valleys of night, with state lines drawn by revolutions around a star. Time is space, but I was not engaging with it as sacred.

At the dawn of a new year and a new decade, many people started reflecting on their achievements and successes. But as I looked back, my year didn’t measure up. 2019 was a landscape I had fracked for oil and dug for gold and surveyed for timber and come up empty handed, so I assumed it was a waste. I wrote the year off and moved on to the next one, scanning the horizon for new, undiscovered treasure.

But space made of land or time is not sacred because of what you get out of it. It is sacred simply because it exists. It is our job to understand that and enter into a relationship with it. When we do that, we create a bond which is the first step towards protecting the sacred.

Measured in relationships, not resources, 2019 was full. I saw friends and family on my trip I hadn’t seen in years. I spent time near home getting to know my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings. I spent two months with myself! And I learned so much because of it.

A year is a landscape you have to walk through. There’s no way to go faster or slower, just a steady pace all the way through. During my trip across the Western U.S. I walked through many landscapes. Some were jaw-droppingly beautiful. Some were too big to fully comprehend. Some were hot, just blisteringly hot. Some were almost the death of me. But there wasn’t one, not one single one, that I regret taking the time to walk. And when we treat time as sacred, the same becomes true of it. Time is sacred, not because of what we achieve or do, but because of what we learn and love and protect.

Time is sacred. Happy New Year.