I could have..I should have..I'm sure it would have - been good and necessary to have used that extra hour for much-needed sleep.
The changing of time. Spring forward - we lose an hour. Fall back - and we find that the one that was lost is now found. One day it's dark in the early morning and light in the late day. The next - we greet the morning with the sun..and find it setting long before we're ready.
Most years - it comes and goes..something 'we' do..mostly unmarked or unnoticed. But this year - I lay there wide awake...and wondering. There has to be a greater meaning and purpose to this than just the turning of the hands of the clock. I thought about all of the things in this world that can happen in an hour. All of the things that can change and transform it. All of the people who perhaps - right now at this same time in this same hour - might be thinking the same thoughts.
How many babies are being born in this extra one hour? How many people are dying? How many are finding themselves sleepless and homeless and hungry for one more hour than they'd otherwise like? How many are creating and contributing? How many are destroying? How many are celebrating? And - how many are grieving? How many are using the one extra hour towards work..and how many are blissfully sleeping?
I thought about the energy it takes to create change..and how much time it really requires. If we all - in that one hour - reached out to hold someone's hand..and that someone reached out to hold another..and another..and another after that. In that one hour - is it possible that those hands held might encircle and embrace this one small planet on which we all live? Might this one extra hour be all that we need to make this world one that is filled with joy and compassion and understanding and - yes - love? Is it possible that if every single breathing being set out with the intention to change - might that change actually occur?
What if - each and everyone of us - used that one hour to pick up toxic trash that litters and poisons? What if - we each focused only on our immediate surrounds. Without expectation that anyone should carry another's load..but that we each - in that one hour - carry our own. What would that be? If we simply found our way to be socially and environmentally responsible for ourselves. In one hour - might the world in which we live..the air we all breathe - be cleaner and healthier?
What if - all those who bear arms - simply laid them down? What if - instead..and just for this one hour - they raised their hands and bowed their heads and offered themselves up to peace? Imagine the legacy we might leave.
If only...
If only..it was that simple..that easy.
I'm not sure if it's this process of changing seasons or of time passing and age and that of greater perspective and deeper meaning. I'm not sure what it is - this particular year - that awakened me long before I needed. But - there I lay - awake..alive..aware. Questioning..challenging status quo..imagining possiblity.
What if - in this one short and extra hour that we've been granted - it might be possible to plant the first seeds of a movement...to set our intentions so that our energies might follow?
What if - we committed this time (not just the clocks) to change?
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Cross-posted over at Vision and Verb- where a collaborative group of like-minded women from all over the world share their passion for photography and the written word.