What a fascinating topic, and has left me with much to ponder. Our culture promotes so much impatience and urgency, both inciting a forever sense of FOMO. Even certain metaphysical/spiritual circles foster this temporal angst, all in the name of self-actualization with no context for season, cycles or surrender. I appreciate how you explain a more symbiocentric approach: “Although natural time-portals do open and close as well, they have a tendency to become available on a recurring basis, within season.” Sure, the birds flirting around me right now also sense a seasonal door closing, and they flit around with urgency to prepare, but they’re complying with natural order with never our more modernism driven sense of FOMO.
exactly! FOMO is an excellent example of the anthropocentric interpretation (and appropriation and abuse) of kairos. To help usher in the Symbiocene, I believe, we can each make personal contributions in the way we understand and engage with kairos in everyday life. Nature, birds, plants, our gardens are all great teachers. xx
This is incredible, Veronika! I have been hungering for your words, saving every post you've written these last few months to come back to as soon as I "have time". How perfectly synchronous that I dove into this one without feeling like I first needed to catch up on the rest. In my container of presence model, there is a sub container of time, which we can come to have real relationship with. This morning, before reading this post, I did a tarot reading to get some feedback from Time and got a message about balancing will and faith. This is actually part of an ongoing dialogue I've been having with Time regarding allowing myself to fall in love with Future. In any case, your words here have been infinitely helpful to me! Thank you so much for your wisdom! (Now, if you could please write something similar about Space, that would be great. Lol!) 🤗❤️
The beauty of this collection of wordcasts on the Symbiopædia stack is that they are made to dip in, whenever a kairotic moment opens. This is an encyclopædia of words for the Symbiocene. I find myself going back and reading stuff I've written before, to remind myself...
A wordcast on 'space' (or Space)... challenge accepted! It might take a bit of time 😅 until I get round to it...
So great to have you back with new wisdom to ponder. I appreciate the idea of time portals opening, recurring, so that if we miss one we still might be invited to try opening again to a soul opportunity. I kept thinking of your post as I went thru my Saturday. I came across this sentence in a book as if it continued the conversation: “Only at twilight can an ordinary mortal walk in light and dark at once--feet plodding through night, eyes turned up toward the bright day. It is a glimpse into eternity, that bewildering notion of endless time, where light and dark exist simultaneously. “
~ Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations.
I am working with a few authors in their twilight years and feel the urgency of harvesting their wisdom while there is time. Your symbiocence Kairos is giving me a new felt sense of trusting the unfolding and pace, without panic but a different knowing that the portals are there if we let ourselves step into them.
Thank you for your welcoming words, Shelly. Glad to be back.
And thank you also for the lovely quote from 'Late Migrations'!
Yes, trusting the unfolding and pace. The right things happening at the right time. And if we miss them... no need to panic or worry. That wouldn't help anyway.
Yes, absolutely! The portals are always there...
I see (and have experienced) kairos also specifically in relation to the opportunities to process personal and ancestral trauma. If we miss one portal, others will open along the way.
Thanks for this quote, which is something to pass on:
"We are living in what the Greeks called the kairos - the right moment - for a 'metamorphosis of the gods', of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing."
We each inhabit a present moment. This present moment may last but a second, and our focus is very narrow. Alternatively, this present moment can last an eternity, and our experience is one of union with all that is.
There is a sweet spot between these two extremes. Yes, we are present with the now. And the moment is large enough for us to also be present with what has come before, into "the past" far enough to encompass what is relevant to this now. And the moment extends as well into what is emerging, far enough into "the future" to encompass what is possible from this now.
In this sweet spot, Kairos lives. From this big-enough but small-enough present moment, we become a channel for emergence, able to choose just the right action at just the right time to support, to give life to, to catalyze what wants to be.
Ending with Jung though could perhaps land me in the 1930s manifestation? I will go for natural time anytime rather than collective 'unconscious man'.
The past? Words shape-shift; we cannot live there. John Berger the writer and art critic wrote in an unusual documentary form about 'The Forunate Man,' and asked, if I remember, 'how long is a moment?' We are fortunate that time moves on if the moment could be forever unbearable? Berger went on later to play in writing with ideas of time that many others seem to value still. (I have not read his later thought, just my search turned up the references!)
I remember a week or more a while ago of cold star nights and a comet passing I could catch Chronos' galley and almost, the thresh of oars.
I'm not sure what you mean by '1930s manifestation'... can the 'collective unconscious', the 'unconscious man' and kairos in its natural symbiocentric sense not coexist?
