Becoming the Time Witch

In Circling, we often frame timing solely around one phrase: Slow down. From this single well, endless gifts flow.

But really, Circling is not about being slow at all. It’s about going the exact pace of the present moment. If we simply go slowly, we risk waiting too long, never introducing ourselves into the Circle. And of course, if we speed up, we won’t have any time for what is going on.

Already there are so many questions and seeming contradictions. That is how we know we are in the territory of the practice—where nothing seems to make sense but something in us still recognizes the truth here.

So, let’s see what we can understand about time and timing in the Circle. There, we might discover how getting our timing right is the pathway to see the interconnectedness of all things.

But beware. We are about to enter territory where time takes on the physics of dreams and story.

Circling Is Time Magic

How often have you found yourself at the end of a Circle and thought to yourself, “I can’t believe how fast the time went.”

It should not be controversial to say that time does strange things in a Circle, and that’s because we engage with it differently. And that means our timing requires special attention.

And why is that key to the practice?

Mastery of timing in Circling opens up the possibility of going where the Circle wants to go—or maybe we could say it allows us to be everywhere the Circle already is. In this way, it keeps the door open for the transcendent aspects of the practice that lead us to the heart of things.

One way we speak about this is by saying: Keep to the present moment.

But what we often leave out is how the present moment can go anywhere in time it wants to, if we let it.

The present moment, if we surrender ourselves completely to it, may be working in several times at once. It might be awakening a childhood memory for you, while it draws in the dread of the near future for someone else. Meanwhile, it is all fully and totally now—pregnant with every sniffle and twitch, every heartbeat and held breath in the room.

Being in the present moment, it turns out, gives us access to all times at once. This mystery takes us into still weirder reaches of reality when we listen to the words here with us. Time, we so often believe, is taking us on a straight line—from the opening of the practice session to its end, from morning to night, from birth to death. But the practice itself is the Circle. And so, the name alone is perhaps a riddle. It suggests we allow the Circle to bend the arc of time more and more into its own shape.

When we let go of old understandings of time, we allow the Circle to tell us what time is. This enables us to step through the present moment in its fullness, without clinging to any possible time but simply having access to all the time that is here—that’s becoming the Time Witch.

Surrender to the new forms of time available to us in the Circle opens up the limitless potential of the present moment, listening to it and allowing it to say whatever it might be ready to speak.

The Time Witch also surrenders the need for everything that is here now to be finished and complete. Instead, all things live in process, in points on their trajectory. But those trajectories, including their beginnings and ends, can all be held right here and now.

For instance, let’s say someone is in a deep process in the Circle. The present moment already contains the myriad reactions and occurrences happening. It also contains the beginning by containing the process it birthed, just as it contains the end of the process and its impact by inevitably taking us there. It contains the memories coming up in us as we witness and participate in the process. It contains the healing and hurting. In short, there is nothing to do. The Circle already has it all. We are simply there in the unfolding.

The Time Witch has supreme and total certainty in this unfolding and is simply allowing it to happen. She knows that trying to hurry to hit our mark and nail our line like actors with stage fright will not ensure anything. See, the Time Witch doesn’t need to do anything at all. The when takes care of itself because her timing comes not from efforting to do things at the right time. She acts at the right time because she doesn’t resist the timing.

Feel the difference?

It is from this place of releasing control and effort that we can build a new relationship with time. Navigating that new relationship is, necessarily, a matter of timing.

The Dawning Art and Science of Chronotactics

So far, we’ve had a few poetic ventures into what timing is and how time itself might operate in the practice.

Let’s talk about some practical matters of working in time in the Circle.

Much of this will focus on when we take actions. [We must be careful though not to fall into a false dichotomy of action and inaction. As you know, even sitting silent in the Circle is an action—sometimes a very powerful and dominating one.]

The first note here is the most fundamental. The practice of Circling creates a ritualized space. It is inside this ritual space that we practice. And as with any ritual, we create a time outside the flow of time—set off as a county all its own. So, when you engage with a Circle, consciously step into this special kind of time that is both wholly separate and limitlessly interconnected. Just by Circling you are already becoming the Time Witch.

We should also note here the basic law taught to us by the tortoise and the hare. When we are in a hurry to do something, we lose the chance to fully be with what is. We rapidly use up the oxygen in the space, and what is here is not allowed to breath. This produces the odd effect that when we hurry, we run out of time more quickly—because nothing is given any time at all.

The key here is to have faith, and the best way to build faith in the Circle is to practice as much as possible. As faith in the process grows with experience, we are able to simply wait for the moment to arise when taking an action is effortless. Or we might be pleasantly surprised to find the action we are discerning erupts from someone else—and we realize it wasn’t meant for us at all!

Faith reminds us that there is plenty here right now, we can trust ourselves to do what we must, and nothing needs to happen that isn’t already happening.

What is this confidence made up of? This cannot be answered in full, but here are some true ways to begin your watch as the Time Witch:

• Be with your senses. Sometimes you can actually feel the timing in your body or smell it in the air. You can hear and taste it.

• Let yourself know what you know. When you relax around questions of epistemology (how we know what we know), you’ll leave the stuffy air of the philosophers and step into the clean winds of the Circle. If you know something, simply let yourself know it. There can still be humility and curiosity. You can still check other perspectives. But when you release your resistance to your own knowing, perfect timing often becomes quite obvious, and you’ll realize you have actually known how to do this for as long as you can remember.

• Wait for the right moment not because it will help you do something more effectively. Rather, do it because that is the practice.

In the end, deepening our understanding of time takes us on one of the most profound journeys of the Circling path. It might seem esoteric or overly abstract, but that’s because it is one of the most deeply embodied aspects. Work it as a physical endeavor, and you’ll find yourself gently coming into your power here.

What we have outlined above is only the first glimpse at the topic. But that is enough for now.

Come work time magic with us this Saturday. Check out the MeetUp here or check out the details below.

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: Investigating power in the Circle…

Over the past few weeks, the topic of power in the Circle has come up in so many contexts and forums. We decided to have a conversation about this difficult and sometimes confronting topic with Jordan Myska Allen, founder of the Relateful Company.

Next week, we’ll have a follow up conversation with someone who recently made a big splash in the Circling community by bringing forward their own experience of power and trauma in the practice.