Eating Time

The process of healing is a curious thing, whether the healing is physical, emotional, or both. In both cases, healing requires rest, so our mind, heart or body can repair itself. The curious thing is that in both instances time is a crucial ingredient. The best medicine or the best counseling available will not be effective if the factor of time is ignored or dismissed. And where time is a sensitive commodity patience is required. Patience is an acquired skill, that demands obedience to eat willingly the dry bread of healing, slowly, deliberately as we chew, one unseasoned bite after another, pieces of time stolen from us. Healing is eating time, to find it back, to regenerate it, to claim it back. Some people cannot retrieve the time lost, and their bodies fade as their mind and heart can no longer keep up, they can no longer digest time's appetite requirements. Other people eat too much time, and it slows them down awkwardly, they seem to stand still, seemingly perpetually eating time, but not going anywhere, and the healing becomes trapped in their sluggish bodies and minds. I have done both, neither of which is pleasant. Ideally, time flows through us like rhythmic motion, and we are in balance, making good use of our talents and the clock. But just like any mechanism that becomes corroded, due to neglect, overuse, misinterpreted instructions or directions, we lose the smooth working of the wires and connections in the time sensitive machine that is our life, and the only way to grease the gears again, to permit the healing to take place, is to eat time, but, eat it very cautiously, very respectfully. Time is not a palatable dish, it tastes bland, dull, and it does not look appetizing either, about the colour of smashed potatoes, it seems. Yet, if we learn to develop a tolerance for it, with enough practice, we can find the energy to eat enough time this measure around to avoid having to sit on the side lines one too many rounds before our machine is beyond repair and eating time no longer is an option, because our clock ran out of strokes.