Margaret Visser in "Beyond Fate" talks about not only our tendancy to use geographic metaphors for time but how that limits or directs our thinking about and definition of time. Metaphors are used to give use a simplified definition or description as a symbol of the real thing. Time is a road that we stand upon with the future before us and the past behind us.
The problem is that using a metaphor too much allows us to forget that it is a simplified image not an accurate one. A road for example is a solid, concrete (or tarmac) object that is fixed in place. Whether or not you have travelled on it before it starts at town A and ends at town B and - barring earthquakes and bulldozers - always will. The risk then is to see time as having the same simple nature. The suspicion/feeling/belief that our future is set as firmly as our past.
Exploring another cultures concept of time may help us to understand more about the actual rather that resting on our metaphors.