I haven't seen the documentary by John Berger. Sounds interesting. 'How long is a moment?' is a great question. Perhaps inspired by 'Groundhog Day?'
I've been skygazing too last month (watching Perseids meteor shower), in the Algarve, away from light pollution. Apparently I new comet has been sighted. Is that the one you saw? How lucky is that!
Sorry about the compression. It's been a long life and my reading and experience is the usual idiosyncratic mix of luck and friendships.
The simplest way to answer your queries perhaps is to quote some online stuff. I don't really have an answer to this one. I probably have Jung's 1936 essay on Wotan somewhere, but it can be read here. It is not a fun read in retrospect ... http://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/essay-on-wotan-w-nietzsche-c-g-jung/
Here is commentary by W Boechat — "Jung sought to demonstrate the emergence of national-socialism within German culture in the 1930s as a manifestation of the collective unconscious..." https://bit.ly/4dOzV0y
John Berger's 'The Fortunate Man - The Story of a Country Doctor' is a book. From the Guardian 7 Feb 2015 "— First published in 1967, A Fortunate Man is a masterpiece of witness: a moving meditation on humanity, society and the value of healing."
"Comet Hale-Bopp was an unusually bright comet that flew by Earth, reaching its closest approach to the planet in 1997. It was most spectacular in the Northern Hemisphere..."
Glad you have viewed the Perseids! We are fortunate in still having a 'dark area' from the Cheviots into Scotland. I missed the Perseids this year but still expect to see the Milky Way and giant Orion and his dog later in the year! And maybe with luck and binoculars the Pleiades, and even memorise the names this time of the Seven Stars: Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Merope, and Taygete.😊
Dear Veronika, I wish you a warm welcome back. I've been waiting for your return all summer, and your last post and Jamie's post arrived in my inbox at the same time, which made me very happy because you're both my favorite Substack writers. It took me two days to find time to read your new words, and I savored every one:).
Thank you for sharing such a profound and thought-provoking reflection on Kairos and Chronos, as well as beautifully incorporating Ecclesiastes' wisdom—"There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens"—into your exploration; I needed it!
The link between Montessori's insights on sensitive periods and the natural rhythms of life is profound, demonstrating that these windows of opportunity exist throughout our lives, not just during childhood.
I love how Kairos is more than just fleeting moments; it is about recognizing and aligning with the natural flow of time, which provides genuine transformation when we are open to it. One of my favorite things to do lately has been to resist the urge to rush things and instead take deep breaths in between.
I also like how you examine the contrast between genuine, natural Kairos and man-made, manipulated opportunities in today's world.
It's fascinating and sobering to see how the concept shifted from a refuge in adversity to a tool for persuasion and manipulation.
Your observation that modern society frequently imposes artificial urgency, transforming Kairos into a "golden opportunity" for commercial gain :)) (damn), is a powerful reminder to trust in life's natural unfolding and resist the pressure to seize every "man-ufactured" moment.
I also believe that as long as we are disconnected from nature, we lose the true sense of eternity. When I am in nature, I can feel the true rhythm, which is unlike the one I experience in cities. In nature, everything makes sense to me. I crave the same heartbeat as trees.
Your beautiful writing has made me reconsider the importance of staying grounded in what is real and true, as well as acknowledging that not every apparent opportunity is kairotic. I admire as always the depth and clarity you've brought to these timeless concepts, as I'm also fascinated by mythology and hope to explore more of it myself, but until then, congratulations on this one and thank you for this offering!
Oh, thank you so much for your lovely and thoughtful commentary, Katerina (which is much more than just a comment).
I have missed writing on Substack too, but the long break was desperately needed. Like many writers (I guess) I have been far too driven by some assumed urgency to get 'everything out'... affected by man-made 'kairos' (note to self), and could feel a burnout coming on. I recognise the signs now, having experienced it a couple of times before, which forced me to take much longer breaks.
Now I am planning to build healthy rests into my writing routine. So I've obviously written this post as much for myself as for my readers. I am fortunate to live in a beautiful place surrounded by gardens and nature. But the western man-made lifestyle still has its effects, trying to force its artificial breathless rhythm into my life.
After writing this post I could feel how Chronos and Kairos are deeply connected with one another. The eternal time and the cyclical, apparently fleeting time. In the context of my work on Synchronosophy this has great relevance for inner growth and the gradual resolving, transcending of trauma-experience. This is where Montessori's sensitive periods come in. I'm glad you picked that up!
