The Time-Keeper’s Apprentice

Welcome to my new blog which I chose to call The Timekeepers Apprentice, with the operative word being… Apprentice.

My intention in creating this blog was not only to encourage my readers to become acquainted with Natural Time, or Cosmic Time, as opposed to the man-made time that has caused us to fall out of harmony with nature, and literally get “lost-in-time“. But to also embrace the idea of learning through gnosis in the way one would gain knowledge, or real experience, through an apprenticeship. With an apprenticeship as opposed to simply learning how to “remember” whatever we are told or shown by some sort of authority figure, while never having the opportunity to integrate the new knowledge into the mind/body system.

I have throughout my life been a huge advocate of the apprenticeship model, and so have encouraged, or attempted to inspire as many people as possible to acquire some sort of a skill via training in such a manner. Growing up in Wales I left school at sixteen years old which was the norm at the time, and was hired by a great hair-salon as an apprentice stylist. I chose this route because I could not imagine spending my life in a dead-end job, nor was I ready to follow my heart’s desire. Having to find a way to make a living I decided to get a skill (or a trade as it is often now called) which I would always have no matter where I lived. While I did not know what I wanted to do for certain at the time, the one thing I did know for sure was that I wanted to have a skill that I could fall back on to earn some quick cash if necessary.

The apprenticeship model works wonderfully if done right because everyone usually starts off at the ground floor and works their way up through the ranks while being encouraged and trained by those who have gone before then. And as you work your way up to the top of the ladder, you in turn then help those who are coming up behind you. In my case there were several apprentices with varying levels of training, and the whole system worked like a well oiled machine. Besides having the opportunity to experience the work environment first hand, I gained valuable hands-on training on the job. I suppose you could say that you grow into the role which you intend to eventually play as you literally embody the whole experience when approaching it in this manner.

Further more, I found that this system has a tendency to foster team work and a sense of comradery, or unity, that could in my opinion be applied in any situation as it has worked like a charm for many years. And in saying that, I don’t mean just within an adult learning environment, but for children as well. In fact I was recently reading about how the children were taught in the times of Atlantis, and from what I understand they used a very similar method because the children all received their training from each other, with the older ones encouraging and helping the younger ones.

As for me and my situation, while having great admiration for the creations I saw being produced by the more senior stylists I was working with at the time, I felt very inspired. I was eager to learn, and so advanced very quickly. However, when I was eighteen years old I moved to Canada with my family, and because I had been so well trained I was offered a job to teach in a trade school. I accepted the position eagerly, but then suffered a bit of a rude awakening when I saw how different the model of teaching was here compared to what I had experienced, and consequently… so were the results. Meaning that in a school environment a student has to pay for the training and so starts out in debt, whereas in an apprenticeship situation in most cases now, the apprentice gets paid, although not much, but that is just a part of the process. And while the time one has to invest in school may be quite a bit less than for someone undertaking an apprenticeship, few are ever prepared to work in the real world after leaving school.

In fact, with little if any actual work experience, many leave school ill prepared for what they are about to encounter. And depending on who has trained them, some may hit the floor so to speak not having a clue about what to expect next and so quit the business altogether. Besides which, I have also seen more of a problem with ego personalities amongst those who got their training in a school because they often leave with a certificate of completion and so believe they are well qualified for a job. Not only that, but since people working in this profession are often paid on a commission basis it can be far more competitive and cut throat, and this can get really nasty when there is a lack of comradery. The real point that I want to make here though is the importance of not only acquiring new information, but in embracing it, embodying it, and applying it to that part of your life.

This then brings me back to The Timekeeper’s Apprentice, but first I would like to tell you about how I became so inspired to not only relearn how to tell the time, but to also teach my newfound knowledge to as many people as I possibly can as well.