Anafi

On falling stars and rising consciousness

This experience dates from August 2012, exactly four years ago. A year onwards, in August 2013, I wrote down the story below. Gazing at a cloudy sky last night, whilst living the fuck up known as 2016, I figured it‘s time to share it — if only to remind myself that the mystery of life is beautiful.

It has been one year, almost to the day, and only now I feel the urge to write down the experience. It has been a true revelation, yet words limit my capacity to explain what it actually is. Nevertheless, I will tell you what I have experienced, what I have seen and felt, as accurately as possible. This then is in no way a story based on the scientific method, and yet, to me, it proved a paradigm shift way beyond the reach of orthodox science.

The story is much longer than my days on Anafi, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. The experience occurred mid-August, the very days when one of the best meteor showers on the calendar known as Perseides peaks. As all else above our heads, the name Perseides comes from Greek mythology, ‘referring to the sons of Perseus.’ Perseus is a demigod, ‘offspring of a god and a human’, a deity standing between heaven and earth. Perseus is a son of Zeus, ‘father of gods and men’, who impregnated Danaë, the mother of Perseus, ‘in the form of a shower of gold.’ I have no idea how many falling stars I have seen those nights. But there were many. It just continued. One meteor crossed the beach like fireworks, sounding like an actual rocket, leaving a big stripe of stardust above our heads. It was incredible.

One hour or so away from popular Santorini, Anafi is the last stop in the Cyclades archipelago before the ferry crosses the Agean to Crete. The island is small and rocky. The summers are dry and hot. The beach we stayed, called Roukounas, offered little shade to the always-pounding sun. Stunning Greece surely has more beautiful beaches, but Anafi offered a sense of solitude not available on Greece’s more touristic islands. The people sleeping on the beach, in all less than a hundred, were mostly young Athenians.

They slept in tents. We slept under the stars.

In Greek mythology ‘the island was given the name Anafi because Apollo made it appear to the Argonauts as a shelter from a bad storm, using his bow to shed light upon it.’ Indeed, Anafi roughly translates into English as he made appear. Yet by the time Dora shared the island’s etymology with me on the beach I was not even surprised anymore. I was already completely blown away. I was already taking deep breaths every few minutes to come to terms with what had appeared to me the night before. Writing up this story actually brings back those deep breaths. So of course Anafi just had to mean what it means: to see the light. A revelation.

I had come to Greece to spent time with my friends, to experience Athens, to write a bit and, of course, to enjoy the islands. Greece had suffered three years of unprecedented economic hardship. In the process it had become a mere protectorate under the diktat of Berlin, Brussels and Frankfurt. The metropolis of five million had become the principal theater where the sharp edges of the euro were felt most. Batteries of riot police had become a regular feature in the streets. Endless protests and riots had made Syntagma Square a household name across Europe. You did not have to look for it. The crisis was everywhere.

Greece is a place of vivid contrasts. Its political climate had once again polarized to the extremes, seeing right-wing mobs chase immigrants whilst left-wing groups fight the police, the system and themselves. Greece was in a state of shock and Athens, home to roughly half of the Greek population, was at the very center of it all. Tension in the city sharply contrasts with the serenity on the islands. The (built) environment further amplifies the disparity between the metropolis and the isles. Athens is a never-ending concrete jungle, turning into a pressure cooker during the summer.

Taking the ferry out of Piraeus I immediately noticed the fresh air. I could actually breath again. With the city fading behind me, deep blue water and the magnificent islands emerged. Having just found my ability to breath again, I thought of the epic disparities that seemed to define Greece. No wonder this great crossroads of ancient cultures is the home of great sagas and myths. Even in our age Greece continues to offer a play of contrasts that can only be described as classic.

We first travelled to Amorgos, a Cyclades island with stunning rocks and beaches. Travelling by ferry is a wonderful thing. I have travelled as far as Asia and the Americas, yet slowly crossing the Aegean somehow gave me a sense of being further away from home than I had ever been. It felt adventurous. You sit on deck and see the sun set, followed by a big golden moon slowly rising out of the water. As one of nature’s exemplary polar opposites, its beauty and significance did not escape me.

