Something that hardly anyone talks about and that someone who doesn’t do a lot of travel wouldn’t know, is that lighting is different all over this world. Every place on earth possesses a different quality of light. And this quality of light sets the tone for a place. The light in Greece is some of the whitest light you’ll find anywhere on earth. It is as if someone blew microscopic limestone powder into the air and the sunlight started reflecting off of it to become so white, it is just short of florescent.

Athens is a meeting place between the Western world and the Eastern world. A dramatic collision between the Middle East and Europe. Because of this, it is hard to tell which of the two you are in. It is not at all the iconic little whitewashed houses with blue roofs by the sea (like Santorini); which by the way is all that most of the world is shown of Greece and therefore expects all of Greece to be. The Greek Islands are very different to Mainland Greece. It is also not a city made of ancient Pentelic marble palaces and temples (like the Parthenon), which is all that most of the world is shown of Athens and therefore expects it to be.

The Acropolis, which hosts the Parthenon, is an ancient citadel on a rocky outcrop in the city of Athens. It is a world heritage site and as such, is crawling with hordes of tourists from around the world. It is home to the remains of several ancient buildings of extreme historical significance. The Parthenon dominates the hill, erected in the mid 5th century BC. It is dedicated to the Greek Goddess Athena, after whom this city was named. The buildings on the top of the Acropolis (along with the esoteric, pantheistic world they were created to represent) feels almost like it is floating in the sky above the sprawl of Athens itself. Athens is a haphazard drape of nearly monotone cement structures packed so tightly that there is hardly any green space between them stretching out in every direction as far as the eye can see. Poverty has sucked the dignity from the face of the city, which is dilapidated and completely littered with graffiti. And there are both stray and feral cats everywhere, making their homes in the narrow streets, marinas, ruins and numerous abandoned buildings that make for the perfect shelter. Stray animals are part of the landscape of Greece. And in Athens, there is a long history of coexistence between the people and the shockingly large population of stray cats. The land itself that plays host to the city, the Attica Basin, is a coastal plain that gives an impression of harsh barrenness extending into the Aegean Sea.

The birthplace of so many philosophical, religious, architectural, literary, political and artistic ideas, the golden age of Athens is far behind it. It has become a city that like an old man, scuffed and worn stiff by the ordeals of life, is scuffed and worn and used and starved and scarred. It is the site of so many episodes of the rise and fall of civilizations, periods of bondage and oppression, revolutions, brutal occupations and both foreign and civil wars. And with each period, the face of the city changed dramatically. It would be incredible to see a time lapse of this city across the ages. The fact that so much cultural heritage made it through this long history of passion and suffering is truly shocking. But Greece and the Greeks with it, are at their core, survivors.

The dominant negative vibration of Athens is: Futureless. The people of Athens do not carry a sense of the future being something to look forward to. They are not aimed at a goal. They don’t truly believe they can achieve something. They don’t have a vision of something they are wanting to create and build so as to actualize it tomorrow. Instead, due to many factors in their life experience (including the economic crisis, political instability and lack of opportunity in Greece) they carry a kind of hopelessness regarding being able to make their life better. There is a lack of agency regarding the future. So, they are not very focused on the future. They tend to dwell on and draw personal pride from the glory of the past instead. This makes the overall vibration of the city very heavy and stuck. This being said, this dominant negative vibration has caused the people of Athens to adapt in a very specific way. By focusing on moments to enjoy in the present. There is an attitude of: “Take advantage of the simple pleasures and immediate opportunities that present themselves in the now”. Like hanging out with friends drinking wine while looking over the city or stopping everything you are doing to sit down at a café. Or sunbathing. Or fishing with your cigarette in one hand and your fishing pole in the other.            