Thank you, dear Katerina, for your loving presence and mindful reading 💗🙏
Oooh Kairos and Chronos! Both wings I have flown upon. Sometimes too close to the sun. A favourite topic I have leaned into here on the stack in words as well! Time and time out of mind. I will lean into this a few times and be back! 🙏❤️
From smartphone addiction to "young blood transfusions" by the ultra rich in order to achieve immortality, the manipulation of time appears to be what modern people are living for! Talk about a refuge from adversity...
Thank you, Veronika, as always for your wise words and thought-provoking posts!
Excellent Veronika. Welcome back. Another inane and exhausting phrase of our consumerist economy is "time is money," which not only keeps people overly focused on acquisition but also on working more.
In my YA time travel adventure series, Edge of Yesterday, Kairos appears as a mysterious character of indeterminate age, a change agent and alchemist, who always shows up "just in time" to help the series' twenty first century time-traveling protagonist, Charley, achieve her mission. In the titular book of the series, when she first encounters him at her dad's office (she's there for Take Your Child to Work Day) as a self-professed "IT guy", Charley asks who he is and what century's information he's processing. Kairos answers cryptically, "Fifteenth. . .twenty-first. . . .thirty-sixth. . .what does it matter?"
It's fun playing with time--and my young readers' assumptions that Chronos is linear, and the only time that matters!
Your novel series sounds fascinating. I love YA and MG novels with a 'deeper' layer. So much fun to write and read! and as an author to do some paradigm shifting is powerful. Great job!!
What a fascinating topic, and has left me with much to ponder. Our culture promotes so much impatience and urgency, both inciting a forever sense of FOMO. Even certain metaphysical/spiritual circles foster this temporal angst, all in the name of self-actualization with no context for season, cycles or surrender. I appreciate how you explain a more symbiocentric approach: “Although natural time-portals do open and close as well, they have a tendency to become available on a recurring basis, within season.” Sure, the birds flirting around me right now also sense a seasonal door closing, and they flit around with urgency to prepare, but they’re complying with natural order with never our more modernism driven sense of FOMO.
exactly! FOMO is an excellent example of the anthropocentric interpretation (and appropriation and abuse) of kairos. To help usher in the Symbiocene, I believe, we can each make personal contributions in the way we understand and engage with kairos in everyday life. Nature, birds, plants, our gardens are all great teachers. xx
This is incredible, Veronika! I have been hungering for your words, saving every post you've written these last few months to come back to as soon as I "have time". How perfectly synchronous that I dove into this one without feeling like I first needed to catch up on the rest. In my container of presence model, there is a sub container of time, which we can come to have real relationship with. This morning, before reading this post, I did a tarot reading to get some feedback from Time and got a message about balancing will and faith. This is actually part of an ongoing dialogue I've been having with Time regarding allowing myself to fall in love with Future. In any case, your words here have been infinitely helpful to me! Thank you so much for your wisdom! (Now, if you could please write something similar about Space, that would be great. Lol!) 🤗❤️
Thank you so much for your kind words, Jenna!
Fascinating and perfect synchronies indeed!!
The beauty of this collection of wordcasts on the Symbiopædia stack is that they are made to dip in, whenever a kairotic moment opens. This is an encyclopædia of words for the Symbiocene. I find myself going back and reading stuff I've written before, to remind myself...
A wordcast on 'space' (or Space)... challenge accepted! It might take a bit of time 😅 until I get round to it...
Well-said.
So great to have you back with new wisdom to ponder. I appreciate the idea of time portals opening, recurring, so that if we miss one we still might be invited to try opening again to a soul opportunity. I kept thinking of your post as I went thru my Saturday. I came across this sentence in a book as if it continued the conversation: “Only at twilight can an ordinary mortal walk in light and dark at once--feet plodding through night, eyes turned up toward the bright day. It is a glimpse into eternity, that bewildering notion of endless time, where light and dark exist simultaneously. “
~ Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations.
I am working with a few authors in their twilight years and feel the urgency of harvesting their wisdom while there is time. Your symbiocence Kairos is giving me a new felt sense of trusting the unfolding and pace, without panic but a different knowing that the portals are there if we let ourselves step into them.
Thank you for your welcoming words, Shelly. Glad to be back.
And thank you also for the lovely quote from 'Late Migrations'!
Yes, trusting the unfolding and pace. The right things happening at the right time. And if we miss them... no need to panic or worry. That wouldn't help anyway.
Yes, absolutely! The portals are always there...
