I still feel sick in my stomach when I think of school in Hellas! Poor babies! Still today when I visit my friends in Thessaloniki, I hear the speakers from the neighboring school, every morning! The kids are Singing: “I recognize you from the terrible sight of the sword!” And the national anthem goes on to say that the sword and the bones of our ancestors gave us the freedom we are enjoying now! Being in a prison, silenced, deleted, punished for being ourselves…………. losing ourselves!
We were lost and lost! Like an itch you cannot scratch! The namness, the uniformity, the grayness, the hypocrisy, the hours passing, talking about trauma? We see now that trauma is not what happened, it is also what didn't happen. Talking about education, and its lack.
But:
With 5 planets in Virgo, I love to learn. And my friend the astrologer says Virgo is Virgin nature. Artemis the moon goddess, ruling moon cycles, waters, months and menstruation. Teacher and healer, leader and priestess.
The trees and the sea were my teachers.
I loved to climb and find my seat on the huge fig tree in our garden. I became tree. I melted into the sea waves crashing with pebbles and sand. I became waves.
My parents left me alone, in the good and bad sense. They transmitted their love for nature. I am grateful for all conglomerations that made me what I am.
Thessaloniki, my home town was a crossing port on the journey to the East. We were a collective gap and a collective bridge between the war generation and the sex and drugs and rock’n roll culture. English and American, smelling of patchouli and marihuana. As soon as I could I joined the magic bus to India.
In those 6 months of travel, I saw human beings in nature, and I lived this way. I saw a field of possibilities, an unknown earth.
Coming back to Thessaloniki, I immersed myself in the study of spiritual traditions. I kept a direct connection and dialogue with universe, what I knew as a child.
I found the I Ching, the Taoist book of changes. I was reading it from beginning to end. I was happy to find support for what I was feeling: the holographic nature of life, the interconnectedness of all there is.
There was another Taoist classic available in the city bookshop: The Secret of the Golden Flower. With that, I started to meditate.
I studied the Bardo Todol: the Tibetan book of Death, and didn’t understand anything at the time. I lived the books of Carlos Castaneda, and I still remember them after 40 years.
We were a culture of travel, artistic expression, and discovery. I travelled around Europe and took the opportunity my parents were offering me, to go wherever I liked, and study whatever I liked. They had fought hard to win the freedom they gave me.
I chose England and went to art school in London. That is where I was summoned by acupuncture.
My teacher J.R. Worsley had travelled to the Orient, studied with Taoist teachers, and founded the Leamington College of 5 Element Acupuncture. His words: “You have to love your patients.” We did not have books, and the study was not via intellect, but via sensing, seeing, listening, feeling the pulse, the emotion. I had arrived home!
John and Angela Hicks were my clinical teachers in the 5-element school. They led the integration of 5 elements with TCM that became the Reading College https://citcm.com/.
I was lucky to study with them for many years, starting with diagnostic skills courses in 1984 and completing the TCM theory and clinical skills course in 1995.
NLP, KI aikido, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and Feng Shui were waves coming in the shore of integration.
It was raining self-development skills: I worked in Waterloo acupuncture centre. (1984-1990) With more than twenty 5 element practitioners from all countries, it was bubbling with inspiration and discovery. I still miss it.
I studied Geomancy at Feng Shui Network International from 1993-98. I was teaching Feng Shui in Astroon in Athens. That led me back to my until then obscured Hellenic lineage. My relationship with the sacred sites of Hellas became stronger.
I worked in such an ancient healing place in Eftalou yoga, in Lesvos for a few years. That is where I received the vision of free earth, of human beings giving the planet back to her universal home, the solar system.
Living with the seasons started happening to me then. A way of being in the rhythm of natural spirit, true nature.
I made my summer residence in a sacred ancient place in Eressos, Lesvos.
At that time, I was living in Holland (2000 to 2020) I studied Chinese herbs and medical diet with Yifan Yang, at Zheng Shu University in Amsterdam (2003-2006). I studied Western medicine in 2003 and 2015. That inspired me to study functional medicine and integrate the holistic approach in all systems of medicine. I found a wonderful teacher, Yair Maimon, who does exactly that, integrating Western oncology with oriental medicine. I studied trauma healing, spirit acupuncture, and holistic diagnosis: seeing the patient’s soul, qualities, and journey.
From 2003 till now I am on the path of the Diamond approach with AH. Almaas. Presence, meditation, inquiry: the art of not knowing
That orientation leads me to the collective healing movement. Since 2020 I have been studying and working with collective healing.
As collective eye and heart opens, collective action is possible.What about you? Are you in the same boat? Is it a rescue boat, or is it the Titanic sinking? Or has it sunk already long ago, the orchestra still playing in a virtual world?Are you a rescue boat?Are you struggling to make it alone? Or are you trying to do it for others? Are you feeling blessed to live in such interesting times? My invitation is to offer our unique alchemy for being ourselves to all. We need to show up now, and be present with our capacities. No one else can do what we can.