Tribute to Hermes

Small stone Tribute to Hermes

We create because we can and we must.  Idle on the beach today I saw the excellent stones that were calling to be piled into these small sculptural formations.  We see these on beaches and at trailheads.  We pile one stone upon another as a tribute to Hermes who will see us on a safe journey.  Hermes delivers messages from the gods, is the the go-between worlds of the mortal and divine, and guides people when they die to the underworld.  He is the protector of travelers and boundaries, orators, poets, literature, sports, athletics, invention, and the finder of things lost or stolen.  Hermes is most often seen carrying the cadeusus, the staff of crossed snakes with wings above and which is different from the symbol of the physician which is the Rod of Asclapius and has only one snake.

On a quiet stone wall at the beach.

The Buddhist Bodhisattva Jizo, or Ksitigarbha, who also carries a staff, acts in a similar regard overseeing the underworld and guiding the souls to give comfort in the hell realms and to protect people on journeys.  Small piles of stones may be seen at the crossroads where there are also Jizo statues in the hope that it may shorten the time of suffering in the underworld.  I find the similarities of these two striking and since they evolve from such ancient roots, I cannot help but feel the Greek influence on Buddhism once again.

Jizo has a long mythological beginning and is said to have developed in China, more so than in India, and then to have been modified again with the development of devotion to Jizo in Japan.  Early mythic connections come from the Hindu goddess Prithvi, associated with the earth and fertility, who is the mother of all creatures and the consort of the sky.  Much later in China, Jizo was connected with Kokuzo Bosatsu who represented space so that the two paired together represented the blessings of earth and space.  In the Jizo Bosatsu Sutra, a 7th Century Chinese translation from Sanskrit, Prithvi vows to use all her miraculous powers to protect Jizo devotees.  Here is an interesting marriage of Hinduism referred to in a Buddhist sutra that I suggest has Greek influence.

Greek influence has already occurred in India long before the development of Jizo and the merging of mythic forces is very possible and likely.  Hermes as an essential figure in the pantheon is completely present in the culture of Alexander and his retinue.  To transfer this responsibility that Hermes carried in his messaging and care of the underword seems totally natural in its development and transfer into China and Japan once the pagan world diminished.  The archetypal responsibility would not just be abandoned, but would be redrawn and expressed in a means that spoke in the adoptive culture.  This entails a great deal of study and elucidation and is too big a subject for this column and I'm not doing it justice, but it touches me as another example of syncretic mythical development from Greek and Indian symbols and practices with the Buddhist Asian and Mediterranean pantheons.

In the Hood

The system of trash removal here is that there are large bins at various locations around town.  There is no recycling.  You bring your trash to the bin and deposit it there.  The city then sends out trucks periodically to empty the bins.  So, there are no individual bills to pay for the amount of trash you deposit as we have in the USA.  There, you pay a lot if you dump a lot.  Here, the bins are open and no one checks to see how much you put in the bin.  But taxes must be high.  I noticed on my grocery bill that I’m paying 9% tax for food, but 16% for meat and for household items such as sponges, soap and the like.  That’s a substantial tax.

SERIFOS

Students painting the wall.

The other day I got tired of walking over trash that was tossed on the ground around the trash bin.  It was still lying there after the bin had been emptied and it was right next to the high school.  I put on a pair of rubber gloves and on one of my outings, I put on the gloves and picked up the garbage.  It didn’t matter whether anyone saw me or not; I had no idea whether or not they did.  But I just couldn’t walk over this garbage any longer and not do something.  Several days have gone by now and I notice that the street has been swept, and the schoolyard which had been full of trash is now cleaned up also.  Today, the kids are painting a mural on the play yard wall that depicts the history of the mines.  It is so great to see and I’m thrilled that they are taking care of their space and celebrating their heritage.  

Students painting the wall.

I’m sure this wall painting has been in the works and my cleaning up is pure serendipity.  Still, it’s nice to be part of the cleanup and taking pride in the sense of place.  Yesterday when I was walking home, a young girl about 6 years old ran after me and gave me a painting she had done.  How sweet.  I have enough Greek now to tell her my name, where I’m from and to ask for her name.  She is Sophia and was so proud of her painting and I was so honored to be given it. 

My faithful friends.

