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How can a journey up a stream turn into a mystical experience? My visit to the Aegean island of Samos showed me how I could connect with archetypal figures from Greek mythology through the beauty of nature.

I was in for some surprises in May of 2006, when I first visited Samos, a Greek island near the border with Turkey, to give a talk at a students’ club. I had been invited by Minas Papageorgiou—a student back then and now a writer, researcher and journalist—to speak about Mary Magdalene. He took me on a journey up a stream named Potami (pron. potámi), the Greek word for river. It turned out to be a magical place as the stream runs through a forest and forms small lakes and waterfalls.

I’ve been hesitant to share this story here because I didn’t want anyone to misinterpret it as a sales pitch. As much as I am a full-time tarot pro and therefore constantly in shameless self-promotion mode, my blog here at PaganSquare is about magick, tarot and community, not making sales. 

The thing is, when one is a professional diviner, the classic lines between the magickal and the mundane blur quickly and easily.

The last year was very happy one for me, and full of wonderful travels, meetings with new friends, and blessings were poured like rain.
I really hope that the coming year will be also fulfilling and peaceful; and "let the God/s you honor, will send you everything you wish for, and gives their blessings to your friends, families, children and neighbors"...
For my first post in 2016, I want to share some of my devotional poetry again - written in honor of Thoth-Hermes-Djehuty.

I have my soul
ignited with your light…

*

when I whisper the words of love
I feel your wings
around, protecting me;
when I speak your praises -
it’s the only reason to know how to speak,
when I live for you -
it’s the only reason to remember again,
how to breathe…

Our giant new television came with high definition. While my husband marvelled at the crispness of the picture and the exciting quality of the sports events, I noticed something else. 

The illusion of reality had disappeared.

One of my yoga students approached me after class. She wanted to discuss a scene from a book I’d leant her.

“You know how the author is teaching a yoga class, and one of his students breaks down crying and he cradles her head in his hands and acts as her witness? And then he shows her how to be her own witness?”

I nodded.

“Well I was wondering if you could that for me?”

Sure. No problem.

Home. We don't really know how we feel about it. We may reject the place that raised us and seek to escape its troubling pull. Or we may long for an idealized home and set out to find it. But home is something you can neither escape nor find in its perfection. Rather, “home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” (Robert Frost) We can't avoid the imperfection inherent in living with those we haven't chosen. And even those we choose can disappoint us, and we them.