I started to abstract night and day, or sun and moon, for yin and yang, plus and minus, good and evil. All my thoughts boiled down to black and white, symbolizing the poles of a spectrum — a superstructure outside which nothing seems to exist. Such thoughts had longer defined my worldview. In fact, I had adopted this view whilst studying political science, a field that can also be reduced to a power game wherein change and preservation are the sole polar opposites. Ever since, my worldview has been shaping up within in this overarching scheme, offering logic, positivist if not mathematical reason, like the laws of the natural sciences.

Sleeping under the stars I watched the sky every night, wondering what single unifying logic or matter guides us all. What keeps the positives and negatives together? I can rationalize the world into black and white, yet all such dichotomies ultimately are two-headed if not single constructs: good and evil presuppose one another, define one another. To me, this single unifying logic is a mystery, up to the point that being unable to comprehend it makes me a religious or spiritual person. I have nothing but the greatest respect for such unknowns. But I am also curious. Conditioned by the rules of reason, or science, you cannot escape the feeling that there ought to be an explanation. There must be more to life than mere plusses and minuses.

On Anafi I have seen that there is much more. Something made appear.

Anafi is made for those travelling cheap. It is one of the few Greek islands where you can put up a tent for free. As a result, on the right side of Roukounas beach had arisen an agglomeration of tents. Sleeping on the quiet left side of the beach, where tents were not allowed, we called it the polis. I regularly went for a walk through the polis, seeing how people had boxed themselves in, much like at home. Many had demarcated the spaces they assumed theirs. It felt crowded. I was happy not sleeping there. The beach offered a miniature of Greece, a metaphor embodying tension and serenity. Again, my thoughts boiled down to black and white.

Steadily I disconnected from the rituals of daily life. There was no mobile connection on the beach, no phone and emails, further feeding a sense of remoteness. Disconnecting from everyday routines and machines freed up a capacity to appreciate what you normally take for granted, to ponder and wonder about things for which you normally do not have time. I connected with the natural environment. Sleeping under the stars allowed me to watch the sky every night. You just don’t do that at home. Like the tents in the polis, at home you are boxed in. Increasingly I felt like a little boy, playful, thoroughly enjoying myself, always curious and wondering, being amazed by things I had never known or seen.

Take the Milky Way. I had never seen that huge cloud of stars slowly moving across the sky, or at least never so incredibly clear. Perhaps I just never had taken the time for it. Or take the daily routines of the sun and the moon. Surely I’d seen them before, but I never had been so aware of their beauty and significance. I have never been so aware of the passing of time without knowing, or having to know, the exact day, date or hour. All that mattered was night and day, black and white, seemingly locked up in infinite time and space. The black and white metaphor — symbolizing all else — started to absorb me. The theme was everywhere.

On the beach I had brilliant conversations with wonderful people: about life, plusses and minuses, black and white. I learned lots, mostly that I did not know much. People talked about the cosmos, the zodiac and Greek mythology. It mesmerized me. My earlier convictions strengthened: everything is connected with everything. Like all else in life I am but one of an infinite number of agents or bodies of energy (and some sort of consciousness) bound by the electromagnetic forces of nature. We spent day and night, talking and wondering. And we looked up, spellbound by that never-ending parade of stars.

Since the beginning of the year I had noticed I was thoroughly enjoying myself. This I felt as a turnaround from the preceding years where I was cynical and, frankly, occasionally somewhat depressed. The more one reads or studies, the more cynical the world seemingly becomes. I was absorbing all that was wrong in the world. Thieving bankers and corrupt politicians frustrated me. Having said this, the idea that good simply does not exist without bad, derived from my ever-evolving worldview, gradually led me to let go of these negative impulses. I learned to study politics and finance without absorbing the negatives that come with it. Gradually I became an observer instead of participant. As if I stepped out of the circle. Instead of consuming negativity, I came to accept its inevitability, without being defeatist. In doing so, with time, I learned not to consume negative vibes. I observed them, took notice, but did not take it in. It did no longer consume me. As a result, with time, I became more positive. Truly happy, actually.

