Anansi and the Circle of Time

Gathered from the oral traditions of the Akan people of Ghana

Draw near, children of the eternal cycle, and I shall tell you of Anansi and the Circle of Time, a tale that teaches us the deepest wisdom of all – that everything in existence moves in sacred patterns, and that understanding these patterns is the key to living in harmony with the world. This story comes from the time when Anansi thought he could outsmart time itself, and learned instead that time is not a river to be crossed, but a circle to be danced.

In those days, there lived in the village of Bekwai a young farmer named Kwame who was consumed with impatience. He could not bear to wait for anything – not for his crops to grow, not for his investments to mature, not for his children to learn, not for his plans to unfold. “Time moves too slowly!” he would complain to anyone who would listen. “If only I could make things happen faster, I could accomplish so much more!”

Kwame’s impatience caused him many problems. He would plant his seeds and then dig them up every few days to see if they were growing, ultimately killing most of his crops. He would start projects with great enthusiasm but abandon them when they didn’t yield immediate results. He would grow frustrated with his children when they didn’t master new skills instantly, and angry with his wife when she counseled patience.

“There must be a way to speed up time,” Kwame would mutter as he paced restlessly around his failed garden. “There must be some secret to making things happen when I want them to happen, not when nature decides they should happen.”

His constant complaints about the slowness of time had not gone unnoticed by Anansi the spider, who had been observing Kwame’s self-defeating struggles from his web in the great silk-cotton tree that shaded the farmer’s compound.

One evening, as Kwame sat brooding over his latest failed harvest, Anansi descended on a silken thread that caught the last rays of the setting sun.

“Akwaaba, restless farmer,” said Anansi, his eight eyes twinkling with mysterious knowledge. “I couldn’t help but overhear your frustrations with time. It sounds as though you believe time is your enemy.”

Kwame looked up at the clever spider with desperate hope. “Oh, Anansi, surely you of all creatures understand! You’re so quick, so agile, so able to accomplish things rapidly. Tell me – is there some way to make time move faster when we need it to?”

Anansi considered this question thoughtfully, his legs drumming against his web. “An interesting request, my friend. As it happens, I do know something about the nature of time that most people have never discovered. But I wonder – are you prepared for what such knowledge might require of you?”

“I’ll do anything!” Kwame declared. “I’m tired of waiting for everything. I want to learn how to control time itself!”

“Very well,” said Anansi, beginning to weave an intricate pattern in his web. “Deep in the heart of the ancient forest, there stands a tree older than memory itself. At its base lies the Circle of Time – a sacred place where all moments meet and the true nature of temporal flow is revealed. But finding it requires great patience and careful observation.”

Kwame’s excitement was immediately tempered by frustration. “Patience again! Why must everything require patience? Can’t you just tell me the quickest way to get there?”

Anansi shook his head sadly. “My dear Kwame, that attitude is precisely why you struggle so much with time. But very well – I will give you directions. Follow the old elephant path into the deepest part of the forest until you reach the tree whose roots drink from seven streams. You will know it by the perfect spiral carved into its trunk. But remember – the Circle of Time reveals its secrets only to those who approach it with the proper understanding.”

Despite his excitement, Kwame felt a familiar impatience rising. “What kind of understanding? Just tell me quickly so I can get started!”

“Time will teach you,” Anansi replied mysteriously. “It always does.”

The next morning, Kwame set off into the forest with great enthusiasm and his usual haste. He rushed along the elephant path, desperate to reach the mystical tree as quickly as possible. But the forest seemed to conspire against his urgency – thorns caught his clothes when he tried to push through underbrush, muddy streams forced him to make long detours, and confusing animal paths led him in circles.

By midday, Kwame was exhausted, lost, and more frustrated than ever. He sat down on a fallen log to rest and immediately began complaining aloud: “This is taking forever! I should have found that tree by now! Time is wasting while I sit here!”

As he fumed, Kwame noticed an old tortoise moving slowly across the path in front of him. The ancient creature’s pace was so deliberate and unhurried that it made Kwame even more impatient.

“Hurry up!” he called to the tortoise. “Some of us have important places to be!”

The tortoise paused and turned to look at him with wise, ancient eyes. “Young human,” the tortoise said in a voice like rustling leaves, “why are you in such a hurry to arrive at a place you have never been?”

“Because I’m wasting time by going slowly!” Kwame replied irritably.

“Interesting,” mused the tortoise. “And how much time have you wasted today by rushing?”

Kwame was about to argue when he realized the truth of the tortoise’s question. In his haste, he had taken wrong turns, gotten lost, torn his clothes, and exhausted himself. If he had moved slowly and carefully from the beginning, he probably would have made much better progress.

“I… I see your point,” he admitted reluctantly. “But I still need to find this tree before dark.”

“The tree has been waiting for countless centuries,” the tortoise observed. “It will still be there whether you arrive today or tomorrow. But you might learn more about time by watching how the forest itself moves through its cycles.”

Too impatient to heed this advice, Kwame thanked the tortoise and hurried on. But as the day progressed, he began to notice things that the tortoise’s words had planted in his awareness. He saw how the plants and animals of the forest moved according to their own natural rhythms – some fast, some slow, but all perfectly synchronized with their needs and purposes.

