News

Kristin Catherwood, Intangible Cultural Heritage Development Officer

In the western world, we tend to think of time as an absolute thing. But it is not – it is measured and conceived of in different ways, from the turning of the seasons to the passing of the hours. For example, many people in Saskatchewan of Orthodox Christian faiths celebrate Christmas on January 6. Last week, the groundhog’s shadow told us something about when spring will arrive. Today is Chinese New Year (Gung Hay Fat Choy!), a holiday celebrated around the world which is based on the lunar calendar. Though in the western world we officially turn the new year on January 1^st, those who adhere to alternative calendars do not consider their time any less meaningful than the mainstream measurement.

Our particular meanings of time, and the ways we tell it, are reflective of our cultural heritage, are another way we express our cultural identities. Different cultures tell time in different ways. This can sometimes cause misunderstandings amongst individuals and between cultures – when one party values being “on time” and another does not see the point in punctuality, tension can be the result. It is not that one values time more than the other, it’s that the quality of time is understood differently.

Sometimes we are able to step outside our normal “time zones” and experience another, and so broaden our perspectives on the meaning of time. This past summer I participated in my first sweat lodge. As I was briefed on what to expect, and assured that I could leave at any point, that I didn’t have to participate through all four rounds, I asked how long each round was. Would I have to endure the heat for ten minutes? Fifteen? Twenty? The answer was that each round is four songs.  I knew better than to ask how long each song would be. And it turned out that once in the sweat lodge, time had little meaning to me anymore. It was a true experience of focusing on only the present moment.

An elderly, retired farmer once told me how he used to use his south-facing barn to tell time when he was out working in the field as a young man. The shadows cast by the peaked hay hood of the roofline simulated the hands of a clock. He knew when it was noon and time for he and the horses to have a rest and some dinner. The changing of the seasons, and the way we mark them in terms of time, is reflective of our preoccupation with and dependence upon our natural environment. We watch for clues about how time will progress – will it be a “long” winter, a short spring? Those of us who follow the phases of the moon can tell time in that way as well. A full moon high in the sky means it is near midnight, just as the sun is high in the sky at noon.

Despite a society which runs on precise, digital time, we humans are still connected to deeper, older ways of telling the hours, days, years. Our ancestors, wherever they came from, lived in a cyclical world. Each season had its particular activities, each day a rhythm of its own. We cannot quite shake these older ways of being. It is like we live in two parallel worlds – one in which time is measured to the nano-second, another in which time is not measured, but experienced.