We slept on Roukounas beach for ten nights or so. No shower. No phone. No television. Nothing besides a beach and good company. With each day I increasingly felt like a little boy: curious, playful, happy with any shell, rock or stick I would find. Occasionally I would set myself tasks for the day. Catch a fish (yeah right). Go for a walk. That kind of thing. And with each day and night passing the black and white theme increasingly caught on to me.

I saw metaphors everywhere. I saw it in the dog’s eyes at the small tavern up the road, looking at me with one blue and one brown eye. We named the dog Gregory, after a philosopher friend of ours. I saw it in the two kids playing on the beach — one blond, the other dark haired. One day I found a black piece of string on the beach. I put it around my right wrist. I never intentionally looked for a matching white cord, but by the time our final night had arrived I had stumbled upon a white piece of string. I felt I had no other choice but to put it around my left wrist. It was just too obvious. I was not aware of the revelation that was about to come to me later that night.

In fact, it had already appeared to me the night before. I just had not noticed it.

The tavern up the road — taverna in Greek, pronounced with a menacing rolling rrr — provided another setting that just felt classic. From the beach you only had to walk a few hundred meters, over a dusty and rocky road, crossing the tavern’s vegetable garden prior to entering. The tavern was owned by a hippie priest from Piraeus. He drank. His wife cooked. His kids served. Every night the tavern was packed with people from the beach. The food was wonderful, the raki powerful. People laughed and played music, beautiful old Greek songs, sounding mystical and peaceful, more oriental than European. Many people sang along. The entire atmosphere was just typical. I was so much in love with magical Greece.

It was Friday night. Our ferry to Athens would leave Sunday evening. We decided to go to the tavern. It was quite late already. The atmosphere felt like any other day. There was guitar music in the background. It was peaceful. Serene. But something was different too. First, people were playing English songs. That made me happy because all week I actually wanted to sing along instead of mere nodding and mumbling. Second, the mood in the tavern was very good. Except for one person. This person talked loud where everybody else wanted to listen and sing quietly. Looking into his eyes he was obviously drunk. I will never forget that look. He talked politics, a topic most Athenians wanted to escape as long as they could. He talked English too, speaking loud in a nasty manner, using quite foul language. In all, he managed to spoil the peaceful atmosphere in the tavern that night. We did not manage to shut him up. His name was Cristos.

The minute I noticed Cristos and his drunken gibberish he started to irritate me. But somehow he did not annoy the other people at the table, or the others in the tavern. Some people asked the priest if he could tell Cristos to shut it. But really, that was about it. I remember the priest’s wife eventually came out of the kitchen to tell Cristos to behave himself. But this too was without avail. He just kept on talking, drunk, loud and irritating, repeating the same nonsense. But, surprisingly, he did not irritate the people around me. ‘In any other place this guy would have been kicked out already’, I thought. Perhaps I even said it out loud. But not in the tavern. In fact, I noticed that my friends became irritated with me for being annoyed with Cristos. ‘It is simply not up to you to shut him up’, Venetia told me in earnest. ‘This thing will solve itself’. Slowly I accepted Cristos’ loud presence. And suddenly I realized I was learning something beautiful.

I realized that by getting irritated by Cristos I was actually consuming, reproducing and amplifying his negative vibes. And I realized that by accepting him, and therefore not taking in his negative energy, I actually felt better. I actually felt very strong. I learned this, within the actual moment it occurred, from Venetia and the people around me. As said, Cristos seemingly did not irritate them. Instead they started to sing louder, to clap harder, and they tried to bring Cristos into to the group. They hugged him, talked sense into him, in a constructive and kind manner I had never seen before. It struck me. As a result, no longer being irritated by Cristos I joined the effort, trying to drive the negative vibes out of that guy.

I had not met Cristos before. I had seen him on the beach. He slept in the polis. But we never talked. But that night in the tavern, after I had come to the conclusion that it was wrong to get irritated by him, he suddenly came for me. He started to talk to me, loud and nasty, in the manner he was talking the whole night. ‘You are the guy from Amsterdam right?’, he asked me. My friends knew I was irritated by him and watched the scene unfold.

