September: Time anthology
For our inaugural issue, we chose the theme of Time. We were inspired by Benjamin Worff's unpublished essay, ‘An American Indian Model of the Universe,’ where he discusses the Hopi language, which organizes time in an entirely different way than the Western mind is familiar with:
The Hopi metaphysics also has its cosmic forms comparable to these in scale and scope. What are they? It imposes upon the universe two grand cosmic forms, which as a first approximation in terminology we may call MANIFESTED and MANIFESTING (or, UNMANIFEST) or, again, OBJECTIVE and SUBJECTIVE. The objective or manifested comprises all that is or has been accessible to the senses, the historical physical universe, in fact, with no attempt to distinguish between present and past, but excluding everything that we call future. The subjective or manifesting comprises all that we call future, BUT NOT MERELY THIS; it includes equally and indistinguishably all that we call mental—everything that appears or exists in the mind, or, as the Hopi would prefer to say, in the HEART[.]
The Hopi understanding of time tends towards the quantum, where the Western understanding tends Newtonian. This difference raises the question: what might our culturally-conditioned understanding of time elide?
How have you experienced different kinds of time in your own life? Time as a child? Time waiting on line or trapped in bureaucracy? Time during love as opposed to empty time? Have you ever had a Proustian moment where a smell or taste suddenly catapulted you back to a different time? How does the question of time relate to other issues you want to explore?
The following seven essays explore these questions and, we feel, gesture towards insight and understanding beyond the commonplace. All pieces are accompanied by original artwork created by Reivin Alexandria using Midjourney.
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Audiobook and ebook versions:
And here are the pieces:
"Used to Be" by Daniel Pinchbeck
New York City, then and now.
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"Microdose Lockdown" by Reivin Alexandria
A psychedelic journey through the unhinged mental space of early pandemic.
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"On the Clock" by Arielle Friedman
An experiment with capitalism leads to a race against biology.
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Meditating on time, mortality and the karmic DNA of the cosmos.
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"Time and the Infinite Game" by Guy James
A wrenching goodbye, as one woman learns to be an infinite player.
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"A Familiar Path" by Jason Stern
A forest walk leads to a journey into phenomena, time and experience.
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"The Bench Coin Gold and Swords" by Ana de Portela
Youthful lessons resurface as the banking system breaks down.