Emily Jackson Dunlop- Topos and Chora

Along with determing the different ways to experience time, the ancient Greeks had a way of differentiating place. They compared and contrasted the two by calling them Topos and Chora. Topas is an ordinary place, a place that can be labeled on a map. Topos place has no real moving or religiously enlightening effect on those who pass through it. Chora, however, is somewhere one may call a sacred place. This is a different kind of place far from the ordinary. Chora place is numinous and has a certain power to it. When one is in chora place, they can feel the effects of this numinous place surrounding them. To experience chora and kairos at the same time is to truly be one with the environment and the moment one is in.