Have you ever walked somewhere and felt the past, present, and future converge in a single moment? This has happened to me several times, and it’s a feeling that’s both surreal and grounding.
Ancient churches in Europe can inspire it. In Australia, it’s usually the forest or dramatic rocks and landscapes that evoke this sense of timelessness. Walking across these places, I feel time stretching all around me, as though the present moment expands to encompass everything. If we’re still, quiet, and open our senses—listening to the land—time can slip away entirely.
Another instance where time dissolves is during meditation. In those moments, all sense of time can drop away, and we enter a timeless state. Sometimes it feels as a moment expands into eons. What? We wonder when we look at a clock after such an experience and find that only 5 minutes has passed!
Timelessness in Nature and Stories
The experience of timelessness reminds me of the story of Oisín from Irish Mythology. He travels to Tír na nÓg (the fairy realm of eternal youth) with the fairy woman Niamh and spends what feels like 3 years there, only to return to Ireland and realize 300 years have passed in the mortal world. Such tales speak to the timelessness we can feel in nature, where the boundaries of time blur and dissolve. Perhaps we, too, step into a fairy realm when we experience the timelessness of meditation or the forest..
Most recently, I had one of these moments while walking across a grassy knoll. I sensed that everything was happening in the present, as if the footsteps of yesterday still echoed in the earth, and the footsteps of tomorrow were already waiting—or perhaps already happening. It’s a strange and beautiful feeling that defies logical explanation.
Physics, Metaphysics and The Linear Illusion of Time
We experience life as a linear journey—from birth to death—with yesterday, today, and tomorrow neatly compartmentalized. Time is a construct we rely on to navigate our physical world, but it doesn’t reflect the essential nature of reality beyond our physical experience—the quantum field from which everything springs—which is beyond time.
Modern physics reveals that time is not an absolute clock ticking in the background, but an illusion created by our perspective. Einstein’s theory of spacetime showed that past, present, and future exist simultaneously in a four-dimensional continuum, while quantum loop gravity and quantum field theory suggest that at the universe’s most fundamental level, time disappears entirely. Yet even when we logically grasp that the quantum field out of which reality springs is fundamentally timeless, the concept of a world without ‘before’ or ‘after’ remains profoundly baffling to the conceptual mind—a mind hardwired to perceive life as a linear journey.
As I say in the song, ‘My poor little brain, this human machine, cannot compute such a vivid scene.’ And yet we can experience it. It may be rare, but it is possible. You know, when you sit on the beach and stare at the horizon?
The idea that reality is fundamentally timeless isn’t unique to modern physics—it sits at the heart of several ancient spiritual traditions. In Advaita Vedanta, the ultimate reality (Brahman) is entirely changeless, rendering our experience of time a secondary illusion (Maya). Similarly, Taoism speaks of the Tao as the eternal, unnamable source that exists prior to space and time, while Neoplatonism points to ‘The One’ as an absolute reality beyond sequence or division. Across these traditions, as in quantum physics, the message is remarkably consistent: the universe’s true foundation is timeless, and sequence is merely the lens through which we experience it.
(Thanks to Gemini AI for help with the paragraphs on physics and metaphysical systems of thought.)
Time and Our Connection to Earth
On a very simple level, we can loosen our concept of linear time by recognising that the words we use to measure it are a symbol, not a reality—calling the middle of the day ‘12 o’clock’, for example, is entirely arbitrary. We could just as easily call it ‘blip beclock’. Words are human inventions that symbolise some aspect of our experience. The words are not the reality itself, just a way to describe it.
Of course, when we trace our sense of linear time back to its origins, we find it rooted in the rhythms of the Earth. Time follows the cycles of day and night, the path of the sun, the equinoxes, and the solstices. These natural rhythms remind us of our deep connection to the Earth and its patterns. The basis of our reality may be timeless, but our day to day experience is one of linear time—from birth to our last day.
Just as we can’t escape day and night, we can’t escape the tick tock marking our time passing. This is no reason for depression; it’s a reason for acceptance and appreciation for the time we have.
A Song Inspired by Timelessness
To explore this contemplation on timelessness through music and imagery, I created a video for my song, ‘Walking Through Time’. It may inspire you to contemplate the nature of time and perhaps take a walk in the forest, stop, listen, and expand your awareness as a gateway to the experience of timelessness.
The song in the video is a shortened version of the full track, which has been mastered and extended by my husband into something even more captivating. If you’d like to hear the full version, it’s available on Bandcamp. I hope we enjoy the video and the music—and that our walk through time doesn’t last 100 years!
Let me know in the comments if any of this strikes a chord with you? Have you ever felt time drop away? When? The birth of a baby perhaps? Staring at Uluru? (That’s the huge rock in the centre of Australia.) Or down into a deep gully? Let me know in the comment section below. I find this genuinely fascinating.
Lyrics Walking Through Time
(Verse 1)
I walk through time across the grass,
Present, future, and the past.
I see all times in this space I roam,
Feel their whispers, hear their tone.
(Pre-Chorus)
Whispers of the past, future dreams collide,
Time’s a fluid line, not a divide.
If time’s a construct, doesn’t exist,
Then everything’s happening in one twist.
(Chorus)
Tick, tock, tick, tock, the seconds fade away,
Walking through the journey from birth to my last day.
Step by step, we follow the line,
But life’s a dream, a fleeting design.
(Verse 2)
My poor little brain, this human machine,
Cannot compute such a vivid scene.
For life on this plane, we march in a row,
From birth to death, it’s all we know.
(Pre-Chorus)
But when it comes, we’re sure of the door,
We entered this life, we’ll leave once more.
Back to vibrations, a world unseen,
Where we’re the dream, and they live what’s seen.
(Chorus)
Tick, tock, tick, tock, the seconds fade away,
Walking through the journey from birth to my last day.
Step by step, we follow the line,
But life’s a dream, a fleeting design.
(Bridge)
Across the green grass, I walk through time,
Each step the same, a rhythm, a rhyme.
The past and future blend in the now,
A mystery of life we can’t disavow.
(Outro)
Tick, tock, tick, tock, the seconds slip away,
Walking through the journey, from birth to my last day.
One step at a time, through the door we’ll go,
Back to the vibrations, where the dream will grow.
