Time, just time?

Time is an odd phenomenon don’t you think so too?  I give my example, but you’ll have yours. Last week I went to the isle of Iona on the Scottish west coast. Cannot remember how long I had not been there, surely calendar years! How could it be, that arriving there, I felt as if I had only left it last month, or even last week? Everything felt so familiar: its sea of the ‘Sound of Iona’, its colourful rocks, its 'Traigh Bhan nam Manach’ the White Beach of the Monks; with the house Traigh Bhan and Robbie, the warm Rayburn, which invites us to bake our own bread and spend lots of time in its cosy kitchen… On Iona time runs differently.

Time slips, time loss or a déjà vu, it’s all so much easier to happen during these days at the end of October and the beginning of November; around Halloween or Samhain, as we call the Celtic festival celebrating the Celtic New Year in the Wheel of the Year; in the Wheel of Time. It is said that the veil between the dimensions is thinner. This would make it easier to connect from our world to the invisible world, the ‘other side’. In many cultures this has been practised: by the Native Americans, by the Celtic druids and even the Christians copied it from the Celts and called it All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  Time to honour the beloved ones who aren’t in a human body anymore.

In our physical world a lot of us believe in the separation: ‘here’ are the living, ‘there’ are the dead.  But maybe we all are living souls and we are not that much separated?  Maybe there are more dimensional shifts. I like to believe that.  My birthday is always in this Samhain time, and I’m interested in this ‘twilight zone’ in which time and sometimes even spaces overlap. Time only seems to exist for observers inside our universe. It is said that even physicists, although having trouble with this ‘problem of time’ or conundrum, cannot ignore it. Who would want to? It’s fascinating! 

I show you here a favourite photo I made of the colourful rocks at the north side of Iona. There is a deep pool or hole inside, maybe to disappear and swim to the ‘other side’?

photo & text © Adriana Sjan Bijman, 2014