ATHENS ON MY MIND

So here I am in Athens, perhaps the most wonderful and influential city in European history. As I tumble through these days going through the process of readjusting back into the Western mode, I am glad I am here at last...

On my first day in Istanbul, exhausted and freaked out and worried by the rain, I cursed my decision to return to the UK via Turkey, Greece and France. Why didn't I just go home and rest? Now I don't regret it. I am glad I am able to go through this in this way.

My second day in Thessaloniki was still a bit corpsey. Somehow I had managed to leave the window open in my tiny room with its even tinier bed so I woke up with a chill and a sore throat. Another slightly less lonely breakfast and a pre-midday nap and I was out and about again. The weather was improving but to my frustration the first place I went to, the Thessalonikian Aghia Sophia, was closed. I wandered off to find some lunch and found myself waylaid by a tall, dyed-blonde waitress who enticed me into her taverna (as it were). I was then kept there for hours by another waitress who kept on giving me beers and puddings 'on the house'. It was a bit mysterious but quite nice and I managed to settle and centre a bit. I'm still getting used to eating meat and drinking alcohol which feels VERY strange (I don't know how I am going to resolve this back in the UK as I felt so good only eating veg and drinking water in India) but I needed the chilling time. After that, I wandered off to find the Cathedral of St Dimitriou further up the hill.

St Dimitriou was a Roman centurion who was martyred for being a Christian at a time when the Roman Emperor had made it a capital offence. He is the Patron Saint of Thessaloniki and his Cathedral here is built upon the site of the catacombs where the early Christians gathered to carry out there sacraments in order to hide from the authorities who would have killed them if they had got caught. I only remembered this after a bit of time wandering around in the Cathedral itself (I had read it in the guidebook) and being accosted by an friendly older Greek lady who wanted to know if I was German as she had been living in Germany for about thirty years. I speak a little Kraut so we chatted away amiably for a little while, all the time me thinking 'Ah! Just like in India!', then she wandered off..

The Cathedral was very nice. Greek Orthodox Christianity does Churches and Cathedrals in a very different way to the West. Ecstatic, colourful, gold-drenched images and icons of Saints and the Bible characters are everywhere. Unlike Western churches which are often just stone, Greek Churches are a blaze of imagery and colour. In fact it used to be like this in the West but for some reason the Art died out. It makes for a wonderfully rich and inspiring spiritual environment, especially if you like Icon Art, which I do. THe two churches I had popped into the day before had been the same, full of vibrant beauty. For the Greeks, God is Light, as the Bible says, so this imagery of Gold and Light is everywhere...

I didn't mention the Aghia Sophia in Istanbul in much detail as I was pretty miserable at the time, but I should at least have pointed out that the biggest difference between Greek sacred architecture and Western Churches etc is that the cruciform shape is much less pronounced. Orthodox Churches are dominated by round shapes - domes, rotunda, spheres - designed to evoke the glory of Christ in the Heavens or the Womb-like Presence of the Divine Sophia. Their influence on the development of the Mosque is absolutely obvious, as one can see in Istanbul where all the Muslim invaders had to do was attach some minarets to convert the Aghia Sophia from its role as a Church. The effect of Greek Architecture in this way is to make the vision of the Church more holistic, more feminine, more natural in feel than the Western one...

Anyway, yadda yadda yadda... I'm going on again... Still stunned by India, none of these buildings were doing it for me hugely. Everything I was seeing seemed small fry compared to what I had seen over there. And I LOVE Greek culture, classical and otherwise. What was happening to me? Oh dear!

It was going down into the catacombs which started me moving again. Descending into these cramped caves, out of which altars, baptismal fonts and even a strange stone construction in which grail-like lamps were lit, was a profoundly moving experience. We are so used to hearing about the terrible excesses and persecutions meted out by the Christian churches that we forget that for three centuries following JC was punishable by death. What was it about this spirituality which so many people now deride which lead people to risk death not just for a short while but for 300 years to follow it? Walking among the simplicity of the stone, it was easy to imagine them gathered here in groups, meeting in secret, hoping not to be found, in order to worship this strange, new heretical sect in which God incarnated as a Man and walked among us. The sense of sadness, of vulnerability, of fear but also of something very felt, was palpable. As I had done in India, I sat in silence in the shadows and drank in the atmosphere. It was like going back in time again.

As I said in India, when you are travelling, one must honour the Gods. Here I did the same.

Restored, I wandered around Thessaloniki again, had a bite to eat and went back to my hotel room. I watched a preposterous Sylvester Stallone film and fell asleep, ready for the journey the next day to Athens.

And here I am. Getting here saw the train passing through the most breathtaking Greek landscapes. I was amazed at how GREEN it all was. I had thought from Crete, Kefalonia etc that all of Greece had that wonderful parched, arid, epic, rocky feel but no, here it was just lush green as far as the eye can see, often covering magnificent mountain ranges. I had been to mainland Greece as a teenager but had clearly forgotten what it was like. I had grown used to the wonder of the islands (Crete is one of my favourite places), but this was something new.

Arriving at Athens, I was all ready for a horrorshow. For decades Athens has been characterised as a noisy, polluted, ugly city. Well it isn't now! I loved the drive through it and am really looking forward to exploring it tomorrow. Thessaloniki hadn't excited me that much. Athens is different.

As with Istanbul, there was a mix-up with my hotel but it was soon fixed. Somehow my guard is down, though, as having become like a Ninja in India with rickshaw wallahs I seem to be completely asleep with Western Taxi drivers etc. I know I was overcharged twice today but didn't anticipate it. Maybe I have slipped into a subconscious trust now I'm back in the West. Bad news! And the prices! A meal here would buy you a railway journey across India and back! I realise that this week or so is going to be the most expensive part of the entire Flight Of Pegasus. It makes you realise what a ridiculous fiction money is. How on earth can the same food be worth something completely different depending upon where you are on the planet?

My hotel here is GRREEAAAAT, although not in the nicest part of Athens. The room is HUGE and... wonder of wonders... it has a BATH! I haven't seen a bath for four months (the one in Hyderabad doesn't count. No-one was going to have a bath in THAT!)... I immediately ran a luxurious tub of bubbly water and jumped in. Ahhhh blisssssss...

So now I am tapping this out to keep everyone abreast of how things are going on before hitting the sack. I'm here for three days, during which time I want to see Delphi and Eleusis, the site of the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, from which we get the word 'Mystic' and which used to culminate every year on my birthday... A chance of a lifetime... Hang the expense... Money will be found...

And my state of mind? Well I am going through the transformations... As keen followers of this Blog will remember, I went through some crises out there in India and, if anything, I have learnt to let them happen now... The pain, the confusion, the sense of loss always gives way to something new. And I am learning now that even though India is behind me in a sense, it is still with me, transforming itself into a state of mind as I go. I have said how constricting I had found the West and how that had caused me to go East. Well now the West need never constrict me again, because I know the world is larger than that. A friend of mine said to me: 'You are India' and she is right. One doesn't have to BE there to be there, if you know what I mean. The massive expansion of Consciousness I experienced there need not vanish. It will carry itself around with me as I move in the UK.

Besides, I know I will go back. Those kids, those people and that country is in my blood now. They are part of my life.And I know that there will always be such options in the future. In the past I used to plunge when things went badly in the UK because I thought that was all there was. Now I know that isn't true. There is much, much more...

So on that more positive note (and I am sure there is further to go with everything, and some more challenges in the UK), I am off to bed, to dream of Greek Gods and ancient civilisations (and other things...) before awakening to what Athens has to offer tomorrow...

To the future!