#80 / The Minotaur

Confined to Athens and its immediate environs on this trip, I did not track the maze of the Minotaur on Crete.

This depiction of the Minotaur was found at the National Anthropological Museum of Athens.

Don't miss this museum on your next trip to Greece!

#79 / Delphi

Delphi was the location of the most famous oracle of ancient times, and was considered to be the center of the Earth. The (female) oracle, seated on a tripod over a fissure in the earth, breathed in vapors released from seismic activity at the site, and then made her predictions. They were often enigmatic, but were sought after by both the nobles and the common people.

The site was appropriated by the (male) priests of Apollo, and became a place in which the various Greek City-States boasted of their accomplishments and their power with ever-greater architectural erections. A shopping center, a stadium, and a theater (pictured) complemented the temple. The oracle remained, to draw the people, and she was available on nine Fridays each year.

To best experience Delphi, eschew the guided tours and the explanations and go to the heights. There, the strange and peaceful power of this place remains.

#78 / Aptos Bread

On the streets of Athens
Still thinking of Santa Cruz

#77 / Greek To Me

The universal language of graffiti is alive and well in Athens. The government, in fact, in a jiu jitsu-like effort to harness the creative impulses of its citizens, has sponsored paid commissions to use large walls for "graffiti art."

The compelling need to speak out is made visible here, in the hometown of democracy. Monuments not excluded.

#76 / The Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum, in Athens, is surely one of the most wonderful museums in the world. Beneath the Acropolis, which is always within sight, and built above the ancient residential quarters of Athens, which can be seen through glass floors, the museum reminds us not only of the "glory that was Greece," but of the glorious adventure that is at the heart of our existence. Our brief lives are dedicated, in the end, to the creation of the human realities we most immediately inhabit.

#75 / The Anti-Cancer Mind

Food choices are at center of Anti-cancer, the book by David Servan-Schreiber that I took on my "hotspots tour" to Greece and Israel.

Most impressive to me, though, was his chapter on the "anti-cancer mind."

One lesson I took away was this: we are not wholly "determined" by our environment but are also "determining" of it, and our creative (and therefore healing) powers are mobilized when we recognize the reality of a life force that is beyond our own capabilities but upon which we can, in fact, rely. At the most granular level of our existence, our own actions, which generate "our life," are ultimately dependent on a life that we do not create, but which sustains and supports us and all our own works.

#74 / Anti-Cancer

I found David Servan-Schreiber's book, Anti-Cancer to be profoundly worthwhile. Servan-Schreiber died on July 24, 2011, after a twenty year struggle against cancer. My thanks to Karen Loomis for sending this book my way.

It's not just for those who have cancer.