It’s delightful to be part of the neighborhood, all nine cats too who live with a woman who cares for them on the first level of the attached houses where I’m living. The minute I begin anything in the kitchen, they can hear me open a cabinet, take out a pot, open a bag of peanuts, or just about anything kitchen three levels up and they are at the window.  Nice to be part of the neighborhood and nice to be so well received.

The Road to Ramos

On the road to Ramos with
a great view of Sifnos

Today I walked to Ramos, the next town over from Livadakia and two mountain passes away.  I tied my hat down with a scarf to keep from having to rescue the hat from the wind.  It does keep blowing, but tonight there is a sudden stillness.  In any event, Ramos is a small settlement of about twenty homes off the main road and along a dirt trail.  As there are 120 churches on Serifos, Ramos naturally gets its own church too.  Coming around the bend in the village, an older man who was working his garden, said hello and immediately said he was Greek.  We chatted and said he was living in Australia for the past 40 years.  So we spoke a bit and he asked me in for tea.  I said I’d stop in on my way back.

So on I climbed past these many stone fences that are everywhere on this island.  It looks like Ireland.  The large stone pilings that appear here and there are evidence of cyclopean stones that I’ve mentioned earlier.  A mythic white horse suddenly appeared in a field and watched me till I went out of sight.  Plenty of homes, if they have a bit of land, have small vegetable gardens.  The church is in the center of the village with its main altar directed straight out to sea.  New homes are being built in empty lots and the size of some of them took my breath away.  On Greek terms, they are starter castles, as Greek homes tend to be small and tucked into the mountain.  An island such as Serifos does not seem to have endless resources although many, many homes have solar panels on their roofs which must help support the energy supply.  But there’s a bit footprint from these buildings.

The little church in Ramos

I climbed as high as the paths would allow and then circled back to have tea with Constantine, a divorced man and a former seaman probably 70 years old.  He was back at his Greek home to prepare it for the Baptism of his young grandson who would be arriving in September with about fifteen of the relatives also living in Darwin, Australia.  The ceremony would take place at this little church just down the street.  The whole contingency all the way from Darwin would attend this little church in Ramos.  This is surely called Tradition!

We sat at his kitchen table and chatted.  This is a man who has been all over the world and is completely comfortable with himself.  He showed me pictures of the children and his family.  His opinion is that the Greek infrastructure is deteriorating due to the system of government and that young people have lost their ability to work hard on the land from too much television and internet.  But then, who doesn’t feel that way; the Greeks are not alone in this.  I finished my tea and thanked him and said if I went up the road again that way I’d stop in to see him.  It was a joy to have gone into this very humble home, to have felt so comfortable and safe inside.  It would have been wrong to photograph any of it.

With this company, who
could say one is alone!

I came back and spent a few hours on the beach in late afternoon feeling myself in the luxury of drowsiness on the blanket with the lapping of the water against the sandy shore. In the evening as always when I cook, the locals join me at the window in hopes of a mere morsel tossed their way.

I have nearly almost stopped thinking.

Cultural Behavior of Mosquitos

Some may think that one mosquito is as good as another, but I’m one who thinks otherwise.  In my experience, mosquitos have quite different behaviors depending upon which country they live in.  Further they have a different whine in their approach, and they attack in different ways.  For this writing I offer just three examples.

A Greek Mosquito.
You can tell by the accent

American mosquitos are impatient and persistent, darting back at you when you flick them away.  They might come around your ear to give some indication of their presence, but they can just as easily bite around your ankles or on the backs of your arms.  If you go hunting for them in your room in the middle of the night, they will hide on a dark surface but often give themselves away by changing their location and usually to a top place near the ceiling.  In this, you can spot their flight because they can’t stay still.

Japanese mosquitos are very quick and will fly low to the floor before they approach.  Their whine is more high pitched than American mosquitos and they are smaller and darker in color.  When you try to catch them midair, they will quickly dart away.  Yes, they’ll bite you on your bare scalp, but once you go after them, they will dash quickly to a wall and remain close to the floor.  They are patient and will hide skillfully when there is a hunter in pursuit.  They know you are thinking about them. 

Greek mosquitos are quite skillful and extremely patient.  They will give a warning by the ear, but they are quick paced and difficult to catch.  You might think you’ve gotten one with a hit against the wall, but that same mosquito will evade your swipe and wait on a dark surface for an hour before returning for a gulp of blood. There are no screens on any Greek windows.  Once the temperature goes over 70 and the wind stops, it’s fair game for mosquitos.  There is plenty of still water around the island for them to breed in.  Mosquitos do not fly in windy conditions.  I  may learn to love the wind.

