I have always known time to be cyclical, the countdown of the clock hands, the way we know when the flowers will bloom and how the stars shift in the sky in a predictable manner. However, this is not a popular theory. The overarching culture in stark contrast sees time as linear. As much as we want to say we know anything indefinitely, the truth is that we only have theories on time and we don't know anything definite.

I find it silly that physicist sit in their labs and try to prove how they quantify time, when all they would need to be to do understand time was simply spend some time outside. It is a failing of humans to view time as linear, it goes against everything nature shows us- the seasons, the moon cycles,to and the cycle of day and night. Nature is our biggest teacher if we only stay quiet and observe. How can we look at nature and be like, this must not be right?

Illustration by Fiona Cook and Jessica Roux

To start we must first go over a brief history of time measurment and calendars. Time has always existed, but the earliest humans sought to quantify time to be able to measure and organize their behavior. It is believed that our hunter gather societies used nature to be able to track time with the movement of astrological events. They were in tune with the nature’s cycles and understood time as cyclical. Time was a concept based off nature observation.

The first formal calendar was the Julian Calendar in Rome which measured 365.25 days in a year, which would latter be replaced by the Gregorian calendar in 1582 by Pope Pope Gregory XIII. When we follow a Gregorian calendar, we are living out of alignment with the world. In what world does it make sense to live with uneven months and have years not be the same length. Time does not simply begin and end, that is far to simple for such a complex universe. We should not be bypassing the nature of the world to feed our own egos.

Not understanding time is cyclical is why we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. We often hear the phrase ‘those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it’. I say that ‘those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it because they didn’t change the cycle’. Please note I said change and not break because it is not something to be changed, it is something to re directed like a river. Time is fluid and not fixed, time is cyclical and not linear.