I see (and have experienced) kairos also specifically in relation to the opportunities to process personal and ancestral trauma. If we miss one portal, others will open along the way.
I like that quote by Margaret Renkl; thank you.
Portals of time--sensitive moments and synchronicity as well. Beautiful essay.
thank you so much Mary 🙏
Thanks for this quote, which is something to pass on:
"We are living in what the Greeks called the kairos - the right moment - for a 'metamorphosis of the gods', of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing."
〰 C. G. Jung 〰
From Jung's mouth to god's ear...
You are welcome, Suzanne
Lovely, Veronika. To add to the conversation...
We each inhabit a present moment. This present moment may last but a second, and our focus is very narrow. Alternatively, this present moment can last an eternity, and our experience is one of union with all that is.
There is a sweet spot between these two extremes. Yes, we are present with the now. And the moment is large enough for us to also be present with what has come before, into "the past" far enough to encompass what is relevant to this now. And the moment extends as well into what is emerging, far enough into "the future" to encompass what is possible from this now.
In this sweet spot, Kairos lives. From this big-enough but small-enough present moment, we become a channel for emergence, able to choose just the right action at just the right time to support, to give life to, to catalyze what wants to be.
Thank you for your thoughtful contribution, Joe, bringing your wisdom into this space. 🙏
A great meditation!
Ending with Jung though could perhaps land me in the 1930s manifestation? I will go for natural time anytime rather than collective 'unconscious man'.
The past? Words shape-shift; we cannot live there. John Berger the writer and art critic wrote in an unusual documentary form about 'The Forunate Man,' and asked, if I remember, 'how long is a moment?' We are fortunate that time moves on if the moment could be forever unbearable? Berger went on later to play in writing with ideas of time that many others seem to value still. (I have not read his later thought, just my search turned up the references!)
I remember a week or more a while ago of cold star nights and a comet passing I could catch Chronos' galley and almost, the thresh of oars.
Thank you Philip 🙏
I'm not sure what you mean by '1930s manifestation'... can the 'collective unconscious', the 'unconscious man' and kairos in its natural symbiocentric sense not coexist?
I haven't seen the documentary by John Berger. Sounds interesting. 'How long is a moment?' is a great question. Perhaps inspired by 'Groundhog Day?'
I've been skygazing too last month (watching Perseids meteor shower), in the Algarve, away from light pollution. Apparently I new comet has been sighted. Is that the one you saw? How lucky is that!
Sorry about the compression. It's been a long life and my reading and experience is the usual idiosyncratic mix of luck and friendships.
The simplest way to answer your queries perhaps is to quote some online stuff. I don't really have an answer to this one. I probably have Jung's 1936 essay on Wotan somewhere, but it can be read here. It is not a fun read in retrospect ... http://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/essay-on-wotan-w-nietzsche-c-g-jung/
Here is commentary by W Boechat — "Jung sought to demonstrate the emergence of national-socialism within German culture in the 1930s as a manifestation of the collective unconscious..." https://bit.ly/4dOzV0y
John Berger's 'The Fortunate Man - The Story of a Country Doctor' is a book. From the Guardian 7 Feb 2015 "— First published in 1967, A Fortunate Man is a masterpiece of witness: a moving meditation on humanity, society and the value of healing."
"Comet Hale-Bopp was an unusually bright comet that flew by Earth, reaching its closest approach to the planet in 1997. It was most spectacular in the Northern Hemisphere..."
Glad you have viewed the Perseids! We are fortunate in still having a 'dark area' from the Cheviots into Scotland. I missed the Perseids this year but still expect to see the Milky Way and giant Orion and his dog later in the year! And maybe with luck and binoculars the Pleiades, and even memorise the names this time of the Seven Stars: Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Merope, and Taygete.😊
very best wishes
Dear Veronika, I wish you a warm welcome back. I've been waiting for your return all summer, and your last post and Jamie's post arrived in my inbox at the same time, which made me very happy because you're both my favorite Substack writers. It took me two days to find time to read your new words, and I savored every one:).
Thank you for sharing such a profound and thought-provoking reflection on Kairos and Chronos, as well as beautifully incorporating Ecclesiastes' wisdom—"There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens"—into your exploration; I needed it!
The link between Montessori's insights on sensitive periods and the natural rhythms of life is profound, demonstrating that these windows of opportunity exist throughout our lives, not just during childhood.
I love how Kairos is more than just fleeting moments; it is about recognizing and aligning with the natural flow of time, which provides genuine transformation when we are open to it. One of my favorite things to do lately has been to resist the urge to rush things and instead take deep breaths in between.
