travel - Waking Spirals - Page 2

Mykonos and Delos

“I fear that, with our current veneration for the natural and the real, we have arrived at the opposite pole to all idealism, and have landed in the region of the waxworks.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche,

Yesterday the boat ride to Delos and back was amazing.
Layers of belief with the same deities being given new names again and again. Thus the Phonecian goddess Astarte becomes the Egyptian Isis becomes the Greek Artemis becomes the Roman Diana and somewhere on Delos is a temple to each as each culture supplants the old.
Pan, sone of Hermes played his lyre and brings the Maenads to frenzy represent by a black cat who revels in the sun at the entrance to his temple while the temples to Apollo and Dionysius face each other like two respected rivals.
Consulting the Pythia and having her drugged insights interpreted giving some sign and direction of which way to go.
It would take a week to fully do justice to what has been uncovered on Delos and we had but hours. Still walking the ruins in the hot Mediterranean sun was fascinating.
In the museum, Aaron cannot take a picture of my head placed atop the beheaded state of Pan without incurring the guard’s insistence that the picture be deleted. Still we play and wonder amidst the art of the past. On the boat ride back, the Mediterranean baptizes me with its spray (well soaks actually) but its exhilarating. Back in Mykonos at the docks, we try to photograph a lizard that moves all too quickly much like our time in this beautiful area.
Blessings, G

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Delos

Statue of Pan c2000BC

Dionysian Temple Phallus

Mykonos From the Sea

Up Pompeii

Then spoke the thunder
Da
Datta: what have we given?
— T. S. Eliot

And Now the Prologue… (Points for anyone who gets the reference)
Yesterday we docked in Naples and toured the ruins of Pompeii. Afterwards I went and explored Naples while the rest of my group toured Herculaneum.
Pompeii has a very strange sense of history to it. Parts are very well preserved and you can walk through the (restored) houses, stores, temples and businesses of people who lived close to two thousand years ago.
It is an amazing gift to be on this trip with people I love seeing these sites but for me the most awesome part is walking in places I have only read about and experiencing the people and architecture there. Each city has its own heart beat and if you are open you can feel it. Naples is a city in which I could easily live. It is busy enough to be Metropolitan yet it has that laid back seaport feel.
There is a magic that happens when I find myself in a strange city where there is little English spoken. After passing the beautiful seaport Fortress and several pizza places, I found the beautiful shopping centre that the Pompeii tour guide had mentioned. Turning the corner there were many more stores, most but not all of them international chains. Continuing walking, I found a small art gallery that featured the t painting “The Martyrdom of St Ursula” by Caravaggio (one of my favourite artists) which was the last painting that he had finished (around a month before he died). They had several other painters of that style and that vintage and I spent a wonderful 20 minutes there.
For me, it is finds like that gallery and watching people living their lives as much and maybe even more so than the sites in any particular place that brings me the most enjoyment. Being able to balance the two this trip has been amazing.
Blessings, G

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Pompeii

Pompeii Ruins

Streets of Napoli (Naples)

Napoli Castle

All Roads lead to Roam

“Provided the gods of Rome are given their due, it doesn’t really matter to them whether their worshippers believe in them or not. Having taken part in the official rituals, a citizen is free to worship whatever other deities he pleases. Rom’es gods are there to be obeyed and respected, not loved, and they no more mind sacrifices to other deities than the taxman minds people paying other dues elsewhere. Dealing with the gods is an exchange of duties and mutual respect. Confessing a deep love for a particular god is superstitio and the person concerned is probably emotionally concerned.”
― Philip Matyszak

