The Domains of Time and Timelessness

~Liz Beachy Gomez, From the Depths of Creation: A Nature-Based Path to Healing

The Boundaries of Time

There appear to be two versions of time that guide our experience of life, and they are as vastly different as a flying arrow and a blossoming flower. The first – like the flying arrow – is biological time, the constant force that reigns over every cell comprising the physical world. Though our lifespans are all different and the way we perceive biological time may vary, every species on Earth is bound by its influence.

Biological time governs the inevitable cycles of birth, growth, slowing down, and death. It knits the world together in coherence so that we can co-exist in a shared continuum together with the plants, animals, humans, and all other manifestations of nature. We move into the flow of this time when we’re born into the physical world, and we step out of it when we die.

Our impact on the collective biological timeline might remain in some form after we’ve passed on—holding up the generations to come like the solid branches of a tree support and sustain the new shoots– but biological time relinquishes us from its grip when we leave the world of form.

The Struggle with Time

Our relationship with time offers valuable lessons throughout our lifespan. One of its great teachings is to not resist the advancing hours in a day full of deadlines, or lament the passing of the years as we grow old. We will lose our youth but accumulate wisdom to accompany our deepening wrinkles. And at the end of our lives we have the potential to gracefully slide into the place beyond time.

Yet while we’re here in the thick of life, much of our modern-day stress is caused by the expectation that we will accomplish a certain number of things in a day, a week, or a year. Sometimes we face abitrary deadlines and sometimes truly vital ones. Regardless, they cause a sense of inner pressure or squeezing that can make us lose our composure. As a result, many feel like we’re fighting against time rather than co-existing with time in a space of reverence or serenity.

I suspect our modern experience of time is quite different from that of previous cultures, whose daily experience was guided by the rising and the setting of the sun. If they couldn’t get something done one day, it simply had to wait until sunrise the following day. The forces that ushered people onward were the changing seasons and cycles of nature, not a contraption strapped to their wrist that counts every second and minute with painstaking precision.

A Space of Timelessness

Beyond the constraints of biological time there is a space that I like to call soul time or even timelessness — that is mysterious, profound, and awe-inspiring. It is the place where we touch the infinite, both the parts of ourselves and the rest of the Universe that reach far beyond the physical domains. The path to this dimension of time leads through our hearts.

Forward-moving time rules only over our bodies, it does not constrain our consciousness. In the place of soul time, all that matters is how our hearts blossom. Cause and effect become irrelevant, timelines fade away, and whether our blossoming took five days or 50,000 years, it only matters that we unfurled our petals and opened them with love or compassion, shining our beauty from within.

In this space of the soul beyond linear time, the past, present, and future are not only accessible and but even alterable. Through my work as a shamanic energy medicine practitioner I encounter this space often, whether simply guiding a client in their own soul exploration or intentionally slipping into it to find the roots of illness.

This subtle and elusive space beyond time can be glimpsed by any of us through a profound dream that connects us to our purpose, a flash of premonition for the future, or even the ache in our heart for a loved one who has passed on.

How You Can Access Timelessness

There are many ways to intentionally experience the timelessness that stretches beyond the bounds of physical time. For me, the most powerful inroad has been through shamanic journeying. In a place beyond “ordinary” reality, our mind can journey forward or backward or even sideways to transcend past and future. Guided by clear intention and a steady drumbeat, we can drop into a light trancelike state and expand our field of awareness.

Through journeying I have been able to access hidden memories from early in my youth, revisit past lives, see the energetic dimensions and origins of clients’ ailments, and catch glimpses of the future.

This subtle and elusive space beyond time can be glimpsed by any of us through a profound dream that connects us to our purpose, a flash of premonition for the future, or even the ache in our heart for a loved one who has passed on. In the domain of timelessness, the bonds of biological time fade away.

We can stretch into the past to offer forgiveness, and release the heavy weights that burden us in the present. Or we envision a healed and radiant future version of ourself, and invite that vision and positive feeling to guide us forward until it becomes a reality. We’ve likely all experienced some version of being able to shift our understanding of the past or set a goal for the future that comes to pass, altering our personal timeline in some way.

