One must pay attention to the intervals — The invisible connections between things.
Imagine an infinite wall of cogwheels. All connected mechanically — gears upon gears representing all the intervals and possibilities of one’s life: Your life. A few large ones are spinning forward from their point of connection, while many smaller ones seem to speed furiously down and backward. But in an infinite world, there is no down and up, left nor right. From our vantage point, no one has enough distance to observe the bigger picture.
The larger wheels represent the three most significant passages in your life — youth, adulthood, and old age. Childhood being the biggest of all wheels represents the time that moves ever slowly unless we are actively engaged in new experiences. To a newborn, time is irrelevant, day and night are the same. To a toddler, the sunset calls for the light to end and announces a night accompanied by fear of being alone. To the active child, a day overflows rapidly into the night — if he could only be older, he would stay up all night like the adults in his life. At a standstill, a child’s life is endless waiting; A week takes forever, a month is unbearable and a year is interminable. Time suddenly becomes so slow that the rush of youth decides that time is the enemy. Everything that made him safe now keeps him prisoner. There are too many rules, too many adults, too many school days, and she will never grow breast in time for the boy to notice her. For most children, moving at the speed of the adults surrounding them is agonizing, and hereon begins the eternal game of waiting for their lives to start.
The tiny sized cogwheels surrounding all large wheels represent small but fast-paced worlds where things excite and entice all bodies. Too many to choose from, yet all filled with the type of experiences that will keep its visitors spinning toward lower worlds if blinded by their brief merry-go-round spells. Without maturity, they are dangerous cosmos to enter, and unfortunately, the transition back to a higher wheel will require much effort.
Once back on a greater world (not to be mistaken with higher worlds) one may have to begin again. Learn to wait, to awaken, to anticipate the next shifts. Some get tired and sluggish or fail to arouse their bodies from sleep in time to catch the next interval.
One must pay attention to the intervals — The invisible connections between things. They come suddenly, uncovered solely through awareness. One time/space is edging against spacetime. One cog is inserting its teeth into a proximate gear — herein lies the moment where one gathers enough momentum for the next big push. A slight pause to assess the inner workings of the machine is necessary.
To enter a new era, a new dimension, you must jump up from one cogwheel gear to another. If you miss the link that will help you transcend and lead you to the second segment of your life, everything will be on replay one more time until you circle back around for another chance to make your transition. But there are learning curves disguised as shortcuts; these small cogs are like shadow wheels — useful if the jumper keeps all his wits. All wheels contain more sleeping humans than needed. Such humans believe they are the reasons the wheels keep spinning. But the humans that understand the fundamental laws of motion know how to awaken their activity ingeniously. They become aware of the patterns and grasp these intervals with discernment.
Making the transition to the medium wheel of life brings significant lessons, mainly the illusion and identification with one’s work. All of the waiting, experiences, and training of the earlier world are ready to be utilized for the new ride. Unfortunately, the work towards liberation from the grasping adults is replaced by more grasping events; career, marriage, children, mortgage. Suddenly, you become those you once feared to resemble.
Many people get caught up on the medial wheel. Round and round they go as the year’s pass, passion rises and fades while sameness and events are on repeat. Some get stuck in the cracks and nooks. Others lack preparation for the big leap— the medial wheel being the most difficult to transcend. Things seem to move faster, yet the sheer amount of sleeping bodies keep everyone frozen in the puzzled world of their makers. There, all habits become crystallized. Some jump unconsciously on these smaller wheels giving them access to short-term joy rides — escapism, travels, a red Corvette, a younger mate. All leading back to the central cogwheel since they fail to recognize the enmeshed gears of a kindred wheel, they inadvertently re-enter the sphere of the sleeping man. Others get lost in the small illusory shadow worlds and never make it back to the stability of more massive fields.
To awaken, the aging man must learn to perform more awakened activities of selfless nature.
At this point, when faced once again by the Groundhog Day-like world, one gets one more chance to jump onto the last but smallest of all larger spheres. Half a century has now passed — if one is lucky. The interval once again sets in. Life seems to stagnate for a moment. People tend to either settle comfortably into their caves or unconsciously climb the highest mountains. Very few sticks with the uncomfortable feeling of having to transform or die a slow death in a time-warped paradigm. The aging body needs to detach itself from the limitations one has set upon it. A new world to match its resonance is necessary. If one is able to acquire enough momentum for that last thrust, he may become master of his or her time. This is a world where time seems to lose itself, day and night, weeks and months, years and decades merge into each other. Like one is speeding uncontrollably towards the end he cannot see. To slow down the motion, one must be wise and learn how to ease the friction transmitted. Watching the form disintegrate from the wearing out — the accumulated corruption and rusty mechanics imposed on oneself, the aging sleeping man must now wake up. To awaken, the aging man must learn to perform more awakened activities of selfless nature. He must return to his natural environment, the only organism that shows him the truth. How all small and large cosmos have their own timing. And still, there are a thousand smaller upper worlds connected to the world of old age. If one finally understands his place on the wheel, uses the experiential wisdom and drops the identification with the form, one stands to learn all the secrets needed to ascend to all worlds simultaneously.
All wheels coexist, each one a parallel world, yet all spin at different speeds to assist each of us within the grander design. All work as one, and one works for all. Small and large planetary rotation, all ruled by their laws, but if one breaks all worlds are injured.
Life is geared towards all other life — to learn how to see the whole you must know how to pause, how to leap when to return or to begin again. More importantly, you must inspire one another to see the many possibilities within a single being or thing.
This image, by the way, is metaphorical. It does not solve the big question. Who created the machine, who is doing the push and pull?
Natasha Jean-Bart