Friday, we found Rome or it found us. Our tour took us first to Vatican City, the Trevi Fountain and then onto the Coliseum. Vatican City is impressive and ostentatious. It has not surprisingly one of the most amazing museums that I’ve been in, complete with Greek statues that have been gelded and some truly beautiful (and enormous) tapestries. Still it all pales in comparison with Michelangelo’s art in the Sistine Chapel.
It is a funny thing that. In the Sistine Chapel people stand in awe, moving from panel to panel admiringly. There is a strong sense of spirit there. Michelangelo mixed strong faith with a dash of bawdiness and humour (both in my view a necessary part of spirit). By contrast in St. Peter’s there is more of a touristy atmosphere. People take snapshots while touching the cross and walk around laughing and joking and goggling at the iconography. This contrast reveals to me something about the difference between Religion and Spirituality.
As a side note, I was told by my tour guide that if there were libraries of forbidden books in the Vatican, they were hidden.
The Coliseum was big and beautiful. The tour guide used it as an example of how the Romans recycles and repurposed areas. It began as bread and circuses, moved on to become a shrine to the dead Christian Martyrs (and lions with indigestion) and now an archaeological wonder and tourist attraction.
Rome is definitely a city I would love to come back to. I love the architecture in Europe and how it combines a sense of scope, artistry and functionality. There is a legend that if you toss a coin into the Trevi fountain you will one day return. My coin made it in so we will see whether my road will one day lead back here.
Blessings, G

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Inside the Vatican Walls

Ceiling at the Vatican Museum

Coliseum

Inside the Coliseum

Fiorenze’d Movement (Tuscany, Italy)

“Ancora Imparo

(Yet I am learning)”
― Michelangelo

Today we were in Tuscany. We went to Fiorenze (Florence), Italy and at breakneck speed, saw Michelangelo’s David at the Academia and then at a forced march pace went to the jewellery district and then to the Uffizi gallery where we saw so many famous and favourite works of art such as the Birth of Venus by Botticelli and too many others way too fast. Our tour guide zoomed along with us following in her 4’8” wake as she held up her sign just high enough to get a glimpse with her voice receding into crackles on our head phones. She marched us to the bus where we went to an amazing meal at a resort on the Tuscany countryside and from there to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Pisa is fascinating. The tower and church that it is adjacent to is in the middle of a rather rough area that is filled with refugees from a few different countries trying desperately to eek out a living selling souvenirs manufactured elsewhere, sunglasses or umbrellas to tourists passing by. The tower, church and ground has thousands of people walking in and around, taking pictures where they are either propping up the tower or having it jut between their legs. We had twenty minutes free time there and then walked back to the bus and returned to the ship
Tomorrow we hit Rome at a similar breakneck pace. I have a new appreciation for the meaning of cruising speed and need to figure out pacing better. It is an amazing gift to be able to see so much of Western Civilization and getting to meet people from all over the world on this trip.
The Statue of David is amazing to see and walk around. I don’t know that I have ever seen the statue shot from behind.
Blessings, G

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David’s Back

Leaning Tower

Mediterranean Sunset

Water Colours

Toulon, France

“The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.

It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down – sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray.

At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing.
But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward.”
― Terence McKenna

Since we have set sail last night I have felt amazingly meditative. I had forgotten how comfortable I am on the water. There is a calmness and familiarity to the rhythms of the sea that seems to echo for me of times past. I love walking around the ship at all hours and being at peace.
Toulon, France is a pleasant seaport. I have learned that my French in France is not as passable as my Spanish in Barcelona. Tho the Farmers Market was amazing.

