Threads of Mystery

After dark on stormy waters, trapped on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Aegean Sea. Praying that the kid next to me wouldn't puke, that the boat wouldn't capsize. A few rows over a girl was having a meltdown. A nightmarish rendition of Sloop John B kept looping in my mind. I want go home. Let me go home. Why don't you let me go home....

How I ended up in Greece to begin with might even be the stranger story. I'd like to blame it on Apollo, god of light and wisdom, of prophesy and oracle, but that just makes me sound a little nuts. That, and I'm not into the blame game. So let's jump forward a bit.

My soul is lured to the most unexpected places for reasons only revealed as an afterthought. The name of a place comes into my awareness, and I know. It could have been that book on Greek Mythology that I found on a bookshelf in my house when I was a kid. Or perhaps my ongoing obsession with the esoteric and mysterious and otherworldly. Either way, it was in my psyche. I picked up the signal and everything fell into place. I met a teacher. There was talk of a retreat--Kundalini Yoga, Qigong, Akashic retrieval and healing. The timing was perfect. I was going to Greece.

The word mystery comes from the Greek word musterion (sacred secret) or maybe the verb myein (to close, as in the lips and eyes), depending on the source you check. And it doesn't take much digging to conclude that Greece is full of mystery. Its history shroud in myth and ancient architecture. Stories stretching so far back in time it's like they've always existed. Stories rich and complex, overlapping and interconnecting.

Deep in the mountains beyond Athens on the far side slope of Mount Parnassus sits Delphi, a site Zeus once claimed was the center of the world. It has a lot of stories, but it's most famous story is that of the Pythia, otherwise known as the Oracle of Delphi--a lineage of priestesses chosen to channel Apollo. Pilgrims would travel up the mountain in hopes to meet with the Oracle and ask for prophesies.

What is left of the Temple of Apollo, where the Pythia (or Sibyls, stretching further back) once channeled, a portal remains. Full of sacred secrets, entrenched with mystery. The vastness of the valley below. The towering columns. The chasms. The maxims at the temple entrance. Tour guides and books will tell you one story; deep inner knowing will tell you quite another. Know Thyself.

On another hill, near the center of Athens, not far from the Acropolis sits the National Observatory of Athens. Full of ancient books and maps of the moon and a replica (the original in a museum) of a strange anachronism called the Antikythera Mechanism, an analog computer dating from first or second (some sources say fourth) century BC. Designed to predict astronomical as well as astrological phenomenon to alarming precision.

Our guide darkened the room and opened the dome. Staring into deep space or simply up at a dark, star filled sky, the entire world falls away and something else entirely comes into awareness. It's a little ironic that the biggest and best telescopes in the world can't take you near as far as traveling inward, beyond time and space, to places that can't be fathomed by our current technology. Connect with the cosmos, tumble into the depths of the soul, into the depth of mystery, and there you are. Apollo was right. Know Thyself. The universe is far more mysterious than we can ever know.

Ancient mystery cults. Goddesses of the Acropolis. Lost Atlantis theories. John of Patmos and his controversial and strange Apocalypse. Never ending mystery runs through Greece.

Perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised I ended up here, standing on the far side slope of Mount Parnassus, overlooking the deep valley of Pleistos, staring up at the Temple of Apollo. Following that curious pull, the threads of mystery, and allowing the stories to seep through me.

On our last full day of the retreat, we hiked along the high cliff edge of the caldera on Santorini Island, crescent shaped volcanic rock, the remnants of a sunken volcano. White and blue structures etched into the cliff side, abandoned cave dwellings, winding cobble stone streets, the island has its own story. It took us four hours to trek from Fira to Oia. The sun set in the distance beyond the island and crowds of people gathered in wonder to watch the horizon, as though until that moment, such a fantastical and mysterious event had never occurred.

As we shift into Scorpio season, season of mystery, can you feel the change, the earth shifting, the night lengthening, the veils thinning? Do you sense threads of mystery running through your life? In your interests or your town or the places you are drawn to visit? Take some time this season to feel into it and tell me your stories of mystery!

By the way, I did eventually make it home. The kid did not puke. The boat did not capsize. Two weeks behind me now, settled back into island life, the monsoon rains last for days, memories of mystery still linger, ancient stories still surfacing. Back to writing life.

Eyes Wide Open

Satisfying things that stave off uninvited waking nightmares:

The fake camera click on my cell phone each time I take a picture
Long conversations unpacking the nuances of writing craft and literature
Hats that cover the bandage that cover the scar of freshly removed stitches

It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.

Cracked open in Ubud. Healing in Amed.

I cling to the back of Wayan as he speeds over steep, mountain switchbacks and narrow, rocky, unpaved roads. No one would dare drive on these roads unless you grew up here--which I decide, is precisely why they've been left in this condition. The deeper I explore this island the more I realize it's not near as ruined as people like to think it is. The natives of Bali know exactly what they are doing. They know how to protect what is important to them, what is sacred.

We stop at the peak above the clouds to watch the sun dip below Mount Agung to the west. Family compounds and terraced rice fields cut into the mountain sides and nestle into the crevices. The silence is deafening. The air crisp. The colors sharp. I've never felt more alive.

When I first came to Amed back in 2016, a local told me that the last time Mount Agung erupted was 1963. The entire Amed coast was wiped out. Since my first visit, Mount Agung has erupted roughly 15 times, the last being June of this year. Like the natives to this land, the island knows how to protect itself.

We make our way down into one of the valleys, to Wayan's home. His three little girls study me like a strange new toy, and I show them the pictures that I had taken 3 years prior when I first met them--their eyes big with surprise. The twins were just babies then. His wife brings me a small glass of the strongest and sweetest coffee I've ever tasted. It takes me nearly an hour to drink.

I loop the compound snapping photos, inadvertently scaring the chickens and pigs. Night falls and it's time to head back to the coast.

The full moon rises, and I fall asleep listening to the waves lap the shore.

Only a week prior I was exploring the dusty roads of Labuhan Bajo on Flores, hiking the arid ridges of Padar Island, sinking my toes into the pastel sand of Pink Beach, and standing feet away from komodo dragons and manta rays in Komodo National Park. A surreal and magical experience. The kind I disappear into far too easily.  Little did I know what would happen the next day.

As I prepare to leave Bali, I tell myself won't return, but I always do. And each time, it reveals new layers of itself. Eyes wide open, it says to me this time. Not in a whisper, but a shout.

I drive south down the winding coast road--a steep cliff on one side, a scattering of small, coastal villages on the other. I rarely pass another driver. I stop and take in the raw landscape. Images forever imprinted in my mind, in my writing, in the pictures I take. My life a series of patchwork stories, stitched together with nothing but photographs and old journals.

Our past is always in flux, never fixed. Do you ever look back on old photos or writings or revisit a place and see new layers? Do they tell you new and different stories each time?

It's been a month since the accident. The waking nightmares have subsided. I'm overwhelmed with relieve and happiness and gratitude to be back in Thailand, to be back in my little hut on the island. But before I move forward with island life posts, I'll step back two weeks and tell you stories from Greece!