Someone once asked me to name my favorite trip from over a lifetime of a travel. I couldn’t answer. Because I have been so fortunate to have seen extraordinary places on our blue planet, how could I possibly choose?
The question stayed with me in the next few days. If I absolutely had to pick…
I would tell them about the place that has stayed within me ever since I was there; not that it is more beautiful, more breathtaking or more educational but because it is the place that captured, held and entered my soul.
I was on a voyage in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas, visiting archaeological sites of the Graeco-Roman world . High on a hillside in Greece we came to the ancient site of the Delphic sibyl. After climbing up the hillside, our group listened to the guide give the history and significance of Delphi. Afterwards, I climbed higher, beyond the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. I perched on a flat rock in the shadow of Mt.Parnassus far above, looking out over the sea of olive trees in the distance. I wanted to feel the ancient presence, to bathe in the Mediterranean light. I have no idea how long I remained there. I felt a powerful, welcoming energy that held me, even while I was aware that the rest of my group was heading down the hill. Even had I wanted to, my body wouldn’t let me move. Looking up to the top of Mt. Parnassus, I sensed the presence of heroes, demi-gods and goddesses gathered there. From the ruins below me, an invisible, inaudible force seemed to float up from the oracle’s cave, where she had sat on her three-legged stool. It took extraordinary will for me to stand up at last and move away down the mountain.
Unbeknownst to me, my husband had found his own rock higher up and had taken a picture of me. Later that evening, back in our room, he was looking at the photos on his camera when he gasped. “What is it?” I wondered. He showed me the photo. There I was, seated on my rock with an aura, a soft mist of white above my head. “Is that what you saw?” I asked. “No,” he replied, I never saw this. It’s only here in the photo.”
I didn’t doubt it for a minute. Invisible to the human eye, the camera had picked up my energy field while in the presence of these extraordinary ancient mysteries. White aura is the highest chakra, the visible appearance of spirit.
The magnificence of green, rolling waves far below along with the majesty of towering Mt. Parnassus on a bright sun-soaked day in Greece: that alone would put Delphi in the running for a favorite place I’ve visited. Yet it is the beyond-body experience of ancient mystic wisdom infused in a sublime presence that made it so.