I have so little time,” said composer Alban Berg.
Time is the soul of myth, as myth is the heart of time.
The Clock on the Wall
There is an old legend from the Salish Indians of North America about the trickster character Mink, in which we hear echoes of a situation that is curiously contemporary. In this wisdom tale we find a potent image that speaks directly to the soul's deep concern for time.
Long ago the People lived in accord with the rhythms of the sun and the moon, the stars and the tides, day and night, light and darkness. Then strangers from a faraway land appeared. The People called them their European guests. Of all their curious customs and possessions there was one that neither the trickster Mink nor the People had ever thought about before: an odd and seemingly useless thing the guests called Time. But soon Mink learned it was great medicine, it had wondrous power.
Mink decided he had to get some for himself.
One night he broke into the house of the strangers and discovered that they stored their Time in a gleaming box. Mink thought that the noise from the magic box sounded like woodpeckers in the forest, and that the two thin arrows on its face that moved around and around looked like birds circling around and around without ever really going anywhere. But he was impressed with the reverence the Guests gave the box and the way they looked at it throughout the day and night. Carefully, Mink tucked the ticking box under his arm and snuck away.
Now for the first time the People had Time. But it proved to be a nettlesome gift. Mink found himself mesmerized by the moving arrows inside the box and became forgetful about when he was supposed to do things he knew before by second nature. Now Mink checked out the clock before he did anything, just like his Guests. He even decided he should wear a turnkey around his neck so he would always be ready to wind up the machine and keep it ticking.
No sooner did Mink learn to tell Time than he no longer had any for himself. He spent so much time looking at the clock, he could never find the spare moments to fish or hunt or play like he used to do. Instead of being free to wake up and sleep when it was natural, Mink began to rely on the clock to tell him when to rise and when to rest. Soon he began to work more and more and rest less and less.
Lo and behold, as the wise commentator, Joseph Bruchac, has noted, “Because Mink stole Time, it now owned him and the People. It has been that way every since. Time owns us the way we used to own the Sun.”
Stolen Moments
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