Deep in the Woods
A podcast like no other—recorded entirely while walking in nature. Each episode follows host Andrew McEntyre and a guest as they explore various topics all guided by a single word chosen by the guest. This unique format invites raw, meaningful conversations shaped by movement, place, and the power of words. Take a walk with us into the woods and uncover the stories that connect us all.
Deep in the Woods
Time: The Eternal Present Among the Tombstones with Andrew McEntyre
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Walking through a cemetery in Marietta, Georgia creates the perfect backdrop for contemplating time – that elusive concept we all experience yet struggle to understand. What happens when we recognize that our past and future exist only as stories we tell ourselves?
During this solitary walk among thousands of gravestones, I share a recent dream where I met both past and future versions of myself, sparking profound questions about how we perceive time. Drawing from philosophers like Alan Watts, I explore how time functions as a relative concept – much like musical notes that only make sense in relation to other notes. The cemetery itself becomes a powerful metaphor, with each gravestone representing someone whose eternal present moments have ended, while ours continue.
The revelation that emerges from this cemetery walk is both simple and transformative: the stories we create about our past experiences and future expectations dictate nearly every present decision we make. But in any given moment, we possess the remarkable power to change these narratives. When we become aware of the eternal nature of the present moment, we can observe our thoughts, recognize how our self-created stories influence us, and consciously choose which narratives truly serve us.
This episode marks the beginning of a new season exploring how our individual stories connect to something larger – like waves in an ocean crashing against the same shore. While perfect presence may elude us, those moments when we can step back and observe our thoughts with clarity offer us freedom from the limitations of stories we no longer need to believe.
Follow the podcast on Instagram for shorter clips about words and join me on these walks where we take one word and go deep into its meaning and connections to our lives.
Introduction to Deep in the Woods
Speaker 1Welcome to Deep in the Woods where we take one word and we take one walk and we see the connections it makes in our lives . This episode will be a little different . This is the first time I'm going to try to test and film this as a video podcast as well , so this is somewhat of an experiment to see how that goes . But if this is your first time listening to the podcast , the essential way this works is we pick one word and we find a place to walk and we take a deep dive into it . Just the same way a trail takes you deep into the woods , a word also can take us to a deeper place within ourselves . So for today , I've picked the word time . This has been in my mind lately , doing some reading on it , but I'm going to go into more detail of why that word was important
Walking Through a Confederate Cemetery
Speaker 1and stuck out . But before I do that , I want to talk about the place when am I walking at ? This is Marietta , marietta City in Georgia . This is their Confederate cemetery . I'll talk more about why I chose this place as I get through the word time , but you can see as I walk around , if you're watching the video , that I'm going through a very large cemetery . So let's jump into the word itself and explain why I chose the word time , and I'm going to start this by talking about a dream I have recently . So I woke up and I probably told way too many people about this dreams . I realized most people don't really care what people's dreams are , but I find dreams to be intriguing . My wife does not always want to hear , when I wake up , every detail of my dreams and why I think dreams to be intriguing . My wife does not always want to hear , when I wake up , every detail of my dreams and why I think them to be significant . But I personally find dreams to be like a magic . Like you know , we get to watch some kind of movie at night when we go to sleep , so I find them to be pretty intriguing . Well , I happened to have a dream a couple weeks ago . Well , I happened to have a dream a couple weeks ago that was myself . I was actually walking in the woods and I came across my own self in the past . So it was almost like you think of . It wasn't like a childhood me , but it was just me from the past . And then , a little further , we come across my future self and my future self we go through and I don't even remember the details of what we talked about . That really wasn't what stood out . But when I go to leave I asked my future self . I said don't you remember this conversation ? If you're from the future , you would have to have done this already , right ? And there was someone with my future self that said in the future he doesn't remember his past , and that stuck with me . It took me a little bit to kind of hash through that .
Speaker 1I think dreams sometimes give us something to play around with in our mind and this dream particularly did so . After a while . And you know , reading about the concepts of time
A Dream About Meeting My Future Self
Speaker 1, and for a long time I've been thinking about you know , past and present and future , and how many people say you can only live in the present and our futures and our past really don't exist . Our futures and our past really don't exist . And you know the whole cliche of living in the moment . Those things have always kind of eluded me in terms of what they really , how I could apply that or what , the significance of it . But so , after thinking about it more , and I've been reading Alan Watts recently about some of his concepts of time Alan Watts recently about some of his concepts of time . It kind of stood out to me as a kind of a message for me to think that time really doesn't exist in the present . And , like we have , we have built the constructs of what past is and what the future is right .