‘Yes’, I replied smiling. ‘Amsterdam sucks. The Netherlands is fake and boring.’ I waited for him to end his outburst and looked him in the eyes. His eyes were the typical eyes of a drunken person, hanging, red and swollen, with an oddly fearless look that said I really don’t give a shit. I realized I had to stay calm. I stayed calm. I put my arm around him. ‘Thanks mate’, I said. ‘You are a lucky man, you know that?’ But nothing I said really came across. Cristos was just too drunk. He kept talking nonsense, both in general and to me personally.

Surprisingly, by just being nice to him, and not letting him piss me off, I felt stronger and stronger. ‘You are just not being nice to yourself mate’, I told him. I continued to hold him. I looked at him. ‘You know’, I said, ‘I know you. It is as if I am looking into the mirror. I have been just like you. Angry, wasted, simply unable to behave or manage myself’. I actually felt this guy was not himself, but more beside himself. A day onwards this feeling would only grow stronger. We all tried to shut him up that night, hug him and bring him into the music, and drive out the negative vibes inside of him. But it was without avail. Cristos was simply too drunk to handle himself. Eventually people left the tavern early. ‘I will come and find you tomorrow’, I told Cristos. ‘Let’s talk then ok?’

On the one hand I was annoyed by the fact the music had stopped. I wanted to enjoy another good night with my friends. Yet on the other hand I felt I had really learned something valuable in the tavern, both from Cristos and the people around me. It somehow all fitted the lesson I mentioned earlier, to study a cynical world without being absorbed by it. It was beautiful.

The next day would prove one of the best days of my life. That whole day I was processing the experience the night before. I had learned something, something I was trying to understand for a long time. This too boiled down to good and bad vibes, positive or negative energies, or — again — just black and white. Such thoughts consumed me all day, culminating in a revelation later that night.

Around lunchtime I met Cristos in the tavern. He apologized straight away. I repeated what I had said the day before. That he was not good to himself. That I understood him, that I had seen myself in him. I really felt sorry for him. But I was also proud, proud about the way in which we had all dealt with the situation the night before. No aggression, no negatives — everybody tried to help him in a very kind manner. That afternoon people in the tavern laughed at me, said hello to me, some of them having seen the scene the night before. The priest’s kids serving in the tavern somehow seemed extra nice to me. As if they were happy with me and the way in which we all had dealt with Cristos. And so the day after the lesson I had learned the night before simply continued. I felt ridiculously good.

As said, the boy inside of me was out. The day before I had found a perfect wooden stick on the beach. Perhaps one and a quarter meter long, I carried it with me all the time. I walked with it, simulated martial arts with it. And along the way I found out some pretty silly things about that stick. For example, did you know you can either see or hear a stick? You can look at it and touch it. Alternatively, you can swing it so fast above your head that you can hear the stick but no longer see it. Sure, that’s obvious. I just had never given it any thought. It is funny how nature gets to you when you open up to it, or how a silly stick invokes all kinds of questions in a free and wondering mind, not burdened by daily routines and machines.

That day we said goodbye to another few people we had met on the beach. This time it was a Dutch woman with whom we had practiced to meditate, chanting Japanese mantras during the hours of sunset. I thanked her for kind instructions and wished her a good trip home. ‘I hope many doors will open for you’, she said. I told her that I had collected some very good memories on the beach. To me, that pretty much seemed to be the point in life. She was far more spiritual than me. I laughed and nodded and wished her well. Not much later I found that white cord and put it around my left wrist. I smiled.

There were more conversations that day that, in retrospect, appear as announcements to, or confirmations of, the experience that was about to come to me that night. For example, we had talked all week about our intentions to climb the hill up to the little monastery — Monasteraki in Greek. In Greece, Anafi is also known as the Gibraltar of the Aegean. A couple of kilometers left of Roukounas beach is a giant rock steeply sloping up. On top, at the monastery, we intended to spend the night, looking high over the sea whilst being amidst the stars. People say the coming and going of the sun and moon are incredible spectacles from there. But in the end we never went. ‘Well, you know what they say’, our Italian friend Fabrizio said that afternoon, ‘If Mohamed does not go to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohamed.’ Again, like the whole day, I smiled.