The dominant positive vibration of Athens is: Cultural Heritage. Cultural heritage is a deep connection between the past and present. It is the legacy that the people inherit from the past. This cultural heritage is not only in the tangible things, like the buildings that have stood there for thousands of years and the artifacts passed from one generation to the next. It is also in the intangible aspects. Like the traditions, customs and rituals that mean so much to the Greek people. The values, the skills, the beliefs, the ways of life, the stories and the character traits that keep going from generation to generation. So much of the human world has lost touch completely with their ancestry. So many people from other cultures are without a sense of where and who they came from, cut off from the many gifts cultural heritage offers; such as a sense of identity, pride, lessons from the past, belonging and social cohesion. The people of Athens (and in truth, the Greek people in general) have this deep bond with their history. They have a very rich cultural heritage. One they are thrilled to share with anyone and everyone. This cultural heritage makes them a very welcoming group of people. Like other major cities, Athens is perhaps the least friendly locations in Greece. But offering hospitality to a stranger is one of those values that is part of their cultural heritage. It is seen as a sign of both virtue and honor. This cultural heritage also makes the Greek people intensely patriotic in that they have a strong sense of loyalty and national pride.

As fate would have it, we accidentally scheduled a curveball retreat in Thermisia during Easter. Easter, known as Pascha, is a bigger holiday by far than Christmas in Greece. It is the biggest holiday of the year. We spent four hours between Athens and Thermisia in traffic with all the locals traveling out of the city and back to their villages to be with family for the holiday. On Easter Sunday, the neighborhood was quivering with Laïko dancing songs and fireworks exploding. Our host brought over a collection of eggs dyed red, a tradition that represents the blood shed by Jesus on the cross. She explained to us that the tradition is to go over to someone and say Christos Anesti (Christ is risen) before tapping your egg on someone else’s egg, so as to crack theirs. To which they respond “Alithos Anesti” (truly he is risen).   

The Greek people have an adorable relationship with food. Being an emotionally passionate demographic, they specifically down-regulate themselves with food. Watching them eat is down regulating in and of itself. Their relationship with their food, is more like the relationship that a child might have with their favorite stuffed toy, which makes for some really, really comforting food.

On the days that I was leading people through their shadows at the retreat, Winter (my son) and Graciela (my right hand) explored the area. On one of the days, they had made a list of all the traditional Greek foods they wanted to try and had located places with high ratings that sell them. They went on to hire a taxi to take them to the first location. But when the taxi driver found out what they were doing, he promptly cancelled his plan for the day and told them that the places they were going were most definitely not the best places to get those things. And he told them that he would show them the actual best places to find those things… The places the locals consider to be the best. They had the time of their lives being escorted by this man on an impromptu local’s food tour of the city. By the time I found them, they were both lying on the couch in a food coma, with a collection of precious memories of welcome and hospitality.

This blog so far might paint a picture of Greek culture and Greece in general as being soft on the nervous system when it is not. It is harsh on the nervous system. Though generally welcoming to strangers and hospitable, there is a certain coarseness to Greek culture. A temper and a lack of soft skills. Insult is a part of everyday life. To generalize, it is not uncommon for someone to verbally insult then go on about their business as if nothing has happened. It is also not uncommon that when someone insults someone else, they are seen as the problem for being so weak as to be insulted. On top of this, insult is often used as a way for a person to denigrate the other, so as to feel better about oneself. Greece is not a cradle for culturing sensitivity, nor is it a place of ease for people who are sensitive.        

For the ancient Greeks, the poppy flower was the sacred flower of the Goddess Demetra. The Goddess of agriculture and fertility. According to myth, some say Demetra created the flower to bring her sleep so she could forget her grief after Hades abducted Persephone. Poppies carry a vibration that relieves anxiety and pain and that brings about relaxation and sleep. They offer themselves up as a tonic for the nervous system. Whenever I am sitting with poppies, I always get a bit dizzy. If you are sensitive enough, you can feel yourself being sucked by them into that liminal space between waking and asleep. Sitting on this hillside amongst the scarlet red poppies, overlooking a dark teal ocean, you can feel the upwelling of energy from the earth through the fresh new seed, bud and grasses. Spring has arrived in Greece!