The seasons change quickly where I live. I’ve been aware of this for some time, but this year, I tried to catch it. To mark the exact day that it happens. I have a thesis: If we pay more attention to it, we can learn how to slow time.

Thresholds

Maybe it is because of the elevation. The town where I spend most of my time is about half a mile above sea level. Whatever it is, the seasons change here literally overnight. And today, I caught the actual change.

When I take my walk before sunrise, it is still warm during the summer, unbearably so after about 10 AM. This week, on September 30, it was chilly; almost to the point where I needed a jacket. The air had that crisp, unstable feel that everyone can identify, but nobody can quite describe; the feeling that heralds the beginning of Fall. More than that, the world looked different. The way the light plays in the blinding first moments of sunrise over the mountains; the color of the long shadows stretching westward.

Yes, the sun rises (or, I should say, we spin towards it) in a slightly different place as the year precesses and progresses, but that’s not it. The half a degree difference in the sun’s apparent day-to-day position this time of year—about one solar diameter, at this latitude—isn’t enough to explain the stark and noticeable threshold that has been passed. Summer is over, and Fall is inexorably incoming.

This topic—the ancient, wobbling experience of time on earth—is at once the domain of physics, psychology and spirit.

You see, the changes in light and darkness, temperature and, subsequently, weather, aren’t linear.




Time Constants?

The Earth’s axis is tilted ~23.5° relative to its orbital plane.

As we orbit the Sun, the solar declination (the Sun’s latitude in the sky) changes sinusoidally, not linearly. That means that, around the time of the solstices, the Sun’s position changes slowly. Around the equinoxes, it changes rapidly.

Near the equinoxes (March ~20, Sept ~22), the sunrise shifts quickly along the horizon — close to 0.9–1° per day at mid-latitudes.

Near the solstices (June ~21, Dec ~21), the sunrise position hardly shifts at all — sometimes less than 0.1° per day. That’s why the Sun seems to “stand still” at the solstices (the word comes from the Latin solstitium, “sun standing”).

The same pattern applies to the duration of daylight: it changes rapidly near the equinoxes, slowly near the solstices. This is due to the projection of Earth’s tilted axis onto the orbital motion — essentially a trigonometric effect.

We feel that undulating shift in the place the sun rises and sets, the length of days, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. 

Even though the objective, cesium-133 hyperfine-energy-level-oscillation-rate definition of time is constant (the only exceptions are relativistic effects; time dilation due to near light speed travel or neutron star/black hole-strength gravity,  but those are not relevant to daily human life), we are aware at some level that the sun moves over the horizon more quickly around the equinoxes that mark the transition from summer to fall and winter to spring.

Conversely, we sense the slowing of the sun’s heavenly transit in the quiet deep of the winter and the dog days of summer - the solstices.

The net effect of the physics is that time—as we experience it—really does speed up and slow down, in every subjective accounting of mind, body and spirit.

We Are Creatures of Time

I have one tattoo. It is a Zia, one of the earliest-found symbols that I believe was handed down from the Ancestral Puebloan people who inhabited the beautiful red-rock regions of the Mogollon Rim.

The symbol is sacred to the Zia Pueblo people of New Mexico, part of the Keresan-speaking tribes. It is a sun symbol that was used long before Spanish colonization, and it continues to hold deep religious significance for the Zia community today.

The symbol is a circle with four groups of four rays extending outward (north, south, east, west). The Zia revere the number four as sacred, and the symbol encodes this worldview:

- Four cardinal directions: north, south, east, west.
- Four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter.
- Four stages of life: childhood, youth, adulthood, old age.
- Four times of day: sunrise, noon, evening, night.

The circle at the center represents the wholeness of life, the Sun, and the eternal cycle of existence. In Zia spirituality, these fours are interconnected, and balance among them is essential to harmony in life.
To me, the Zia is one of the most moving and beautiful recognitions that the human organism evolved in rhythm with Earth’s cycles. Even though most of us now live in artificial light and climate-controlled homes, those natural cycles still imprint themselves on our bodies, minds, and souls.

Time Changes Us as it Changes


What the Ancestral Puebloan people learned from lived experience, science has studied in detail. Here is a partial list of what they have found:

Physical: Seasonal changes in day length (photoperiod) affect melatonin secretion (sleep regulation) and serotonin (mood). In winter (in the Northern Hemisphere), less light means more melatonin and more sleepiness; lower energy. In summer, long days and increased light reduces melatonin, resulting in higher serotonin and more vitality.

Cortisol, testosterone, and thyroid hormones fluctuate with the seasons, affecting energy, metabolism, and fertility. Vitamin D synthesis drops in winter and can can lower immunity and mood.
Some evidence suggests immune activity rises in winter as a defense against cold-season pathogens.
Many people crave higher-calorie, carbohydrate-rich foods in fall and winter (possibly evolutionary adaptation to conserve energy). Metabolic rate may subtly change with temperature and daylight.

Psychological changes take place with time and season changes as well:

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is very well studied, and is a direct result of shorter days and longer nights: reduced light exposure in winter can cause low mood, fatigue, and clinical depression. Spring and summer often bring relief, though for some, heat can trigger irritability (“summer SAD”).

Cognition itself is subject to changes in time, light and season: Longer daylight and warmth boost activity, goal-setting, and socializing. Winter may foster reflection, introversion, and inward-focused tasks.