Alexander conquering the Persians

Mosquito spraying began in Greece in April due to West Nile virus threat because of a warm winter.  Who is it who suggested that Alexander the Great, did not die of consumption or poisoning, but rather from the humble bite of a mosquito, perhaps a West Nile virus laden mosquito or malaria.  Whole civilizations conquered and yet Alexander thwarted by a lowly mosquito lying in wait so patiently for the warrior.  I'm afraid that where mosquitos are concerned,  I do not share the saintly mercy of Ryokan who, legend says, always put one leg outside his mosquito net to offer some food to these creatures.  Two mosquitos sucked my blood twice last night but I was equally patient and sadly brought about their demise in the long quiet hours between 2 and 4 a.m.

The Cyclopes

So, there are what are called “cyclopean walls” that are evident on the north shore of the island, so I’m told.  I did see such walls when we went to Mycenae where the large stones that formed the fortress were believed to have been placed by the Cyclopes people because no single human could possibly lift them.  The stones looked to me to be about six or eight man stones.  Because of their presence here on Serifos, it is believed that the Cyclopes were present on this island.

The cyclop Polyphemus

The Cyclopes were the mythical one-eyed giants who were the builders and craftsmen and were said to have been the blacksmiths who provided Zeus with his thunderbolts, fashioned the helmet of invisibility for Hades and gave Poseidon his trident.  The Cyclopes have been written into various poetic texts such as Homer, Euripides, Virgil, Theocritus and Hesiod.  Some scholars suggest that because the Cyclopes were blacksmiths, typically very strong men, they wore an eye patch over one eye to prevent sparks from injuring them in both their eyes.  This gave rise to the myth of the one-eyed being.  Another suggestion is that the myth rose out of the use of an herbal medicine that contains a poisonous substance that can cause birth defects such as a fetus being born with only one eye.  Such an event may have been the cause of the development of the myth.

How the massive walls of the structures were built is still unknown and it was assumed that only herculean or cyclopean creatures could have lifted such stones.  We don’t know how the ancient monuments were set in place, how the pyramids were built, how Stonehenge was managed, but the Greek myth developed around the cyclopean walls.

Further to this, I’ve been in touch with a former colleague Jim, a geology teacher, who very coincidentally got in touch with me via email about a week ago.  As I answered a question about Buddhism, I asked him questions about geology, a subject I sorely wish I had studied for my science requirement because of its practicality instead of paleontology.  So, I learn that Jim suggests that Serifos looks like a seamount, an undersea mountain, but may very well be a caldera that formed suddenly from an underground volcanic event.  He mentions that an explosive geological event created the mountain of Santorini around the year 1600 BC.  I have yet to discover whether such an event also occurred on Serifos.

Some myths say the Cyclopes were killed by Apollo and sent to Hades, the land of the dead.  Zeus could not bear this and he negotiated for their release from Hades even though they were dead.  In some myths, the ghosts of the Cyclopes are living in Mt. Aetna where they are believed to be causing all the noise in the volcanoes.  So far as Serifos is concerned, don’t forget that it was the Cyclopes who created the tools and the helmet of Hades to allow Perseus to be invisible in his quest to overcome Medusa.  If Serifos is indeed a caldera, then the Cyclopes may be trapped beneath Serifos in Hades as they are in some myths because in a caldera, the mouth of the volcano is sealed by the collapse of the land above and around it.  Also, calderas are known to have rich ore deposits which Serifos has, which the Cyclopes needed for their inventions.  Did I already mention that I wondered if the ore was of a magnetic kind because I’ve been feeling so good and I’ve wondered about the healing nature of magnetism on the body.  Jim also thinks that there is a strong possibility of high magnetic ore or magnetite, in areas that have major geologic shifts such as we find in Greece which is on a plate between the Eurasian, the African and the Aegean plates where we find high earthquake activity.  Who ever thought that myth and science would be so closely related.

Got all of that?  See how it all connects?

The Other Side

Fishing nets on a boat.

