Callings are intimately woven into the fabric of time. In beginning, walking and ending our paths, we learn that they are as mortal as us. With this unfolding story in mind and with the inevitable conclusion of death far-off but always ever-nearing, we are asked to make decisions.
What creative projects are worth my time? How will having a family influence my pursuits of mastery? If this particular album does not come out now, will it ever? Bounded to chronological time, we are presented with options that require contemplation on how one should pass their time.
Few have contemplated this subject better than Florence Welch.
Florence Welch, the lead singer and songwriter for Florence + The Machine, is known for her voice that brings forth ghosts and angels, a baroque indie rock sound, her gothic taste and a bohemian style. With a track record of high excellence, from Lung in 2009 to How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful in 2015 to Everybody Scream in 2025, her listeners adore her ability to touch and move the composition of their souls. A grieving moment, a collective catharsis, a feeling of raw, ancient and primal uninhibited power, all of which pours out in Florence’s music. Florence’s outpouring however has been rocked by limits; aging, the body, having a family, sacrificing for greatness and the grand structure of time. Florence has had to wade through the deep waters of time, nearly drowning in moments, but nevertheless learning how to swim with grace.
There are urgent moments in time
There are opportunities that present themselves in our path that may never happen again. We understand this intuitively as we farewell college friends on graduation day and then turn around and walk into the next movement of our life. Time marches forward and we do not return. Which marks the great beauty and tragedy of life, that we are fleeting and many of the experiences that we can have at this point in time will end. Masters at pursuing their vocation understand this, and seize onto these opportunities when they surface. They do not house regrets in their future. It is why Nietzsche, when overcome with an ecstatic vision for Thus Spoke Zarathustra, spent ten days in a fog of work, writing with intensity and inking thoughts, images and ideas on paper.
Whether opportunities last ten days or half a decade, they will end. Because time changes, and the conditions of what’s possible right now may not be tomorrow. Which is why when Florence said, “It’s either now or this record never comes out” she understood the moment of time she was in.
When Florence began creating her album Everybody Scream, it was urgent. There was a deep seeded need to record and it came out in this, ‘furious burst’. She knew that this record was unlike the others. That there was a moment in time available to her that if this album did not come out now, she was never going to put it out. The reason was simple, how she felt was incredibly specific to this moment in time and to wait and let it pass her by, would be to miss it. The challenges that arose during the pandemic did not stop her fury and things did not flow effortlessly into place, but the awareness of it being now was saliently in her awareness. Which is why, when she released it in 2025, she had completed a work that may have never happened, and yet there it was, ready to be listened to by all.
Age determines what we pursue
Our aims change with age. A youthful twenty year old may have dreams of creating art alone in the hills whilst that same person, fifteen years later, may be living in the hills but now has dreams of raising a family there. As the path unfolds and as we continue to accumulate self-knowledge, our personal mythology regularly interrupts and asks us whether what we are seeking is worth the pursuit. The pressure of time forces us to decide how we will live and presents limits on what we can and cannot do. The challenges and contemplation that occur from this make us wiser, however it can be painful. We need to remind ourselves that the etymological roots for the word “decide” is to cut-off. But what is not said in the roots of the word is that even if we cut off multiple futures, that more are being seeded ahead of us. Spontaneous surprises that are growing far-off, impossible for us to see because they are underground.
Florence went through a period of asking the question, “Do I want to have children?” This question is a modern dilemma for women as they rise in the world of work en masse. Never before have they had the choice, so outrightly, to choose whether or not they want to have children. For Florence this choice came with friction. Prior to this her approach to music has made her into a symbol of heightened possibilities in those that listen. On target to fulfil the shoes of one of the greats, archetypally similar to Stevie Nicks and Patti Smith. But if she has children, why must it come with sacrificing her creative heights? In finding herself enclosed by her professional aims and a visceral sense that the time to start a family is running out it sometimes felt, ‘like a scream.’ Realising that as a woman it was going to be different for her compared to men and there was fury in the unfairness. Age had thrust a new aim upon her and it was up to her to decide what she would do. After much contemplation she chose to have a child, excited by the thought of a future family. Again breaking through norms and challenging what’s possible in our modern world.
True work has prophetic capabilities
True work is beyond us in our path timeline and is prophetic. Our work has the ability to place itself in the future and by completing it, we are shaped through the act. This is the author, who, in sitting down at their laptop and hoping that the muses see their determination, are provided with a down-pouring of inspiration which shapes them with each new letter pressed into the keyboard. This is where the unconscious and the conscious meet and where chronological time overlaps with time eternal. Here the present, past and future are all at once. Because of this, prophecies can appear in our work and future works can appear earlier than the timeline foretells.
Those who have pursued their vocation for at least half a decade, begin noticing patterns of prophecies in their work, as well as the seeds of future projects appearing in earlier ones. Whilst these prophetic insights can be both good and bad, one needs to remember that they are part of the grand mythology of one path in entirety.
Florence unfortunately lost her baby due to a ruptured ectopic pregnancy in 2023. This caused further health complications that nearly stole her life. After this tragedy, Florence spent time healing and processing her loss by mixing herbs, being close to nature’s cycles and speaking with a trauma therapist. She also found that, “Shit was coming true.” Because the line in her song King read as, “I never knew my killer was coming from within.” A prophecy that did not help her but reminded her that “I think the songs are always like three steps ahead of me. It’s been like that my whole life.”
To heal from this situation she returned to the place that made her feel most herself, her music. Deciding to create a magical world that would free her from feeling trapped in the body. Out of this came her album Everybody Scream, where ambition and trauma and rage and confession come together to create a hauntingly beautiful musical horror film. We do not know what is next for Florence, but if one goes and listens to the album they’ll find that in the last song, and with the last words, she sings, “Peace is coming”.
Chronological time has been thrust upon us. However, rather than viewing this is a burden, we have the ability to seek the blessings in this sequence of events. With every tough question that time asks of us in our path, we learn more about ourselves, our path and our world. Florence’s contemplations on time allow us to peer into a soul that is perfecting itself through the vocation itself. To borrow Saint Teresa of Avila’s term, it is the way of perfection. We all have a mortal existence and with this can decide to walk a worthwhile path, no matter the hardships that emerge because of life’s eventual final chapter.
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