Speaker 1And in one of the books I've been reading it compares it to music . So , for example , if we look at a single note within music let's say we strike a C note on a piano and I tap that and someone asks to describe that note , they often will describe it in relation to other notes . They'll say it's higher or lower , it's higher than B , lower than D , it's an octave higher than another C , and so it's all built on relativity that these things are relative to something else . And so time is also the same thing that we can only describe the current moment , often based off of the prior and after effects of things , right ? So I can only say this happened currently , this happened before or after this moment , and honestly it's really cool to think about , like the things that are occurring in the present time , right , so we can actually can talk about the present time as my present time versus yours , and we can even say that right now , if you're listening to this , it's not on the same time plane as when I recorded it . So , for example , my current self , when you're listening to this , is probably somewhere completely different , doing something . You know , maybe I'm working , maybe I'm hiking somewhere , or maybe I'm spending time with my kids , but I'm not doing the thing that you're listening to right now . However , that did occur . So time has all of these elements that we use to describe it , but they're really all in relation to other things , and we build these concepts in our head to essentially help us to measure time , to be able to talk about it in a concept . So what does that mean ? Like , what is it ? How do you deal with that ? Right , because aren't we supposed to all just be living in the moment ? Well , I'm .
Speaker 1I would do want to stop for a second and point out where I'm standing . There's a local story here . I'm going to talk about stories in a minute , about Mary Fagan , and if this camera works well , I can say right over here , you can see this sign , which is Mary Fagan , and you can see that in 1913
The Present Moment is Eternal
Speaker 1, she was murdered at the age of 13 . And there was a trial and a conviction of a guy named Leo Frank . If I get a chance , I'll like to talk a little more about that story , because he was abducted from prison and lynched , as it says here , and in 1986 , he was issued a pardon . There's a place down the street where they actually lynched him out . So , again , that's a story about a place in time . That's our history , and I think those things are important because history is important .
Speaker 1However , why is it that so many people say that we should live in the present because the past doesn't exist or the future we can't control ?
Speaker 1Those are all the things we often hear , and one other element to all this is that people will say that the present is eternal , right . So what does all that mean ? It's all these big , vague concepts that people have discussed , but when you start to dig through it , it's hard to really find like real ways of dealing with that , right . So I started recently thinking about what that means in that present moment , because a lot of people will say those are times to meditate , to kind of escape or really think about concepts , when you can really , let's say , you stop in a present moment , right , and you are able to be aware that you are there and what does that go ? What does that look like for you ? What do you get out of that right ? That goal , what does that look like for you ? What do you get out of that right ?
Speaker 1And I think what it is is that we often have this ability to step back and observe a moment and notice it without having to analyze it , by just seeing it for what it is . A good example is when you experience an emotion right . Our emotions are biological or something we experience right and in an emotion , it's something that you can actually stop for a moment , pull yourself back from and not remove it . I'm not saying it makes the emotion go away , but you can say I am in a person experiencing emotion right now . I can be aware that that is occurring and you can attend to it in a different way than you can if you aren't aware of that . So I can say this is temporary . I'm angry , I'm not , I'm mad about this situation , but it's a temporary emotion that my body is going through , based on an experience that has occurred Right . So that occurs in a present moment , right in a present moment , right .
Speaker 1Often we will think of things in terms of what's happening in the future , right ? That's where a lot of anxieties come from . So we will go through and discuss what's happening in . We'll think in our brain what's going to occur , right ? So we might say to ourself I have this stressful event coming up let's say it is a job interview or it's . I have this due date that I have to get these things completed by , and I think anxiety and thinking about those things is a good . It's a planning process that helps us to get through life .
Speaker 1But oftentimes it's we kind of dwell in this current moment , in a time that doesn't yet exist . So that's the other part of this is that we can dwell on our past to be able to determine what it is that we are . We're worried about the past because we've measured it based on experiences we have , and then we're worried about the future based on an experience that's not yet occurred . I don't think we as humans have the ability to remove those pieces , and I think they each have their own purpose . Here's where I think things can change in regards to time , like , what can you do in a present moment that can be helpful to be , you know , in your next step ?
