Once upon a time, so the story goes, many of our ancestors lived within a sacred cadence of time, marking their lives according to the stages of the moon, sun, and seasons.

The story continues: over hundreds of years of colonialism, this intuitive relationship has fragmented—holidays coopted, our time compressed, the seasons imbalanced—leaving entire societies without a way to orient themselves spiritually across change and aging. Extractive time couples with extracting from Earth. So many are now seeking a regenerative, nourishing relationship with time inspired by the past.

But we can’t look to the storied past alone to guide us. Our planet is not that of our forebears; it is radically altered. And so are we. Today, when we look for stability, we instead find climate chaos and capitalist speed. The ecological landmarks by which we measure time (such as growing seasons and animal migrations) are mutating. Time itself has changed and we are called into new patterns.

Our journey together is an experiment, a traveling-in-community. We’re looking to rekindle a sacred relationship to time within the world as it is, not a fantasy of a lost past. We are gathering to ask questions such as:

• When weather patterns and seasons are destabilized, how do we discover a good cadence for our lives?
• Within the intensifying stresses of capitalist time and the violence of chrononormativity, how do we live fully?
• If the long colonial catastrophe imbalanced time itself, how do we even begin to re-new ourselves in time?
• Instead of capitalized time used solely as a weapon against us, can we learn to wield time against oppression and for celebration?

Critically engaging issues of appropriation and tradition, Adam Lobel and Fitzhugh Shaw are convening to go deeper into these questions and to learn together. We will draw from contemporary critical theory alongside teachings from the land traditions of Europe, North America, and Central Asia. We will explore time in the Great Perfection (Dzogchen) and the Wheel of Time (Kalachakra) Tantra from Tibetan Buddhism. For our seasonal calendar days we will specifically draw from modern interpretations of Celtic traditions, part of Fitzhugh's heritage. Our rituals are inspired by our training in the Cleansing Offering (bsang) tradition from Indigenous Central Asia. With a host of outrageous guest experts (human and other-than-human), we will enjoy a feast of learning!

For theory geeks click here to go deeper:  U C H R O N I A