New people had arrived too. The ferry had picked up beach veterans and had brought freshmen. One of them was Dora, meaning ‘God’s gift’ in Greek. I had briefly introduced myself to her earlier that day. I did not speak with her for the rest of the day, not until the moment she suddenly started to talk to me later that night.

Late that afternoon I went to the polis to watch the freshmen colonize the beach, many replicating the logic from the city. I was happy not staying there. I did stay in the polis, however, but just for a chat. She was lying in a hammock. I don’t remember her name but she was nice. Still learning and absorbing the lesson from the night before, I obviously was being nice too. What I do remember is the name of her dog: Bastardo. Bastardo was — obviously — black and white. I say obviously because I saw, or wanted to see, that very theme everywhere. Bastardo was just another metaphor. I wanted him to come to me but he never did. Much like Gregory, the blue-brown-eyed dog in the tavern, Bastardo did not pay much attention to me. But I remember Bastardo being confident and cool: he did not move an inch when another dog came up to him.

It must have been late sunset because I got a bit cold. I said goodbye to the nice girl. I told her I was going to get my sweater on the other side of the beach, a few hundred meters leftwards. I walked to the sea and once my feet touched the water I started running. I ran like a careless child. I was so incredibly happy. Then, suddenly, running halfway along the beach, between the polis and our open sky, Bastardo was running right next to me. I laughed. He really seemed to enjoy himself. We ran together. But once I stopped in order to hug him he turned around and walked back. Just like that. He never looked back. I wondered. Eventually Bastardo’s action boiled down to a perfect example of attraction and repulsion, yet another metaphor for the theme that had come to absorb me.

Disclaimer: the experience that I will set out below goes beyond the stuff we conventionally comprehend or consider normal. It’s quite spiritual if you wish. So, just to be clear: NO, thanks for asking, I was sober that day.

Having just run crossed the beach with Bastardo, I saw my friends sitting at the very end. We had slept close to the big reddish rocks the last few nights because there was no wind. The rocks were warm, bursting with energy. Next to their nightly heating convenience the rocks produced wonderful sounds too, transforming the sound of the peaceful Aegean tide into a very low pitched baseline, somewhat resembling the sound of a Didgeridoo. The sun had set and now that exiting moment had arrived where you wait to spot the first star to emerge. It had become a daily ritual. First you see one, then hundreds, then God knows how many. Each night the collection of stars looked the same yet their exact composition was always slightly different. It never disappointed.

There was music and beer. For some of us it was the last night on the island and it was decided that we were going to drink, just like any other night. Adam was playing jungle on his MP3 player. I believe there were at least six people: Adam, Costas, Dora, Venetia, another girl and me. Perhaps I have forgotten some other people. Perhaps Gregory, the philosopher, not the dog. But that is not important. Venetia and the other girl whose name I cannot remember were sitting against the rocks. They were chatting in Greek. Adam was lying down a few meters away from the two girls at the rocks. So was Dora. These two hardly chatted but when they did that too was in Greek. Costas and me were playing at the shore a few meters away. I was dancing, with my silly see-and-hear stick of course. Costas was drinking. He had regularly said he did not like to drink because it made him a different person. But for our last night he made an exception.

I knew Dora had been drinking too. I had seen her pulling a bottle of gin out of her bag regularly that day. But I did not know she was drunk. As said, I had merely introduced myself to her earlier that day. I stress this because she could not have known about the night before, about the lesson learned in the tavern, about being nice instead of irritated, not reproducing negative vibes and all that. Dora was not there. That following night, however, there on the beach, I was dancing in front of her. I had hardly noticed Dora. I was fooling around with Costas. I stopped dancing, putting my stick behind my neck and putting both my arms over it, much like Christ on the cross.

‘You look aggressive’, Dora said in English.