I also like how you examine the contrast between genuine, natural Kairos and man-made, manipulated opportunities in today's world.
It's fascinating and sobering to see how the concept shifted from a refuge in adversity to a tool for persuasion and manipulation.
Your observation that modern society frequently imposes artificial urgency, transforming Kairos into a "golden opportunity" for commercial gain :)) (damn), is a powerful reminder to trust in life's natural unfolding and resist the pressure to seize every "man-ufactured" moment.
I also believe that as long as we are disconnected from nature, we lose the true sense of eternity. When I am in nature, I can feel the true rhythm, which is unlike the one I experience in cities. In nature, everything makes sense to me. I crave the same heartbeat as trees.
Your beautiful writing has made me reconsider the importance of staying grounded in what is real and true, as well as acknowledging that not every apparent opportunity is kairotic. I admire as always the depth and clarity you've brought to these timeless concepts, as I'm also fascinated by mythology and hope to explore more of it myself, but until then, congratulations on this one and thank you for this offering!
Oh, thank you so much for your lovely and thoughtful commentary, Katerina (which is much more than just a comment).
I have missed writing on Substack too, but the long break was desperately needed. Like many writers (I guess) I have been far too driven by some assumed urgency to get 'everything out'... affected by man-made 'kairos' (note to self), and could feel a burnout coming on. I recognise the signs now, having experienced it a couple of times before, which forced me to take much longer breaks.
Now I am planning to build healthy rests into my writing routine. So I've obviously written this post as much for myself as for my readers. I am fortunate to live in a beautiful place surrounded by gardens and nature. But the western man-made lifestyle still has its effects, trying to force its artificial breathless rhythm into my life.
After writing this post I could feel how Chronos and Kairos are deeply connected with one another. The eternal time and the cyclical, apparently fleeting time. In the context of my work on Synchronosophy this has great relevance for inner growth and the gradual resolving, transcending of trauma-experience. This is where Montessori's sensitive periods come in. I'm glad you picked that up!
Thank you, dear Katerina, for your loving presence and mindful reading 💗🙏
Kairos… the infinite potential of a moment interconnected
What a great definition! Love it!!
And every single moment is a portal to that interconnection! ❤️
Oooh Kairos and Chronos! Both wings I have flown upon. Sometimes too close to the sun. A favourite topic I have leaned into here on the stack in words as well! Time and time out of mind. I will lean into this a few times and be back! 🙏❤️
Thank you Jamie 🙏 🫶
Chronos and Kairos are a fascinating pair, especially for a poet, I imagine. I'll have to check out your posts...
From smartphone addiction to "young blood transfusions" by the ultra rich in order to achieve immortality, the manipulation of time appears to be what modern people are living for! Talk about a refuge from adversity...
Thank you, Veronika, as always for your wise words and thought-provoking posts!
Wow! young blood transfusions... I had no idea...
Thank you, Lani, for broadening my horizon, again!!
Hi Veronika. I love how your exploration brings us back to the reassurance of the natural state of readiness and seasons. Thank you 🙏
Thank you Simone! I very much appreciate your kind words.
You're welcome Veronika. I am glad you're back 🤗. Thank you for offering so much to wonder about.
Excellent Veronika. Welcome back. Another inane and exhausting phrase of our consumerist economy is "time is money," which not only keeps people overly focused on acquisition but also on working more.
Thank you Perry, for your warm welcome. Indeed. 'Time is money' would be a joke, if it wasn't so cruel in sucking people's life energies.
I love this deep dive into time, Veronika!
In my YA time travel adventure series, Edge of Yesterday, Kairos appears as a mysterious character of indeterminate age, a change agent and alchemist, who always shows up "just in time" to help the series' twenty first century time-traveling protagonist, Charley, achieve her mission. In the titular book of the series, when she first encounters him at her dad's office (she's there for Take Your Child to Work Day) as a self-professed "IT guy", Charley asks who he is and what century's information he's processing. Kairos answers cryptically, "Fifteenth. . .twenty-first. . . .thirty-sixth. . .what does it matter?"
It's fun playing with time--and my young readers' assumptions that Chronos is linear, and the only time that matters!
I'm delighted you enjoyed it, Robin!
Your novel series sounds fascinating. I love YA and MG novels with a 'deeper' layer. So much fun to write and read! and as an author to do some paradigm shifting is powerful. Great job!!
Thank you, Geraldine 🙏 💕