EVOLVE Communities

1
I saw Time flowing like a hundred yachts
That fly behind the daylight, foxed with air;
Or piercing, like the quince-bright, bitter slats
Of sun gone thrusting under Harbour’s hair.
So Time, the wave, enfolds me in its bed,
Or Time, the bony knife, it runs me through.
“Skulker, take heart,” I thought my own heart said.
“The flood, the blade go by – Time flows, not you!”

Vilely, continuously, stupidly,
Time takes me, drills me, drives through bone and vein,
So water bends the seaweeds in the sea,
The tide goes over, but the weeds remain.

Time, you must cry farewell, take up the track,
And leave this lovely moment at your back!

II

Time leaves the lovely moment at his back,
Eager to quench and ripen, kiss or kill;
To-morrow begs him, breathless for his lack,
Or beauty dead entreats him to be still.
His fate pursues him; he must open doors,
Or close them, for that pale and faceless host
Without a flag, whose agony implores
Birth to be flesh, or funeral, to be ghost.

Out of all reckoning, out of dark and light,
Over the edges of dead Nows and Heres,
Blindly and softly, as a mistress might,
He keeps appointments with a million years.

I and the moment laugh, and let him go,
Leaning against his golden undertow.

III

Leaning against the golden undertow,
Backward, I saw the birds begin to climb
with bodies hailstone-clear, and shadows flow,
Fixed in a sweet meniscus, out of Time,
Out of the torrent, like the fainter land
Lensed in a bubble’s ghostly camera,
The lighted beach, the sharp and china sand
Glitters and waters and peninsula -

The moment’s world it was; and I was part,
Fleshless and ageless, changeless and made free.
“Fool, would you leave this country?” cried my heart,
But I was taken by the suck of sea.

The gulls go down, the body dies and rots,
And Time flows past them like a hundred yachts.

In this month’s Leading Light session with Dr Anne Russell and Dr Linda Berens, we explored personality types, temperaments and interaction styles. To what end? Linda says it perfectly: “self-knowledge and self-leadership”. I had an “AHA!” moment when Anne said: “it is about giving language to discover and explore differences, making interactions with others easier.” YES! Aren’t things so much easier to understand when we have the right words, the right language. For now, I wish to share with you my language of ‘time-management’, or even ‘life management’,  put simply  – getting the most out of the precious time we have.

Time is what we want most, but… what we use worst. William Penn
One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other. Chinese Proverb

“OUCH!” These quotes are close to the bone for me. I have a crazy pumpkin dunking tendency (only 2 pumpkins – what a luxury!).  While I have tried many a fancy diary and online self management system, two things work brilliantly for me:

1. “Out to Sea”

Once a week my NoMad colleague Nigel Russell goes sailing. It is fixed, non-negotiable, time out. It took me some training to get used to the idea. Now I like it. I like and respect that he values himself enough to prioritise this time. At the beginning of the year, I decided to spend more time with my daughter, who is rapidly approaching three! I decreed Tuesday mornings as ‘our time’. For the first few months, this worked for about every 2 out of 3 Tuesdays. What I was doing was making it ‘our time’ as long as no other formal meeting or engagement came up. What I wasn’t doing was making up for that ’lost’ time on another day. Therefore, I was allowing something else to nudge in as priority one. I was also giving permission to other people to manage ‘my’ time.

Now every Tuesday morning, between 9am and 1pm,  if you try to get a hold of me, ‘I am out to sea’. This meansat I am ‘out of range’: no mobile, no computer – just ‘one pumpkin’. I have found this way of expressing my time and use of it invaluable for myself and working with others.

2. “She has rocks in her head”
Well perhaps not literally, but I do have rocks sitting in a jar on my desk. Time is like an empty wardrobe or storage space. If empty, it will fill. Increase the space, more ’stuff’ will appear.  Mark out some time in your diary, and it is full before you have even contemplated how to use it. I have a very clear and colourful picture in front of me that depicts and gives language to my priorities – how I like to be in the world and what I wish to contribute. This has been developed through many years of self reflection. To ground this, I picked out 7 rocks of varying size, to represent my 7 key priorities – family, personal and work related. Each one is written on a rock. Highest priority, gets the largest rock and so on. When I am asked to do something that is not represented on these rocks I ask: “Which rock will I take out to fit this one in” OR “Which rock will I chip away at, to make the other one fit”. This gives me a very tangible and sensory language to understand the impacts of my decisions on priorities and time. I have also used post it notes (of varying sizes) as puzzle pieces to achieve the same purpose.

One of my favourite poems is that by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor “Out of time”. It fascinates me as much today as it did when first read some 25 years ago. It is a language for time, and while it needs to be read in its entirety, here is a taster:

“Leaning against the golden undertow,

Backward, I saw the birds begin to climb

with bodies hailstone-clear, and shadows flow,

Fixed in a sweet meniscus, out of Time”…..

What do you do to make sure that your priority one is just that when it comes to your use of time? Share your thoughts at the Evolve Blog.
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EVOLVE NOW BOTTOM LINE: Finding your own language to express your priorities and time can make your priorities clearer, more grounded and respected by yourself and others.

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