Driftwood

As the Director of Sales and Marketing for a Danish manufacturer of dental equipment, my distributor in Greece, a company owned by two dentists, requested a special price for the first dental equipment for the monastery of Vatopedi in Mt. Athos.

In gratitude, I received a special invitation and a visa to visit the monastery together with the two dentists and an orthodox priest from Cyprus. We drove from Athen to Nea Roda, just beyond Stagira, where Aristotle was born. There we boarded a boat to Vatopedi.

The week before our visit, Prince Charles of England, sailing with a Greek friend, had stayed in the same guest quarters we did. Camilla Parker had to remain on the yacht, as no women are allowed in Mt. Athos.

Here is goes…

I woke to chanting baritone voices

and rhythmic bells - hymns from the past.

The crepuscular light - an early morning,

the hum announcing a new Byzantine day.   

I see dark clad Anthonite monks carry

treasures, in and out of the golden chapel.

Aromatic skulls, icons, scriptures, crosses,

symbols of Vatopedi’s ceremonial past and

its present, well-hidden here, deep within

the holy land of unworldly Mount Athos. 

My spartan room had known many a king.

Men are equal under God, but no woman

ever set foot in the Garden of the Virgin,

only She, the ubiquitous spiritual Abbess. 

Under domed starry blue, golden ceilings

in the richly adorned ancient refectory,

breakfast is attended. Bread and fruits,

served on worn marble tables, hollowed

by monks wiping through the centuries,

a mind-blowing unreal measure of time. 

Serenity and spiritual peace permeate

the elements of the perpetual mystery.

Faith, orthodox faith, all faiths, perceived

through the eyes and the depth of souls.

In this fertile land, mountains reach high

in the sky towering above the Aegean Sea.

I hear the echo of anonymous prayers that

amalgamate our sinful, diverse humanity

uniting this miraculous divine civilization

with a powerful and intense spirituality. 

Can the sacrifice of these zealous monks

who chose nothing to have everything,

the collective consciousness of all people,

save us with their prayers and chants? 

Wandering along the shore, an old monk,

told an ancient tale to this stranger about

mother Mary who miraculously landed,

where I stood, amidst a dangerous storm.

Without her, this mythological place and

my experience would never have existed. 

Alone by the seashore, I looked for a sign,

something significant reflecting everything.

I picked a tiny piece of driftwood shaped by

time and season, much like us, humankind.