Suddenly she rose up, sitting from the waist up. ‘You should not be aggressive.’ I took the stick out of my neck and walked up to her. I smiled and kneeled before her. Our eyes were leveling. It struck me immediately: those eyes, that look, reminded me of something, much like the way she spoke sounded familiar. ‘You should always try to be nice first, you should never be aggressive until people physically attack you.’ ‘Thank you Dora’, I said. I was completely nice to her. I thanked her for her comments, for trying to help me. I was completely nice to her, just like she had instructed me. But inside, in my mind, I was puzzled! Her look, her way of talking, appeared strikingly familiar. I had seen it before. She spoke nasty. ‘Always try to be nice first, and then you can fuck me’, she said before lying down again. Her eyes were the eyes of a drunk. Her look said I really don’t give a shit.

Kneeling down it struck me. Is this Cristos all over again? The same expression, the same manner of speaking. The look in Dora’s eyes was an exact copy of what I saw the night before. And how on earth could she be telling me this? How on earth could she summarize the exact lesson I had learned the night before? How could she tell me what I had been thinking about the whole day? And how was it possible that some drunken person would teach me this lesson and, in that very moment, I would pass that very lesson par excellence? It was all just too much! As with Cristos, the idea that Dora was not herself quickly came to me. Could it be that she really was besides herself? Just like Cristos, Dora was wasted. Were they both so besides themselves that something else — a sprit, an energy, you name it — can actually take over for a while?

My head was spinning, my stomach rolling. I was breathing quickly. I suddenly felt or sensed something very powerful. I was convinced something ‘larger than life’ had appeared to me, teached me a lesson, through these two people. For one Cristos and Dora appeared exactly alike; not their physique but in the manner of communication and expression. Were they somehow possessed by something? That suddenly made perfect sense to me. Why else had Cristos come for me personally in the busy tavern? Why in English? Why me? He did not know me. And how could Dora have said these things to me? She did not know me. How could she summarize exact lesson I had learned from Cristos? And how on earth could these two people appear so incredibly alike? I was sure of it. This felt beyond what you might call a coincidence. I was simply stunned.

What on earth was going on here?

Costas had overheard Dora’s sudden outburst. ‘Did you see that?’ I asked him. ‘Yeah man, and you dealt with it perfectly’, he replied. I walked up to him full of disbelief. ‘No, I mean did you see that?’ I asked again. ‘See what?’ Costas replied. ‘This Dora, the way she talked and looked at me, that was exactly like Cristos’. Costas had been at the tavern the night before. He laughed. ‘No really’, I said, ‘I saw in her the exact same thing as I saw in Cristos, in their eyes, some energy or spirit or something’. Costas stopped laughing. ‘You should not think so much’, he replied, and walked away.

Unlike Cristos and Dora, who were both complete strangers to me, I had met Costas back in Athens. We had come to Anafi with our common friends. On Roukounas beach everybody knew Costas. Costas is made of one thing only: good vibes, always thinking positive, always thinking ‘second level’ as he called it. Unlike some other people, he had never even slightly annoyed me once. I had never felt negative vibes coming from him. Costas had also found the boy inside him. Climbing trees, hiking and swimming. He loved it. He eventually stayed a full month longer on the island, living of tomatoes, garlic and dried bread. He quickly became the Coolio of the beach, or ‘son of a beach’ as he called it.

I walked back to the two girls sitting against the rocks. They were just too far away to have overheard the scene with Dora. And besides, they were chatting. In Greek no less, which means they were talking loud, fast and lots. Full of disbelieve and amazement I started to tell what had happened. ‘We are having a serious chat here’, Venetia said. Not allowed to spread the news, I sat down against the rocks, trying to comprehend what on earth had just happened. I watched the stars. I was trying to catch my breath.

Then suddenly the view became blurred: somebody had turned on our flashlights, pointing them to the sky above. There were three flashlights. Someone had turned them all on and had put them in the sand pointing upwards. ‘Turn off the lights man. You are wasting batteries. And you cannot see the stars like this’, I said out loud. I did not see who had turned on the lights. It was dark. ‘What do you care’, someone replied in a faul manner that by now sounded familiar.