Speaker 1And you know you hear a lot of Eastern writers talk about these concepts , but here's the part that stood out to me after reading a lot of these things it's how you focus your attention in that moment determines the story that you will be able to hold on to from this point forward , which is then are going to build the constructs and concepts of how you think and how you act . And so , for example ,
Our Stories Shape Our Reality
Speaker 1if in this exact moment I decided to put my attention on , for example , there's these , there's people walking around and my thoughts often go to what they're thinking about me walking around a cemetery , talking to myself , right ? So there's a story I've played into my head and I've built . It's a concept , a construct . I've built this story that people are going to think of me a certain way , based on their judgments . So I'm taking their perceived judgment , placing it on me . Get to hear the train behind me placing it on me . Get to hear the train behind me . I get to take their perceived judgments , place them on me and say this is what they think . Therefore , here's how I will act in this moment and I get to create a story based on the what I do and what I think . So , long story short , I'm going to give this train just a second to go by , because you get to experience the reality of living in a city . Here I got a train and I got an ambulance or a police car coming through , so you get all the sounds .
Speaker 1So the long and short of what I was coming to with that is that we make decisions based on the stories and constructs that we have in our mind and each moment we get to make a decision about which of those things we continue to hold on to and these are all stories . That's the part that I want to make you aware of and I also am trying myself to think of is that each present moment we get to determine where we draw our attention to and we get to determine what parts of the stories we continue to carry forward . Right . So there's your ambulance . Maybe you could I can turn it where you can see it go by .
Speaker 1The biggest thing here is the past is gone , it no longer exists , but the stories and constructs still stay right . But what we don't realize is we can change those stories instantaneously . We don't have to hold on to them . We don't have to decide that these stories are the truth . We've decided that they're the truth based on our experiences , but that doesn't mean that they're real . We determine what is real and that's why the present moment is so powerful , because right now I have the option to be able to say I'm not really concerned about what those people think . I can walk around holding a camera and a microphone and not let that determine what I think of what I'm doing Right . I can continue forward and not let it affect the way that I'm having this conversation .
Speaker 1You know , I am very aware that I am perceived as strange and I'm walking through a cemetery with a camera in my hand , but I don't have to let that prior self-judgment control the way that I think about things . And that's one simple example , but it applies to everything . So when we go through our day , we make thousands and thousands of decisions based on stories that we've already told ourselves , and we can instantaneously , in a moment , completely alter the way we perceive the past , the way we perceive the future . Time has this like is an illusion . It's this thing that we've built to make us think that we have to act a certain way based on prior and future decisions or images or creations that we have built right , because we now think that the future is going to go a certain way . And that brings me to . Why am I here , walking around a cemetery , right , each of these people and you can see there's thousands and thousands . I'm only in a small portion of this cemetery right now .
Speaker 1There's thousands of people who lived and during their time , while they were here , they had eternal moments in the present where each of them got to make decisions that were based off of their past and their expectations of the future . And that's where it gets difficult . Like we have this expectation that death is something that will happen while I sleep , when I'm in my 80s or 90s , and that's this thing that's going to occur . But death is a natural process that can happen to anyone at any time , and we see situations where people die at a younger age and we're like , wow , that's unfortunate , that's that's , that's very , that's very sad . They didn't get to experience their full life , and many times we don't fully experience our full lives , even when , as we get older , because we're always having this expectation that this future story will eventually occur . That will get me to this place where I've been presently happy , or presently at a place that I'm content , and those again are stories we have built that says I have to do these things to get to this point where I am now at a . I did it . I've made success . I've checked the boxes , I've did all those things . I'm done .
Speaker 1The bucket list , which we all know , that's not going to happen . I have a huge book list , right , it's
Life Lessons from a Cemetery
Speaker 1a list that goes on forever and I know at some point that that list I'm not going to read all of those books . I'm going to die at some point and those books are not going to be all read . I mean , it's kind of sad to me that I won't get to all of them , but I know that's just the reality of it . There's a point where I'm going to say bye to my children for the last time . There's a point where I will hear a song and I'll never hear it again .