Creativity moves in cycles with the seasons:

Spring brings energy, new projects, and optimism. Summer encourages outward expansion, productivity, social engagement. Autumn is the time of the harvest—physically and psychologically—and is a time of consolidation and evaluation. Winter is best synchronized with rest and introspection; a symbolic death and renewal of the psyche.

The mystic in me wouldn’t be satisfied without mentioning the energetic/spiritual changes that come from our subjective experience of changing time as well.

There is a definite archetypal resonance, in the Jungian sense: cultures across history and geography have tied spiritual meaning to seasonal cycles, as was illustrated when we spoke of the Zia:
Spring’s energy invokes rebirth, resurrection, and new beginnings. Summer fills us with abundance, fullness, and the celebration of life. Autumn, in addition to being a time of harvest, is a time of profound change, spiritually speaking: letting go, mortality, gratitude, and preparing for endings. The winter speaks to us of darkness and death; a period of patiently waiting for light to return in the Spring, an incubation of spirit.

The rich canon of ritual & festivals speaks to the profound cultural impact of changing time: Solstices and equinoxes anchor rituals of nearly every tradition (Christian liturgical calendar, Pagan wheel of the year, Hindu harvest festivals, Buddhist retreats, etc). These mirror human psychological needs: feasts at harvest, contemplation in darkness, celebration at the return of light.

The cycle becomes a metaphor for personal growth: we all undergo seasons of expansion, contraction, loss, and renewal.

All of this is to illustrate that our subjective experience of time is far more important than the rate of cesium oscillation that paces our typical waking life.

Time Flies

Since there is incontrovertible evidence that time seasonably speeds up and slows down in our psyches, is it too far-fetched to imagine a similar change—albeit one that seemingly only progresses in one direction, towards the more rapid passing of time, left unchecked—as we age?

There are years that go by—especially when we are older—in the blink of an eye if we are not mindful. This results in a sense of regret that is difficult to quantify, but can leave us bewildered and disoriented when we look back and wonder, “Where did the time go?“

The perception that time moves faster or slower is universally experienced and has been well-studied:

Proportional Theory (Janet, 1897): posits that each year feels shorter because it becomes a smaller fraction of your total lived life. At age 10, a year is 10% of your life; at 60, it’s less than 2%.

Novelty & Memory Encoding explains that time feels slower when we experience many new or intense events. As we age, routines dominate, and fewer “novelty markers” are laid down in memory, so stretches of time blur together and feel compressed. This is a major hint as to how we can slow time.

Neurobiological studies show dopamine plays a role in how we perceive intervals of time. Dopamine declines with age, which may shift our subjective sense of time passing.

The concept of prospective vs. retrospective time addresses the fact that in the moment, boring or painful events feel longer; in memory, those same stretches may feel shorter if they lack distinct markers. As we get older, the retrospective compression tends to dominate.

There is an impressive corpus of empirical evidence that substantiates the sense of time compression, as time goes by. For instance: 

Wittmann & Lehnhoff (2005): Found that older adults consistently report time passing faster compared to younger adults, especially over longer intervals (weeks, years).

Friedman & Janssen (2010): Showed that older adults judge past decades as having passed more quickly than younger adults judge shorter spans.

And there is quantifiable neurological evidence as well: As we age, changes in striatial dopamine and prefrontal cortex activity lead to to altered internal “timekeeping.”

Impermanence

A recent journitation (my portmanteau for journaling and meditation) of mine speaks to the reason we generally fear the rapid passing of time:

The last few years that I lived at home, as a teenager, I woke each morning with a frantic urgency. I had to tell my father—who woke much earlier than I did—that I loved him before he went to work.

I remember thinking one morning that the impulse was silly, and I would just ignore it. I heard him open and close the front door on his way to the car, and near panic I ran and opened the door and called out: “I love you.” I still remember the quizzical/concerned look on his face when he stopped, turned to face me and said, “I love you too.”

My dad loved his morning coffee, but more than that, he loved his quiet time alone before the day’s pressure mounted. I always had a late-to-bed, late-to-rise circadian rhythm, but now that I am older, I find myself rising before sunrise too, and I think I get it.

He had learned how to slow time. For a little while, at least.

I realize now that somehow I was sensing, more than 40 years ago, that his time was passing more quickly than mine. My fear was that he would run out of time while I still had mine in abundance, and I wanted to be sure that the last thing he heard me say was, “I love you.”

How to Slow Time

My early mornings are a chance for me to recalibrate my sense of the passage of time. I am older now than my father ever was, and I have discovered what I believe he knew then: quiet mornings are an example of a liminal space—a boundary between worlds; between subjective states of knowing and experiencing.

It is important to pay attention to the liminal spaces in time. This is one of the key actions needed to stay mindful of where you are in the present.

You have felt it: there are days – especially when we are younger – that seem to go on forever. A lifetime of adventures, friendships and shifting alliances could all take place before the street lights signaled us it was time to go home.

While we can’t change the objective rate of atomic clocks, we have the power to alter our subjective experience of time.

To experience time dilation—the subjective slowing of time—you need only become mindful.

Stop all the superfluous activity and mental buzzing, put down the phone, turn off your electronic devices and just be. Become aware of your breathing and the pre-dawn sky as you have your morning beverage. Gently bring your attention to the here-and-now of your immediate surroundings, if only for a few minutes.

Take a moment to live in the moment. Recalibrate your experience of time as it passes instead of always living to get to the next event, the next to-do box on your daily checklist. The longer you can maintain this mindset, the slower—and fuller—your days will become.

And always always always tell the people you love that you love them.



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- JWW