A spider (though not Anansi) took careful time to construct its web, each strand placed with deliberate precision. Birds built their nests with patient attention to detail. Even the streams flowed at their own pace, neither rushing nor lingering, but moving exactly as they needed to reach their destinations.

As evening approached, Kwame finally found the ancient tree that Anansi had described. It was magnificent beyond description – so old and vast that it seemed to be a living pillar holding up the sky. Seven streams indeed flowed from its roots, and carved into its trunk was a perfect spiral that seemed to draw the eye inward toward infinite depths.

At the base of the tree, set into the earth itself, was a circle made of stones so old they seemed to have grown rather than been placed there. Within this circle, the air shimmered with a strange quality that made everything appear both very clear and somehow timeless.

As Kwame approached the Circle of Time, he felt his usual impatience mysteriously ebbing away. The closer he came to the sacred place, the more he felt drawn into a different rhythm – not slower or faster than his usual pace, but somehow perfectly calibrated to the moment itself.

When he finally stepped into the circle, Kwame experienced something that changed his understanding of time forever. Instead of moving forward in a straight line, he felt himself moving in a great, slow spiral that encompassed all moments simultaneously.

He could see his past selves – the eager child who had wanted to grow up quickly, the young man who had rushed into marriage, the new farmer who had expected instant success. He could also glimpse possible future selves – the patient elder he might become, the wise teacher he could grow into, the harmonious man he had the potential to be.

But most remarkably, he could perceive the circular nature of time itself. He saw how seasons flowed into seasons, how life moved through birth, growth, maturity, death, and rebirth in endless cycles. He understood that his impatience came from thinking of time as a straight line that he could race along, rather than recognizing it as a circle that he could dance within.

“Now you begin to see,” said a familiar voice. Kwame turned to find Anansi sitting on the edge of the circle, his eight eyes reflecting the spiral patterns carved into the ancient tree.

“Anansi! You were here all along?”

“I am always here,” the spider replied. “But you could only perceive me when you entered the proper relationship with time. Tell me, what have you learned?”

Kwame felt the words flowing from a deeper understanding than he had ever possessed before. “I learned that time isn’t something to be conquered or controlled. It’s something to be danced with. I’ve been fighting against the natural rhythms instead of finding my place within them.”

“Excellent,” Anansi said approvingly. “And what about your crops, your projects, your impatience with your family?”

“I see now that everything has its proper timing,” Kwame realized. “Seeds need time to germinate in darkness before they can reach toward light. Children need time to develop their understanding before they can master new skills. Projects need time to mature before they bear fruit.”

“And you?” Anansi asked. “What do you need time for?”

Kwame felt tears of recognition flowing down his face. “I need time to become who I’m meant to be. I’ve been so focused on arriving somewhere that I forgot to notice the journey itself.”

As full darkness settled over the forest, the Circle of Time began to glow with its own inner light. Kwame could see patterns within patterns, cycles within cycles, all moving in perfect harmony like the most beautiful dance ever created.

“The secret of the Circle of Time,” Anansi explained, “is not learning to control time, but learning to recognize your place within its eternal patterns. When you move in harmony with time’s natural flow, everything becomes effortless. When you fight against it, everything becomes struggle.”

“But how do I know when to act and when to wait?” Kwame asked.

“The same way you know when to breathe in and when to breathe out,” Anansi replied. “By listening to the rhythm that moves through all things. Sometimes that rhythm calls for swift action, sometimes for patient waiting, sometimes for steady persistence. The wise person learns to feel these rhythms and move with them.”

As dawn began to break, Kwame found himself naturally stepping out of the Circle of Time. But he carried its wisdom with him as he made his way back through the forest. This time, he moved neither rushed nor dawdling, but at exactly the pace that felt right for each moment.

When he reached his village and returned to his farm, everything looked the same but felt completely different. His failed garden no longer seemed like a disaster but like valuable information about timing and natural cycles. His children’s learning processes no longer felt frustratingly slow but beautifully appropriate to their development.

Kwame replanted his garden, but this time he worked with the seasons rather than against them. He planned his projects with realistic timelines, allowing them to unfold at their natural pace. He interacted with his family from a place of patience and presence rather than hurried impatience.

The results were remarkable. His crops grew strong and healthy because he planted them at the right time and gave them the care they needed when they needed it. His projects succeeded because he allowed them the time to develop properly. His relationships flourished because he was present with others rather than always rushing toward some future goal.

Years later, Kwame became known throughout the region as a farmer whose timing was always perfect. People would come to ask his advice about when to plant, when to harvest, when to make important decisions. But his advice was always the same: “Learn to feel the rhythm of the Circle of Time. Everything has its moment, and wisdom lies in recognizing when that moment has arrived.”

And whenever someone came to him complaining about the slowness of time or the impatience of waiting, Kwame would share the story of his journey to the Circle of Time and the wisdom that Anansi had shown him.

“Time is not a river to be crossed as quickly as possible,” he would say. “It is a circle to be danced, and the most beautiful dance is the one that moves in perfect harmony with the music of existence itself.”

Bere nni dwoodwoo – Time has no hurry – it moves in its own perfect rhythm.

This tale teaches us that wisdom lies not in trying to control time, but in learning to dance with its natural rhythms. In Akan philosophy, time is understood as cyclical rather than linear, and harmony comes from recognizing our place within these eternal patterns. The story reminds us that patience is not passive waiting, but active participation in the flow of natural timing.