It was Costas.

I immediately got the chills. I immediately realized this was odd. I immediately realized that Costas had just managed to irritate me for the very first time. I also realized Costas had been drinking, and I remembered how he had said to me why he did not like drinking. That it changed him. I had difficulty catching my breath. I got the chills all the way down my spine. I already heard it in his manner of speech, somewhat nasty and vulgar. Costas never spoke in that way. I knew it. I already knew what kind of look I would see in Costas’ eyes: I was sure I would see Cristos and Dora.

I was sure I would see it again. I felt it. It did not scare me. It did not invoke any negative impulses or emotions. I just continued to be stunned and amazed. Yet somehow I was also very aware, very cautious and conscious. My head felt clear. I felt a huge sense of respect and admiration for what apparently had appeared once again. Never in my life I have felt so weightless and humble. I kept inhaling deeply, with a feeling in my stomach as if in a free fall. It felt like a rush you get from certain drugs.

I walked up to Costas and, practicing my lesson of the day, I was nice to him. I put my arm around him. I looked at him. ‘Let’s turn these lights out man’, I said. I do not remember what Costas actually replied. But surely it was not much more than a ‘whatever’ or something. He had said few things. But the way in which he had spoken those few words said it all. And so did the look in his eyes. Costas has eyes like Al Pacino, big dark and intensive eyes that really speak for themselves. That night, in that moment, however, the look in his eyes was an exact copy of what I had seen in both Cristos and Dora — that particular look that said I really don’t give a shit.

I was being nice to Costas. I calmed him. I did as I had learned, as I was told. I was being nice to whatever was now inside Costas — an energy, a spirit, you name it. And I strongly felt that who- or whatever was now revealing itself to me through Costas, and had been communicating with me via Cristos and Dora before, was also being nice to me. To me it seemed all three of them had momentarily turned into deities — half god, half human. Through them a single energy revealed itself, speaking to me through their bodies, by briefly appropriating their intoxicated minds.

Whilst I was talking to Costas, the other people on the beach decided it was time for food. The beers were finished and we walked up to the tavern. I was obsessed with Costas. He was drinking lots and, given his own dislike for drinking combined with what I just had seen, I decided not to drink and to watch him carefully. We walked up the rocky road to the tavern together. I talked to him. He seemed reasonable. I believe he was himself again quite quickly. I watched him closely for the rest of the night. But that something what I had seen in him earlier never returned. Costas drank lots of raki that night. And he was fun. Just fun.

As always the tavern was packed. Surprisingly there was one table empty in the very corner of the tavern. I felt this was one of the best spots since you had a complete overview of the tavern. The moment we sat down at that table I saw Gregory, the dog. Like Bastardo, he had never paid much attention to me. Actually, up until then I had not managed to hug or stroke him once. But that night, having just sat down next to Costas, Gregory walked straight towards me. And just like that, having quickly looked into my eyes, Gregory put his head on my lap, staring into the tavern with one blue and one brown eye. I stroked him. And he just stayed there for ten minutes or so, resting his head peacefully on my lap.

I thought of everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours. Suddenly I felt these dogs, both Bastardo and Gregory, sensed what I was up to. Or perhaps these animals can also be agents of that thing which I just cannot explain. Perhaps it lives in all of us. Perhaps it is the essence of life. But it surely felt bigger than us mortals. Sitting there, with beautiful Greek songs being played, I suddenly felt enlightened. I was completely blown away by something truly beautiful, truly spiritual. I abstracted the tavern and humanity to be just another organism in a wider scheme of organisms in which everything is connected with everything, operating on dimensions we simply cannot comprehend. We ate and we laughed. We drank and we danced. And I was flying.

That night on the beach I looked up to the stars and saw all kinds of colors and shapes I had never seen before. As if I was hallucinating. The colors were distinctively yellow and purple. The shapes were clearly silhouettes of humans. No faces or features. Just shapes in the form bodies. Dark bodies, like shadows. The colors appeared around them. Like marching soldiers, I saw rows of bodies slowly moving toward me, then the bodies faded, to be replaced by the next row of bodies. That scene continued for a while. I only saw it if I was staring. Not looking but staring. I could actually decide whether I wanted to see it or not. I cannot explain to you what I felt that night. But it was mind blowing. Something made appear!