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On the Water, Toulon France

La Genie De Navigation Statue–Toulon, France

Getting Lost and Found in Barcelona

“Getting lost is just another way of saying ‘going exploring.”
― Justina Chen

The day before I left a friend of mine told me that she hoped we would get lost and find ourselves. This evening we did just that. One of our party had received rather grave news about her father’s health. She decided that after some therapeutic shopping she just wanted to walk.
We were hoping to find Barcelona’s Gothic quarter. After walking to a street very much like Las Ramblas with lots of stores and merchandising happening on the street, we saw an alley veering off to the left. It looked, compared to other parts of the city pretty rough and ramshackle but we decided to try it anyway. Tho there were many people walking in both directions, the stores were closing down their graffiti covered doors. Continuing on our way we saw tall spires up ahead, somewhat reminiscent of La Sangria Familia, the somewhat awe-inspiring cathedral by Anthony Gaudi that we had visited earlier in the day. However where the Sangria was something magnificent, it felt like being inside a work of art, a triumph of masterful form over function. What we had stumbled onto was the Barcelona Cathedral in the oldest part of Barcelona, much more ramshackle and run down than the Sangria Familia yet breathed with a sense of spiritual presence I found missing from the former. There was statuary everywhere and people just being, enjoying the sanctuary of a comfortable place. There were artists doing their things and musicians and a couple of street performers doing amazing things with a giant hula hoop. There was a sense of history here. This place had been used as a church for hundreds of years and if it was not still in use, its sacred past has left footprints. We walked around the church through old cobblestone streets with statues of Saints and Gargoyles placed haphazardly almost randomly around the wall of the alleyway.
Eventually we found ourselves at the far side of the cathedral. It stood in a small square area just off one of the main roads and occupied space there by youth hostel and a restaurant called Café Gloria. We sat down at this small café and had the best meal I have had yet in this city. This detour did much to centre us after a rather long, tho amazingly fun day. Sometimes when we get ourselves lost, we can find ourselves in ways we’ve never anticipated.
Blessings, G

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Sunset on the Barcelona Cathedral

Lost and Found at the Barcelona Cathedral”

Barcelona, Spain

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”
–Pablo Picasso

After 18+ hours on planes and airports we landed in Barcelona Spain. This city is amazing in all respects. It has the European architecture that I love so much and on any given street you can see a combination of elaborate artistic buildings (Gargoyles, cherubs, statues of saints, ornate iron work and turrets) mixed with street art graffiti.
We went to the Picasso museum and got to see an amazing representation of his art and I was able to appreciate the people appreciating it. Amazing how many people look at art, trying to remember what they are supposed to see, feel and note about it based on hazily remembered art history courses and plaques. Experiencing them with fresh eyes and little training, different things kept occurring to me. Ideas that he exposed about masculine and feminine, shadow and substance. It made it quite a powerful experience.
At night we walked along Las Ramblas with some of the most amazing people watching I’ve done in quite awhile. The light seems different here as does the temperature. The people are amazing. The journey continues.
Blessings, G

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At the Picasso Museum

Column

Further Away and Closer to Home

“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
― Jack Kerouac

Adventure beckons
New roads and new skies
filled with unseen stars
Where will my journey take me?
The preplanned road never suits
but always there is hope
of a road untravelled.
Gone with the dawn
I move ever closer to home
— G A Rosenberg

Blessings, G

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Plant Guardian by G A Rosenberg

Southwestern Sun by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – January 4 2013

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
– Lao Tzu

On the last leg of a rather nice trip in which I reconnected to family and learned to let go of expectations of arriving anywhere that I expected at the time that I’d expect. Yes, the return trip East to West has been as filled with schedule changes and overnight stops as the eastward journey has been. An interesting symmetry tho this one sustained by a week of memories of babies, dogs and sisters. I also feel in some ways I reconnected with elements of my past that I had let go.
Blessings, G

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Earth Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Weaving Reality by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – December 28 2012

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”
― Anaïs Nin

Tho most times its our soul that we seek in the other and at times the journey becomes a bit more challenging than we expected. My son Zev and I are on a trip to visit relatives back east and we have run afoul of a snowstorm in Montreal. It’s an interesting feeling being at the mercy of other people’s scheduling and choices and other people’s behaviours and it really brings home how the only thing that we can really affect is how we react to everything. I feel fortunate in that Zev has become a young man at least as adaptable and accepting when things get a bit rough as I am and now we are safely ensconced in a room for the night ready to continue tomorrow. Would we be here even if we had argued and fought and complained the whole way? Probably and eventually but it helped to have someone else realizing that we needed to keep our sense of selves and senses of humour intact through it all.
Yet in my son, I not only see reflections of myself and my partner but also the man he is fast becoming and I feel proud.
Blessings, G

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View From the Peacock’s Surface by G A Rosenberg