Tag Archives: Delphi

You Always Take Yourself With You

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In response to the news about my upcoming pilgrimage to Delphi, my friend Gary suggested that there’s ‘no need to travel to the dusty realms of the world’ to find enlightenment. I’m sure this is true. In cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, neurosurgeon/rock star/superhero Buckaroo says, “No matter where you go, there you are.” And my former boss at Tiffany & Co. used to say, “You always take yourself with you.” I think the idea here is to look within instead of running around trying to find what seems to be missing in our lives.

But what of desire? When I graduated from high school, my best friend and I jumped on a Greyhound Bus headed for California. I can’t remember what inspired this trip, but I think it may have been my cute second-cousin Jeffrey whom I had met on a road trip with my parents. What I hoped to accomplish by seeing him again, I have no idea. But no matter; I think my friend and I just needed to experience the world outside our conservative Midwest suburban environs.

Charlene and Karen

At the Claremont

So after saving a dollar each week for four years, we bought our tickets, packed our bags and were off despite parental admonitions. I don’t think we even met up with Cousin Jeffrey. But we learned that we could take care of ourselves and we found out that we could do it without much money. Having spent almost all our savings on our tickets, we decided to bring Carnation Instant Breakfast, powdered soup, and crackers with us. I remember gazing through a restaurant window in Denver at chickens turning slowly on a rotisserie longing for a hot meal that didn’t include soup. But we didn’t starve, and we returned with our virginity intact in spite of our encounter with two cute guys we met at the Claremont Hotel in Oakland.

I guess I could opt for hours of meditation instead of traveling to Delphi. Who knows? I may come back having felt nothing. If that happens, dealing with disappointment will be an adventure in itself.

 

Taking the First Step

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Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images
Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Before I booked my trip to Delphi, I was torn in two. I knew that I had to go, but I was terrified by the conversation I’d had with Source. The idea of being ‘tested’ was exciting in a way, but visions of Biblical plagues and of witches being burned at the stake started creeping into my mind. And then the fires started raging north of Athens, and I thought, ‘That’s it! I’m  not meant to go.”

But realizing that I didn’t need to leave in the next week or two, I began looking at flights. I found Matt Barrett’s site on all things Greek including ‘Getting a Cheap Flight to Greece’, but after exploring all the options there, I couldn’t see anything that looked better than what I was finding at Orbitz or Travelocity. And I didn’t like what I was seeing. Between changing planes in Paris (which I learned was a total nightmare), flying from SFO to Philadelphia, then to Frankfurt (with an 11 hour layover) and then to Athens, and flying on US Airways (which I wouldn’t even consider having read online reviews), I couldn’t find any combination of flights that ‘felt’ right. I kept checking back over a period of three days thinking that surely some wonderful new option would appear. It didn’t.

So I decided to have another chat with Source:

C: Dear Spirit, PLEASE help me with this project. I’m having a really hard time making arrangements for this trip. I need a sign that it’s time to move forward. PLEASE HELP!

S: (nothing)

C: Okay. So is this how it’s going to be? You push me off the cliff and I have to find a ledge to grab onto with no help from you?

S: (dead  silence)

Gathering up my courage, I decided to try another tack. I had flown British Airways to London and thought they might have flights to Athens. Bingo! Only one plane change at Heathrow going and coming back. And I love this airline! Still unable to press the ‘accept’ button, I decided to consult Colette Baron-Reid’s online Wisdom Cards. With the obvious question,  Is it time – should I just do it?, I selected a card and got TRUST:

This marker reminds you that trust is required to move forward on your path. Belief and trust in a Higher Power is about having faith that the outcome will be what it should be, no matter what it is. It is timely for you to place your trust in the Divine, in your angels, and in the knowledge that there is a Divine plan for all.

Well there was my answer. I guess Source answers our pleas in different ways.

One more thing . . .  Just as I was finishing this post, my next-door neighbor popped in with a free ticket to ‘San Francisco’s Only Greek Food Festival’ taking place right before I leave on my trip. How’s that for synchronicity?

 

All Roads Lead to Greece

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It all started with the oracle cookies. I was Googling around and stumbled upon a chapter from Colette Baron-Reid’s book, Messages From Spirit: The Extraordinary Power of Oracles, Omens, and Signs, in which she describes Aleuromancy, or divination by flour. Intrigued, I read on and learned that the ancient Greeks wrote symbols on pieces of cloth or papyrus and rolled them into dough balls and baked them. The balls were then passed around and questions were asked of the Divine.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the cookies. Colette includes instructions for making a modern version of these confections using a big white bowl, a wooden spoon and a few very specific ingredients. I went back to look over the recipe and a sentence about Apollo and the Delphic Oracle caught my eye. I felt compelled to look up the Oracle immediately, and when I saw the image of the Pythia, I saw myself. I was transfixed.

Priestess of Delphi (1891) John Collier

Priestess of Delphi (1891) John Collier

I immediately did a screen grab of John Collier’s painting and sent it around to five of my closest friends asking them to tell me if they ‘got’ anything from looking at the image. That’s all I said; nothing more. Todd wrote back within five minutes with this: “It’s you, isn’t it?” And a week later when my trusted friend and mentor Angelika finally looked at the image, she started shrieking, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”, and she told me I must go to Delphi, I must go soon, and I must go alone. And as if that wasn’t enough, Dr. Stephanie, a natural clairvoyant and healer, wrote: “Wow! This is a powerful image. I can see you in there––aspects of your strength that were still intact before there was a distortion. Reconnecting with this aspect of yourself will begin to heal the distortion that occurred between then and now.”

I never made the cookies. But I did book my trip to Greece.