The ancient Greeks had two different words for the concept of time — “chronos” and “kairos”. The word “chronos” (as the root for the English words “chronological” and “chronicle”) refers to measured, ticking, quantitative time; and the forward propelling time that we measure with clocks, on watches, and by the evolutionary phases of the moon.

The Greeks’ second word for time is “kairos” — lesser known but no less important. “Kairos” is what many philosophers and mystics would refer to as “deep time”. Kairos is a qualitative notion of time, which may be subjective or unmeasurable . Kairos also implies time has its own “weight”, as one may be more significant from the others .