Marney's Musings:
On Children and On Time
Artellagram 4-13-13
"Hawaii", painted by Kai
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Last week at dinnertime, my husband Tony read Kahlil Gibran's "On Children". My son Kai was totally entranced, and asked him to read it again. This is how it begins:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
During this second read-through, when Tony read the preceding line about children having their own thoughts, Kai immediately burst out, "Yep!" It was a lovely, simple moment, and, of course, it proved Gibran's point! :-)
I re-read the piece on my own, later. Though the piece is about children, I wondered what would happen if it could be about something else that we think of as "ours"; what if it was about "time" instead? As an experiment, here's what happened when I substituted the word "time" for each mention of "children" in Gibran's piece:
Your time is not your time.
Time is the child of Life's longing for itself.
Time comes through you but not from you,
And though Time is with you yet it belongs not to you.
You may give Time your love but not your thoughts,
For Time has its own thoughts.
You may house Time's bodies but not its soul,
For Time's soul dwells in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like Time,
but seek not to make Time like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
Whenever we dare to look at time through a metaphorical lens, we can see something new. In this experimental re-write of Gibran's words, which line sticks out to you as something interesting or important?
Personally, I came away with several new insights about my relationship with time. The phrase that stuck out for me was, "Though Time is with you yet it belongs not to you." I love the idea that time is with us...for all the worrying we often do about "finding time", the truth is, perhaps ironically, that time is one of the only things that is always with us!
This month is the one-year anniversary of The Creating Time Mega Event, where thousands of people came together to envision a new perception of "time" in our lives, and the release of the bestselling book Creating Time. Now we're all celebrating the one year anniversary with a great free class taking place on Thursday April 18: "Time Tango 2013: Using ARTbundance to Romance Your Greatest Resource".
If you'd like more creative ideas for using art and writing to discover your "tango tenacity" and create a new relationship with time, I invite you to join us for the Anniversary party!
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