The next day, the day of our departure, I felt amazing. That whole day I had to take deep breaths every other minute to come to terms with what had appeared to me the night before. If I blinked my eyes I saw something, I noticed more electricity, more colors and shapes, in that very moment your eyes are neither closed or open. Thinking and writing about it brings back that feeling. In my stomach, in my head. Blinking my eyes now I can still sense what I saw then.

As the day went by, I became more convinced of what I had seen. I had seen that there are forces or energies inside all of us, with or above us, guiding us all. As in nature, we connect, dis- and reconnect. Everything is connected with everything. My energy and behavior impacts those around me, and vice versa. Instead of seeing us all as individuals, I increasingly became convinced that humanity is an organism. This organism is partly consciously directed or guided by social, man- made forces. But this human organism is also directed and guided by processes and forces operating on dimensions we cannot really comprehend. I am not sure to what extent everything in life is a coincidence or planned. Again, these are dichotomies that often become meaningless when abstracting them to their core. By surely this experience suggests life more than a mere coincidence. There is something that binds and guides us all. Something truly beautiful. I have seen it.

My worldview shifted. Where I might have thought I understood the world when we travelled to Anafi, a door had been opened to me on that island, revealing a world I had never been aware of. On the way back the world looked different, or I looked different to the world around me. Incidents or events I had earlier viewed and categorized as mere coincidences suddenly became something else altogether. As if these events or incidents were no coincidence at all, but rather planned, meticulously ordered by something bigger than myself. As in good television series, certain events from the past make more sense a while later. Or perhaps they only make sense after some time. In other words, through certain experiences you might suddenly see a whole bunch of other things or events differently.

I will give you an example. It also happened on the Aegean: during my first weekend in Athens we travelled to an island called Agistri. Agistri is one-and-a-half hour away from Athens, making it a popular destination for Athenians during the weekend. The ferry to Agistri is not biggest around, but it still is a big ship. It has three decks, two of which offering endless rows of chairs. I believe that ferry easily fitted a thousand people. Perhaps a few thousand. That Sunday, on our way back to Athens, I met a Greek student of mine, Dimitra, who I was about to meet the next day. She was writing her thesis on social exclusion in Thessaloniki and had come to Athens to meet me. We met on the ferry.

She was actually sitting in my chair.

Before the revelation on Anafi I interpreted the above encounter as a great coincidence. Not any more. Since something made appear on Anafi I feel meeting Dimitra, in my chair, on this large ferry, was not a coincidence but rather meant to be. Suddenly, I remembered how I thought of her when entering the ferry. I remember a quick thought in my head: perhaps Dimitra is here. I have not the slightest idea how such thoughts enter your head, but I clearly remember that it crossed my mind. Perhaps I sensed it. Perhaps our senses are capable of much more than we readily acknowledge. Then later, on a boat with perhaps a few thousand people on board, I see her sitting in my chair. Not the chair next to it, but actually in the chair I was sitting, the chair I left for five minutes to smoke a sigaret! I am not sure why this happened but, especially since Anafi, it surely it speaks to the stuff of Greek myths and sagas rather than mere coincidences.

I did not want to leave Anafi. I did not want to shower. My skin felt healthy and strong as never before. I did not want to sleep under a roof. I wanted to see. But all things end. Taking the ferry back to Athens that night, we walked up to the top deck. We stood at the back, watching the traditional chaos unfold below in the harbor. ‘Did you come from Anafi?’, a woman asked me. ‘How was Anafi? Is it that magical?’ she asked. I told her to wait. Within five minutes I had collected some ten people around me. I put the deck chairs in a circle. ‘So, you want to hear a great story from Anafi? Do you know what it means?’ And so I told the story I have written down here. I have told it many times since.

I remember the words of Venetia when I finished the story on the ferry.

‘You have become a prophet.’

I smiled.