Have you ever been in paradise?
Did you ever have the feeling of having found the perfect place, without knowing why?
I have and I’m grateful.
Meet Sommarøy, located in Northern Norway.
In 2017, a year before I met Janet, I traveled with my family in our camper-van through Scandinavia. For 2 months we lived under the mysterious lights of the arctic. And mysterious it is! The minute you cross the arctic line, you feel the energy change. I can describe it best as the intensity of the light.
During daytime the light is more white, more intense. During night time, the light is soft and sweet with orange and pink skies, surrounding you and nurturing you. It’s truly magic. For hours at night I sat outside my van, just being, watching the immense lakes and seas. The silence, the stillness is everywhere. I didn’t even see any form of waves on the shores. Nothing moves.
This picture is taken in the middle of the night at 2AM. Locals call this the Midnight Sun.
That night I saw two sea eagles play with a seal. The seal didn’t like it, but it was wonderful to watch…
One day, we crossed a beautiful bridge to a small island. Sommarøy. The ocean was a deep blue you only expect to see in the tropics. The beauty took my breath away.
Not only the beauty, also the temperature of the sea took my breath away. Being near freezing point, I couldn’t manage to swim in it. Already after a few minutes, my legs felt numb and I had to surrender…
Being there, it felt like time stood still. Like I could be there forever. Not needing anything, just being. It felt different than the feeling I have, when I’m in Southern France. The region of the Aude really makes me feel at home. A feeling I never experienced, until I was in the Aude for the first time. We lived there for some years, until reality pulled me back.
These Sommarøy Islands felt different. This is the only place I’ve ever been, where you can simply BE, without any trouble. Thoughts just flow away. Better said: the natural state there, is one without thoughts. Very interesting to experience.
Can you image how surprised I was when I learned that Sommarøy is the only place on earth that officially abandoned time??? It’s the world’s first time-free zone.
Island residents are behind the “time-free” initiative. “All over the world, people are characterized by stress and depression,” said campaign leader Kjell Ove Hveding, as reported in The Guardian. “In many cases, this can be linked to the feeling of being trapped by the clock. We will be a time-free zone where everyone can live their lives to the fullest.”
In June 2019, Sommarøy’s residents made headlines by smashing their watches and hanging them on a bridge, symbolically rejecting the tyranny of time. Their message? “We want to do what we want, when we want.”
The only reason for living with time out there, would be for the sake of ‘civilization’. As the days and nights on this islands are in an extreme way dictated by the sun (or its absence), you have one very long day in summer and an endless night in winter.
From May 18 to July 26, the sun doesn’t set, meaning 69 days of uninterrupted daylight. Come winter, the island flips the script. From November to January, the sun does not rise at all. This polar night shows the Aurora Borealis as only light source across the sky.
In these extreme circumstances people developed a new rhythm of live. Without alarms or schedules, people just do as they please. Imagine locals hiking, fishing, cycling, and even playing football at 2 am. With no sunrise or sunset to mark the hours, daily routines dissolve, and life flows as it wants.
I could definitely live there. I created a life in which the clock is not relevant either. For years, Janet and I mainly worked from afternoon till 4 AM. The stillness of the night was good for concentration. Now I’m back at working ‘days’, living with my children the chaotic way of life, normal to a family. My work concentrates in the hours that they are busy too. Mornings, part of the afternoons and evenings. It works and if I manage to keep the stress out, it’s a good life.
Imagine a world in which we decide to live as we please. In fact it’s the opposite of the 24-hour economy that will dominate the SMART-cities. I also lived in Portugal for some years. Besides the convenience of the 24-hours (tourist-) economy, it brings a lot of stress in life.
My time-free world would be as the Sommarøy one. Stillness, nature and beauty. Feeling invited to endless meditations, writing a book or just being. Image what it will do for your health if you live like this for a year or two. All these stress related diseases will disappear. You will have time to deal with your pains and (childhood-)trauma’s. It will be a wonderful retreat. Literally.
Time is something artificial. Something that was invented only to serve the industrial revolution. It imprisons us, it steals the best hours of our days, the best years of our lives. It doesn’t serve us. It gives us stress, it makes us sick.
Do I have a solution? Not yet.
I can argue that you should let go of time, but can you do that? Some people can do this, when they learned they have a terrible illness. They completely turn their life around and start to heal on an individual level. Good for them.
You probably feel the weight of mortgages, insurances and other responsibilities around your neck. You’re already so deep in the power of the banks, there seems no way out.
Well, what if the banking systems won’t last? What if there will be a possibility that we can start all over again?
In that case we need to think about how we will create our new lives, our new society. Let’s make it a timeless one.
Let this be the perfect time and place to think about our future. About what we would want differently. And maybe, just maybe, we can already take some baby steps towards the realization of these daydreams. I’m with you. All the way.
With love, as always, Cyntha
