The Eternal Value of Kairos Time

The Orphan Inside Me

Anytime I went out in public with my mom when I was a little girl, I keep a constant close eye on her. It was as if I were the parent, and she the child.

If she moved out of my line of sight for a moment, my heart would race, and I would quickly be on the verge of panic. She was usually just on the other side of a clothing or grocery rack, but for those few seconds that I couldn’t see her, my life reduced down to this question: is this the moment she will leave me forever?

This also happened when she left me in the car to run into the grocery store (back in the day when this was still done). And it happened when my parents left me to babysit my younger brothers and weren’t home on time. These nights, when my parents finally did pull into the drive, I nearly collapsed in relief, and then wiped away the tears and fear as they walked through the door, equally embarrassed and traumatized.

I was consumed with thoughts about being left behind, forgotten, and, primarily, unwanted. And my body responded with a fight-flight adrenal response.

Traditional healing methods and people would certainly ask: What happened in your earlier childhood to provoke such fear of being left alone?

To which I would answer: nothing. Nothing in this lifetime happened to instill the fear of being orphaned.

Two Kinds of Time

I dismissed my childhood fear of being orphaned by telling myself what so many others always told me: I had an “overactive imagination.”

So, I never sought validation or clarity. I didn’t seek healing for something from which there was no apparent original wound—at least no wound from the time that the ancient Greeks would’ve called Chronos time.

The only way I reached the orphaned little girl inside me, and the healing I needed, was when I accessed a different kind of time—that is, Kairos time.

Chronos time

Chronos time is the time with which we’re all familiar. It’s the calendar, the clock, the hours, days, months, and years that pass by. Chronos time is measured in quantity.

This time is horizontal in nature—a straight line from birth to death and then nothing but a void. There is no connection between the past and the future as they never touch or connect. One thing has little to do with the other. Synchronicities such as meeting people we’re certain we’ve met before, hearing the same song over and over again, or calling an old friend at the same time they were thinking of calling us are not explored but are brushed aside as “coincidence.”

We believe this kind of time can be wasted, spent, saved, rushed, squandered. “Chronos” is the root of the word “chronological.” It refers to things that have a certain predictableness about them. Moments are repeated, and we can’t always tell one year from the next. Chronos time is the time of the Earth Realm.

Kairos time

Kairos time is the time of the heavens and the gods. Kairos time is vertical, as opposed to horizontal, and it is about surprise, circular timelines, and the quality of a moment.

Michael Meade says that Kairos time is what happens when Chronos time “breaks open.” When normal time stops and eternal time washes over us. When we visit Kairos time, we return to the place of our origins and from where all things are once again possible. We return to what I call the Soul Realm.

From the perspective of Kairos time, all time is one. The past, the present, and the future are undivided and whole. Thus, we have access to everything—the past, the present, the future.

In Kairos time, we have access to our ancestors and their messages for us. We have access to our soul’s journey through eternity. And, of course, we have access to our past, and likely even future lives.

Everything we’ve experienced, both individually and collectively, is available to us in Kairos time. When we step into the waters of Kairos time, we see the waters of our past and future swirling around our feet.

A Healing Moment of Kairos Time

At some point, we adults learn to set aside the traumatic times of our childhood. We learn to dismiss them as insignificant. And that’s what I did with the orphan wound inside me, until I essentially forgot about it.

But that doesn’t mean my body did.

During a healing session with a woman who knows how to break time open and access Kairos time, she told me of a previous life in which I’d been orphaned as a child, left alone to fend for myself on the streets of London during WWII.

My body began to resonate with the truth of her words. I shook, and sweat, and cried on behalf of this part of myself that had never been healed.

Exploring the concept of our past and future lives is not simply about trying to figure out if we were a famous person in a previous life. It’s about realizing that there’s so more to you than just these limited life experiences. What we can see are the branches of a tree. But our roots run deep and wide throughout eternity.

An understanding of Kairos time can help us gain access to wounds that we don’t have an explanation for in this life. It can also help us understand why we have wisdom that we seem to have that isn’t traceable to any current life events. And in doing these things, we can live a more mindful, present, and awake life.

How to Access Kairos Time

There is no forcing our way to kairos time. Often, it happens spontaneously, in a moment of love, or recognition, or in a traumatic situation. But there are practices that we can engage with that, in their nature, can carry us from Chronos time to Kairos time. Here are a few:

Meditation

Meditation is probably the easiest path to kairos time. As you sit and still the body and try to still the mind, time might very well crack open, and you can connect to the energies, wisdom, and healing of the Soul Realm.

Healing

Good healers are doing just this—taking us out of Chronos time and accessing Kairos time. You don’t have to work particularly with the intention of accessing past lives. Often, if they are meant to arise, they will do so as we are ready to meet them.

Activities involving muscle memory

There’s something about putting the body into a routine that it knows well that allows us to drop into a different kind of time. Driving, walking, showering, yoga practice, or cooking a familiar recipe can all be examples of this. Trying to access Kairos time is really about putting ourselves in a situation in which it can access us.

Creating

While in the act of creativity, we are tapping at the door of Kairos time. The more we get out of our own way, the more likely it will open for us. Quiet your ego and judgmental mind and drop into your creativity. You never know where it might lead.

When I was writing my first book, “Embodying Soul: A Return to Wholeness,” I opened up to Kairos time to write the Soul Realm stories that run throughout. I found tremendous healing in learning about why my soul chose this life, as well as a few of my most influential past lives. I did so by reviewing what my soul called her “Travel Scrapbook.” In this chapter, I accessed my past:

I visited Kairos time again recently as I imagined my soul traveling back to the Soul Realm after this life. Here, I accessed the future.

You might have some ideas for yourself about how you slip into Kairos time. It could be a piece of music, food, a place you visit…the list is endless.

The more you access Kairos time in your life, the more opportunity you will have to feel refreshed, invigorated, and reinspired by its wisdom and eternal nature. These potent moments, ripe with possibility and opportunity, can be tipping points in a lifetime or in a culture.

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