It’s evening, almost ten thirty, Lilly’s in bed sleeping, Leighton just went in to lie down too. Now I get some time to myself, out on the patio. The moon is out, it looks full; I think Venus is out too, if indeed it is Venus, the bright shining star that comes up over the mountain every night. Our new neighbors, the Greek family with the baby girl, the boy (10 yrs.), and the girl (13 yrs.), are most likely out, eating dinner.
Christina took us up to see the family church this evening. She came by, just as we were finishing up supper, and asked, do you want to come along and see the church? We answered yes, and she said, take on some clothes and hurry, my mother-in-law is waiting in the car.
So we quickly put on some things and went with, drove up to where we had walked the other night, and now Flora opened the gates for us. To such beautiful places. I would like to go back there again, on my own, to sit still and take in the sacred space. The church, inside, is packed with Greek orthodox art, icons, given by friends, family, or others in the village or nearby villages who wanted to give something for a prayer. The church is dedicated to three saints, but their festival is in the winter, when Christina and her family is in Athens, so they have their annual church festivities in the summer, on August 6, during a festival for Maria. That would be tomorrow, but since Christina’s father-in-law is ill with Alzheimer, and had a stroke during this past Easter, they are not doing the celebration at the church this year (which she described to me as including everyone in the village coming up to enjoy sweets and scents, a priest attending to the ceremonial undertakings, a big party all in all). Flora walked around in and outside the church, burning incense, lighting candles in (olive?) oil. Christina described the various icons to us, who they had been given by, with their prayers and dedications.
Then we walked to down below the church to see some more of their land. They own all the land between their apartment complex close by the sea and up along the hill, to their church, quite a ways inland, up in the mountainside. They have beautiful olive trees, a vine grove, fig trees, cactus pear trees, and more. They used to keep a pig up there, and chicken. Now with Flora’s husband being so ill, everything is downscaled: no more pig, and the chicken has been moved down to next door (we got some of their eggs the other day).
While we were up there, we got to see dolphins, swimming out in the ocean, diving down and coming up again (for air?), so graceful, so dolphin-like! Apparently they come in to eat the white bait (small fish) that we got from Christina the other day. Adonis, the local fisherman, had fished those, and Christina thought he probably had the nets out for the same fish tonight, seeing those are the most plentiful fish to come by right now. And the dolphins come for the white bait. Adonis doesn’t like the dolphins, because they destroy the nets. But man, are the dolphins beautiful to look at! And to hear! It was our first time, for all of us, to see and hear them out in the wild like that. Amazing.
Flora picked some figs for us while we were up there, and also gave us some of the basilicum. How very fortunate we are.
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