Speaker 1Right , and every moment that exists , I have to experience it , knowing that this could be the final moment . The present has to be eternal . It has to be something that exists now that I can say here's the story I want to experience at this moment , not based off of the fear of the future or the expectations of it , not based on the stories that I created in the past that says this is how life is . I have to experience saying that I created in the past that says this is how life is . I have to experience saying this is the moment that I have . What do I want to do with this and how do I want my story to exist right now ? And so , as I look around at all of these gravestones and I think about the people who are here that they were experiencing life , their time is finished , right , their time on this earth is finished . You know , they no longer get to experience all of the sensations , all of the stories . They don't get to make those present decisions about how their life will go , because it's done . And we now we still have the opportunity If you're listening to this , you still have a present moment that's eternal that you can recreate your story in any way you want it to be .
Speaker 1So why did I start this off with ? Why did I introduce this episode solo and want to talk about this as this next year goes forward , as this next season goes forward , each episode is going to have a link to that story , right ? So we'll get like a slice . You'll get to experience a slice of a conversation where I get to walk with someone and talk to them about their story , and I think it's important that we understand every one of us has their own unique story that we can exchange and talk about , but it's not . We all are kind of like in this , this mushed connection of a , a story that exists with all humanity and , um , I think the the part there's .
Speaker 1A metaphor that I've heard recently says there is a rock on a beach where there is a wave hitting it . Right , and that's happening right now . There's a wave , it's hitting that rock somewhere , let's say it's the Pacific Northwest , up in Washington . There's this rock Right now , you can put it in your mind and that wave is crashing onto it right now . Right , we can think of it as a single wave that is crashing onto a rock , or we can think of it as the entire ocean , all of the water on the planet , interceding onto this one spot . And that's why I want to bring this up is that we , as we talk about all these different stories , your story , all the ones that I'll present , my own , each , we all can look at it as if we are one single wave . Right , we can even say , oh , it was a wave that crashed on it a long time ago , or it's a wave that will crash on this rock in two weeks , right , we can see it through that perception of time . Or we can say that we are all stories in this huge ocean that is crashing on this planet at the same time , right now . Right , and we are all getting to experience it . Each of us have an important story to play , but we all are having a story that's making an impact across every area , based on the present decisions that we make , and those are dictated by the stories that we choose to tell ourselves , right ? So what do you take away from this ? What do I take away from all of this ? Right ? So what do you take away from this ? What do I take away from all of this ?
Speaker 1Like I said , I've struggled with this concept of time , this concept that the present is now , that we have to live it right now , live in the moment . I work with kids who have disabilities . I even think that sometimes , when I think of how my you know , especially young children in general , that you see how they interact with the world , they , they , they seem to always be in the present moment . Sometimes that's like the crying and the anger part of it . They don't understand how to react to things because they don't see the world often as it is a in 10 minutes . This thing will be better If they see it right now . How do I feel at this moment ? Right , and as an adult , looking back , you almost feel like that's a stressful experience .
Speaker 1Right , we like the fact that we can see and predict the future and make decisions about it , or we like that we understand how the world is existing based on the past . However , I know we can't always live that way . The moments you can I know we can't always live that way . The moments you can this is what I've recently learned the moments that you can stop and look at the present moment and be aware that you were living in the eternal present space . Stop for a little bit and just notice , notice that this is where you are , notice that the decisions from the past and the expectations from the future are dictating , often , each of your decisions , and just let it sit for a minute and know that those
Final Thoughts and Closing
Speaker 1moments in the past and future have no power over now . So that's where I'm going to end at Just remembering that there is this ability , even how abstract that sounds that the present is eternal and that we should live in that moment .
Speaker 1I know we can't always , but just having those moments where you can actually stop for a moment , take a step back , observe your thoughts , observe what's happening and let go of some of those stories that you no longer want . You don't have to continue to hold onto them and let go of the of those stories that you no longer want . You don't have to continue to hold on to them and let go of the fact that the future is something that you can have assured expectations and control over . We don't you don't have any control over what's happening in five minutes or what's happening in five years . So , as we go through this next season , I'm going to let this permeate through all of these conversations that time and our stories are important , it's important to share them and it's important to understand how we hold on to these stories and how they impact our decisions . Thank you for walking with me through the Marietta Confederate Cemetery .
Speaker 1I'm hoping this video turns out to where you can see the experience of walking and getting deep into a word like time , and if you like listening to something like this , check it out on instagram , where I'll be posting different videos . I'm doing some shorter clips now . Coming up about words . The concept of going on One walk and going deep into one word is something that I really enjoy , and I hope you enjoy it too . So , if you do follow me , follow the podcast and listen , and I hope you enjoyed this conversation . So I'll see you next time , thank you .