Back in the days before GPS told you where you were and how to get to where you want to go, you needed to use physical paper maps. What type of map you used depended on the scope of your travel.
Different Spaces Require Different Types of Maps
You need multiple types of maps to navigate physical terrain.
A globe gives you big picture perspective on where countries exist relative to each other, but it’s a poor tool for plotting a cross-country road trip trip across America. For that, you’d want a map focused on the United States.
That broad US map would show you the various routes you could take to travel from one coast to the other, but it would not be the right tool for navigating through a particular state; for travel within a state you’d want a map of just that state.
Likewise, the state map wouldn’t help you much once you arrived at a particular city. At that point, you’d want to have a city map to help you get around. Within a particular city you might drill down even further, with a detailed map of a particular neighborhood or a map of the transit system.
Each type of map gives you a different perspective on the landscape you’re traversing and where you’re located within it. And knowing which map to use when helps you stay focused. The details of particular city landmarks are useful when navigating through the city, but they’re a distraction when you are plotting a path through the state.
Time as Space: Mapping Time
The same principles we use to map physical space apply to mapping time.
Perhaps you don’t think about “mapping time” because time is not concrete; for many people time is an esoteric concept that is harder to grasp.
But time is more like space than we might appreciate. Just like space, time is something we exist within. And creating a map of it can help us make it more tangible.
In fact, you already map time in some forms, even if you don’t think of it in those terms.
Here’s an overview of different maps of time, starting with the micro and working into the bigger picture.
(1) Clocks: The Neighborhood Map
The most basic map of time is the clock, which shows us where we are in the cycle of a 24-hour day.
The practice of Time Blocking is the most tangible and immediate way to map time.
Your daily schedule contains the details of appointments and commitments for that day’s journey. This is like the neighborhood focus within a city map.
Neighborhoods are local, defined places, just like the span of a day is a more intimate, defined span of time. You may not be able to see a full city in one day, but you can certainly spend quality time in a neighborhood.
Within any particular neighborhood, you focus on certain locations and landmarks to help orient you to your surroundings. In the same way, your scheduled appointments and commitments serve as anchors in your day, giving you landmarks around which to plan your other time.
(2) Monthly Calendars: The City Map
Just like a city is the container for neighborhoods and local landmarks, the monthly calendar is the container for the weeks and days.
A day in a city can give you a taste of a few neighborhoods, but if you really want to get a sense of what that place is about, it helps to spend a longer period of time there. A week still leaves you feeling like a tourist. But a month will help you see how people really live there.
A month takes you through all phases of a lunar cycle: from the dark of the new moon through the build to the full moon, and back through the decline to the darkness again.
In the same way, there’s only so much work you can cram into a day. What happens when you give yourself the cycle of a month to complete a project? Then you can time block across the span of multiple weeks.
(3) Wheel of the Year: The State Map
Any state contains more than one neighborhood or area worth visiting. To get perspective on the different areas within the state and how to navigate between them, you’ll need a state map.
In the same way, a year is comprised of multiple smaller pockets of time that, if used well, can help us visit a lot more places on our list of what we want to accomplish.
We often overestimate what we can accomplish in a day or a month, but we underestimate what we can do within a year.
The longer container of a year gives us space to build something meaningful, and contains more space for doing more things. Not to mention that sometimes, the month you’re in is the wrong time to start the thing you want to do.
The best time to plant a garden is in the spring, when the ground has thawed.
The Wheel of the Year gives us perspective on seasons, so we can plan our activities for the right time of year. It also orients us to the changes in the physical territory, merging time and space.
(4) Planetary Transits: The Country Map
Just like no state exists in isolation, we can’t always contain our activities to the container of a year.
Many parts of our lives and projects we take on are not span across multiple years: going to school, building a business, learning to become fluent in a language, building strength.
The transits of the planets around the Sun provide a bigger framework for the cycles of the seasons, especially when we look at how those transits are intersecting with our personal charts.
Each planet takes a different length of time to travel around the zodiac. While some planets complete their cycle in a year, others spend multiple years in one sign, pulling focus to a part of our lives for a span of years.
This won’t be your only focus, of course, and you may not even focus on it all the time.
Consider your cross-country drive: you won’t stop in every city and see every landmark. You might not even pay attention to some of the cities you drive through. All the roadside diners might look the same. But when you reach your destination you’ll look back and see how the drive transformed you.
In the same way, you might not always notice the effects of planetary transits in your day-to-day experience, or even from year to year. You’ll have moments when these transits command your attention, like that city that calls for you to stop and walk around.
When you look back at the end of a particular transit through a sign you’ll notice how much has changed.
(5) Planetary Cycles: The Globe
Just like a globe shows you where your country is relative to other countries, the pattern of planetary cycles provides a bigger picture perspective that orients us to where we are in the cycles of time.
Some cycles give us perspective on context that extends beyond our lifetimes: a way of studying history and seeing patterns that might rhyme with the present and future.
For example, what we can expect from Pluto in Aquarius is based on a study of history, because nobody alive has experienced it.
These are useful, even if they don’t always feel relevant to our day-to-day lives.
Other cycles impact us more personally.
Even though your high school days may be long behind you, you likely still encounter situations that present “high school vibes.” That’s a cycle that repeats itself.
Exploring how you navigated that terrain in the past, and how you’ve evolved in that navigation over the years, is bigger picture work that puts your present in the broader context of your personal history.
In the same way, you’ll experience many cycles of Venus retrograde. Keeping track of what happens during each one can help you see recurring patterns and themes in your life, and evolve your approach to the issues that arise.
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...