Kairos | Harald Haarmann

In our psyche, kairos is firmly anchored. Research on the key concept kairos has opened the path for a solid assessment of an essential source in the realm of cultural history. The most significant connotation of kairos is experienced time as social construct and the energy flow released within the Self that makes kairos a navigator for an individual's self-identification. This self-identification reflects the synergetic interaction of the body, the senses and the mind and, in the search of the Self for social interconnectivity, kairos becomes a measure for the relationship in the sphere of the between-us. Experiencing cultural traditions and the connection with nature in the flow of time is the basis for making one's living-space meaningful, and this kind of experience is at the very core of the functioning of kairos. Discovering kairos as an organizing principle of the Self in the communal network of a civilization from the far-distant past - focusing on Old Europe (the Danube civilization, respectively) - may be compared with the discovery of a plant the nutritious value of which for everybody's diet and capacities for healing had been unknown and are secured by modern research results.