A Time-Bending Soul Retrieval Story

Soul time extends deeper and further, however, than most of us imagine to be possible. I discovered this a few years ago while working with a client who had been severely abused as a little girl. We identified where in her body she was holding the trauma from the abuse, and discovered that an aspect of herself from the tender age of seven years old was anchored there. This little girl was frightened and confused, paralyzed with shock. She had been able to disassociate from her body during the abuse, rising out of it to a place where she felt safer. But the little girl remained stuck and separate from her main self, who was now in her seventies.

We established a dialogue with this little girl to discern what she needed to be able to return to her present-day self and reintegrate both psychologically and energetically. She said that she needed to know that it would be safe to return to her body, and that she was loved and welcomed. She also needed to know that the abuse was not her fault and that there was nothing wrong with her that caused it to happen. She still held so much pain that her shock and dissociation was very real and palpable.

We decided to wrap this little girl in love and make sure that she felt safe enough to return fully to her present-day self. I held the space of dialogue between the little girl and my client, while she scooped the little girl up in her arms, letting her know how deeply loved and appreciated she was. My client kept telling her little girl that she would be okay and she had done nothing wrong. She tried to convey a sense of safety, strength, and loving calm. After continuing for several minutes she felt much better and her little girl returned to her heart — no longer easily identifiable as a separate entity.

We chatted for a bit more about how to care for this tender and wounded part of herself as she re-integrated back into her more whole, adult self. My client began to talk about what little she remembered from those days of abuse, and how she often escaped it by rising up out of her body to be with a beautiful calming presence who made her feel supported. She then said that as a little girl she wondered who the loving old woman was, who came to be with her during the abuse. She recounted how as a girl, the face of that old woman stuck in her mind and she wondered whether the old woman was a spirit guide or angel.

Suddenly my client froze and went quiet— as a realization hit her. She understood in that moment that the face of the old woman was her very own face, her seventy-some year-old face, full of kindness, love, and compassion, who had just reached back through time to console her own little girl self.

When we realized the power of the exercise we had just embarked on, we were both moved to tears. Guided by love and compassion, she had indeed looped back through biological time to change her experience of the abuse by reassuring her younger self that she was loved and not alone.

As amazing as the experience of somehow “bending” biological time seemed to be, in her heart what mattered most was that she had reunited with an orphaned part of herself who was ready to return home to her.

The Blessings of Soul Time

Thus is the way of the heart, the path of the soul, and the nature of timelessness. It transcends the trajectory of time that flies like an arrow, in favor of those sweet and precious moments that fill us with tenderness, warmth, or wholeness.

When we love someone it doesn’t matter whether they are by our side, across the country, or have passed on. They occupy a similar cozy space in our heart.

It is also in our hearts that we can sense our deep connection to a mysterious source that exists far beyond the ephemeral cycles of life and death. There is much more to life and existence than our physical bodies, and our consciousness is capable of transcending the barriers that separate the physical world from the non-physical.

An Exercise for Grounding in Time

Yet if you are reading this article, you likely spend most of your time within the constraints of the physical world and its deadlines and timetables. So I’d like to share a simple exercise to help you stay grounded:

The trees are a powerful symbol of time in many cultures. They root deep in the ground while their branches stretch high into the sky toward the spiritual realms. Storms come and go, strong winds barrel through, summer cycles into winter and back, and still the tree holds its upright place in sync with the flow of nature and life.

Sit with your back resting against a tree, and call on its quiet calm to help anchor you back into the natural flow of life. Remember that this is your time, today, right now. Breathe it in. Give thanks for the present moment, and for your life.

Emulating the tree and feeling its quiet, enduring wisdom brings me peace. The tree is as bound to the earth by biological time as we are, yet the mysterious essence that connects all of life feels palpable within its core. It serves as a poignant reminder that we can hold the space of exquisite timelessness – within a form bound by time.