PRACTICING AWARENESS ON MT. OLYMPUS

Practicing awareness on Mt. Olympus

It was a sunny Saturday here, last week, in Thessaloniki city, when our team of members from the local gnostic group and some friends that we invited to participate, departed for a visit to the archeological park of Dhion and a walk on Mountain Olympus. It was an attempt to practice awareness and other exercises given at the courses, out in nature, for the whole day.

North of Litochoro, at a distance of about 10 km, lies the archeological park with the ruins of ancient DHION, a sacred place constructed by the Macedonian kings. It was a place of worship for the ancient Greeks from 4000 B.C. onwards,  where the worship of Zeus continued even in the A.D. years, during the period of the Roman occupation.

A history lecture before we enter the archeological park

Our first aim was to experiment concentration, focusing on the sense of our bodies weight and movements, while walking through the park. There were many bridges we had to cross, cause in the winder many of the ruins are covered by water. But there was still in this season a spectacular view of sanctuaries and statues emerging over the water.

 Zeus on his throne  The environment was very harmonic and we felt the positive energy of the place. Every sense of weariness on our bodies, suddenly was gone. But it turned to be a difficult aim to remain focused on our bodies, due to the fascinating details of the surrounding.  The statue of Goddess Isis   The statue of Hypolymbidia Aphrodite  Goddess Goddess Amalthea with the horn. In greek mythology she was the "goat" who nourished Zeus  A statue of a woman.She seems ready to take her bath Those footsteps on the stone belong to a just married couple. An ancient custom here symbol of faith between spouses.  A work of art  What can it be? A creature from another dimension? Of course not. It's a beautiful insect. We call it "liveloula" or small helicopter. I am sure it understood that it would become famous, cause it didn't move until the photographing was over. We left Dhion, having visited only the half of the area (2,000 sq.m) and took the road to Mt. Olympus. Below there are some photos of the amazing nature scenery we met on Mt. Olympus. It is the most imposing mountain of Greece, isolated from all other massifs, it rises at almost 3,000 m above sea level, allowing to no nearby mountain to question its supremacy. The ancient Greeks had “reserved” the highest peak of Mt. Olympus, to which they did not dare ascend, to be the humble abode of their twelve gods. They ascended only up to the nearby lower peaks, where they left their votive offerings there.      Here we practice visualization in nature beside the river. Below is a photo of the scenery that lays in front of us  Practicing awareness on a path above the river Lunch time. Typical mediterranean nutrition, with the bottle of olive oil in the center of the "table". It was a good chance to concentrate on the sense of taste. I tried hard to remind to the team again and again to eat very slowly and to feel every aspect of the food, but after some attempts I realized that everybody was too hungry to follow my instructions till the end.   The water produced a very calmative sound  A very strange "triple" tree  Trees praying    What about this? Is this the  elementary of the tree? Just a member of the group! We stayed on the mountain practicing and discussing about many aspects of gnosis teachings till the sunset. After those interesting and refreshing routes in Dhion and on Mt. Olympus, we decided to come back again for a weekend practice. Then we took the way back to the city, feeling serene, with peace inside us and strongly motivated for the esoteric work.Alexis