FUN TIME

We can slow down our sense of the passage of time by being bored in any one time segment and in a longer time frame by living a more monotonous life. Temporal psychologists have set up various experiments which show this. Our sense of time seems to speed by when we are operating in heightened mental states; conversely, when standing in queues waiting, our experience of time slows.

So, if time seems to be flying by for us, we are probably living a fun, stimulating life. We really would not want the alternative.

GAZING AT TIME'S BODY

For enrichment to occur in our lives, other ordinary distractions must be minimized. This is why a wilderness experience seems, actually is, an enrichment: Big chunks of civilization are removed. Then, the numinous (sensing the presence of the divine) qualities of Nature can be realized. We can then, like Thoreau, sense that, "In wilderness is the preservation of the world."

Yes, it is a letdown to return to the strictly mundane, the quotidian routines of life, after one has seen the divine in Nature. Our experiencing a place like the Grand Canyon--with its exposed Earth strata of mauve, terra cotta, ocher, and brick-red--is partly like gazing into the living tree rings of the Earth itself. It's easy to lose oneself in time there, in the overwhelming sense of the immense span of time and its vivid corporealness, as if Time were a substance and we just short-lived molecules in its body. Yet, the body of Time and Nature continues and lives on, whether we are here or not. At least we can gaze part way into it. And, then, live here, now--in the body of Time.