Kairos and Chronos are two Greek words used to refer to time, Chronos being what we would recognise as “what time does the film start?” whereas Kairos is about whether this is the “right time”- as in the time to harvest - nothing I can do can alter the growing and ripening of a crop (OK stop with advice about greenhouses for the tomatoes). Wikipedia (other online information sources are available) tells me the word “Kairos” apparently comes from the concept of the time to let an arrow fly, or the shuttle to cross the warp threads on a loom (where the gap is only momentarily open). I like that image better – the space is apparently known as a “shed” -and we should all have a “shed space” in our lives.

The point of all this when considering our mental health, is that things have their own momentum and time, and there’s a “right moment” which can’t be hurried or marshalled. I don’t know if people will agree with this, as it could be seen to lessen our own power or free will; but I think it is more positive than that – a question of instinctively knowing when a “moment” is here, when a space opens up. Recognising these moments requires attention to our interior lives (and often involves listening to the real “us”, not just the noisy, habitual (and often unhelpful), commentary chatter.

When I walk the dog in the morning and see some litter by the side of the road, sometimes I can reach down and collect it, and sometimes not. Leaving it lying there for “someone else” feels wrong – but that’s my overactive “do to be”, and I have limited abilities to carry litter, sometimes I just have to accept that today, I can’t. Here the litter becomes a symbol of so much else. Instead of telling myself a story about being a bad person for not picking it up, I can accept today I can’t, and celebrate the times that I can.

So, as we move through the Chronos of the day, I wish everyone some peaceful Kairos moments as well.

ReaderWriter

A Moodscope member