I cannot help but think of the underbelly of this place.  What really goes on?  As sure as the myths are full of complex enterprise, conniving, interference in human interaction, so it is here today.  Stuff happens.  Perhaps it is even more so in a small village.  I can only feel it.  As an outsider, I can’t talk about it even if I had the language.  The looks become obvious when I shop at one store or another and then pass by one that I shopped at yesterday.  Two bakeries side by side are watching to see where the shoppers go and the clerks seem pitted against one another.  Competition must be fierce in a place like this even though it isn’t immediately apparent because it seems so carefree and easygoing—a lighthearted, welcoming Greek spirit.

A ship in port for several days.

A crumbling area on the road to the Chora.

It is hospitable.  People are very nice, always say hello on the street and are courteous.  I wouldn’t hesitate to walk anywhere alone and am confident in being safe.  Yesterday, walking up the mountain I went through areas of tall cornstalk like grasses and went for long stretches sometimes hidden from sight and beyond where I could call for help.  While on the road numerous motorcycles passed me by.  It didn’t occur to me that there would be trouble and this is not some naïve traveler’s notion.  There were areas in Athens or in Piraeus that I wouldn’t go, but here on the island I generally feel protected.

But what nefarious enterprises are afoot?  Or, if not nefarious, then what?  I want to know the real story.  What are these young men doing riding from one place to another stopping at various places as they go?  They are not food shopping.

Fence blocking off road to an old mine, I think.

What is that young man doing who rides along the dirt road in front of my place?  He stops and waits at the main corner, takes a signal from a man in a car and then rides back?  We have cell phones today so it isn’t as though we need to deliver messages by hand.  Who gets hired to do what construction job?  What resistances are there in the organization of the city and how is the food distributed when it comes off the boats?  How do the farms operate?  What about local wine making?  Taxes?  Water?  Trash removal?  Sewage?  Who pays what?  What happens if you don’t or can’t pay?  Is there a jail here?  I haven’t seen a policeman or a local government building.  Ships come and go.  Properties are bought and sold.  Land is being parceled out.  There’s an underbelly, and now that I’m in the daily comings and goings like everyone else, I can’t help but wonder how things really work.

Climb to the Chora

The Chora is actually
Serifos, the ancient capital.

My intention when I started out today was to gain a bit of altitude on the road to the Chora and sit on a wall somewhere and write.  Well, little by little by little, I kept going and when I was at least halfway, I thought well might as well go for it.  The altitude gain from sea level is 585 meters or 1919 feet with the distance of 5 kilometers or 3 miles plus a few hundred yards.  Didn’t seem like much.  Well, HA!  Damn near doomed me.

The Walkway to Chora

The path is a mixture of roadway and stair climbing that takes you past a few churches, past the one room schoolhouse, through the narrow streets of this ancient place.  There are surely people who live up there and have never come down to the port.  Wind predominates and has the sense of closing one off from the rest of life.  It reminded me of the wind in the movie “Black Narcissus” with the howling of it and the buildings clinging to the edge of the cliffs.  Some of them appear to be quite unstable. 

The Schoolhouse

The Walkway to Chora

At least three times I thought I would die, but turning back would have been equally problematic.  

Going downhill is far more difficult on the knees.  I stopped to rest numerous times, but the stair climb was relentless.  I thought I’d really have to get to the top to ride the 4:00 p.m. bus back down to Livadi.  The bus ride takes 15 minutes.  I stopped in a taverna and had a lemonade, chatting with the 31 year old handsome Greek who has lived on the top for 2.5 years.  He spoke enough English, as most people do, to have a simple conversation and share the basic ‘where are you from’ kind of thing.  The minute he looked at me huffing and puffing as I reached the near top, he immediately handed me a glass of water, and this helped me revive.  I never did get to the very top which was another 100 steps.  It would have been completely foolish and would have tempted fate.  I’ll take the bus up the hill next time, perhaps tomorrow to see the very top and to see the archeological exhibit.  I was the only one walking up although I passed several people who were headed down.  

A bit precarious with some serious erosion beneath
these houses.  Trouble is when you get to the top,
you don't know whether you are sitting in a
taverna that is one of these buildings.  Scary!!

A sweet old man was also waiting at the bus stop and another man with a donkey came back and forth several times hauling gravel up the hill.  Well, his donkey hauled the gravel, three buckets on each side of his pack.  I couldn’t photograph it; sometimes it’s just too rude to do so.  The old man motioned for me to sit beside him on the bus and then we made a stop at the school to take the grade school kids back down to the port.