EFT in the Hellenosphere: A Sequence

 

                        1

 

Arriving in Athens:

In the modern marketplace of psychotherapies,

EFT might have found itself homeless,

If the Existential therapists had not taken us in,

Welcoming our dialectics and epistemics,

Our synesthema and thymikos,

Crossing over between essence and existence.

Sing, Muse, of the marvels of emotion, feelings and affect!

 

                        2

 

Training journey:

On Alexander Street,

Hotel in middle of chaotic, busy central Athens.

Tourists ebb and flow by the day:

Portuguese and American, I hear their

Accents rise and fall In the breakfast room;

Row of suitcases, guides in the lobby,

Buses right outside on the busy road.

 

Agathi takes me away from all this,

Her little black Renault zig-zagging

Through a grid of small streets,

Pedestrians dodging us

Between blind corners,

Until we emerge onto bigger roads.

 

Friday traffic terrible, slow progress,

While endless streams of motorcycles

Zoom past us on the white line between lanes.

“It’s worse in the summer,”

She notes.

 

Kifisia, northern suburb,

Is slightly less chaotic,

But the white-walled little institute

Sits on a sunny side street,

Just down the hill form the local

Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St Dimitris,

Domed and glittering,

Banners out for its patron saints’ day.

 

We climb stairs, dodging windows

Opening onto the stairwell,

Up past little meeting rooms

We will use for skills practice,

To an upper room,

Waiting for disciples,

Chairs in a large circle.

Balcony with its view

Of Athens’ great bowl

Between mountains and sea.

 

Here is where the main training

Magic will happen

Over the next four days,

Roads through the human heart,

Emotional deepening and transformation.

 

And sure enough, by Sunday morning,

As we arrive, ancient Orthodox chant

Drifts across the neighborhood

Like incense.

Captures me as I arrive, counterpoint

To the deep heart work we do.

 

 

                        3

 

One-day break between trainings and travel:

We joined the crowds climbing the Panathenaic way.

Acro-polis: High city;

Sacred mountain: tourist destination for centuries.

Sadly reduced: the missing pieces fetishized

White marble statues long pilfered

By kleptomanic Romans, Turks, Brits and other

Colonizers, seeking the blessing

Of their misrepresentation of whiteness.

Supportive Caryatides long stolen,

Replaced by replicas like the curios

Sold in the tourist shops

Of the modern Agora.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        4

 

Black cassock like a cassowary,

Big-bearded missionary priest,

Orders all the desserts on the menu

So we can break sugar together.

 

Chef seeks our blessing

For his offerings.

 

 

                        5

 

Searching for One Cyprus:

Across the Green Line:

On our side, crowds of people,

Celebrating the holiday,

Restaurants crowded even this early.

 

Then the border posts, people queueing

To show their passports or identity cards.

“Is this your first time?” asks the guard

As he scans mine into his computer.

“Yes” I say, smiling and nodding.

I guess I’m in their system now.

 

A disputed country:

Empty Buffer Zone instead of border,

A few yards of abandoned buildings,

Then another border post

And another passport check.

On the Turkish-occupied side, just a nod.

 

And we enter a mirror universe:

No crowds, just a few people

In the shops and stalls

Goods in Turkish and ₺ (the symbol for Turkish Lira),

Lining the narrow street

In the gathering dusk.

 

Christodoulos, our guide, grizzled, friendly

Archaeologist cum art historian

Helps us read what we’re seeing:

Old churches morphed into mosques or Quran schools;

Figures long effaced, faces erased,

But here above a closed door Jesus remains:

In Islam, he is a prophet after all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We touch the weathered yellow sandstone building blocks.

Above, wooden balconies jut over our heads.

Twice, our guide points out white marble sarcophagi,

Empty as night comes on

In the narrow quiet streets.

 

Suddenly, the Islamic call to prayer

Eerily winds from old church spire-minarets

Melody melisma-ing up and down.

The same melody I heard days earlier in Athens

Celebrating Saint Dimitris’ Day,

Singing to God with the same song even. 

 

We pass by centuries-old inns preserved by

Economic deprivation:

No prosperity here to throw down

The old buildings, frozen in time.

 

We’re in an alternative universe,

Another possible country.

But in Turkish Cyprus even countryhood

Is questioned, left in limbo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dark now, almost alone,

In the quiet outdoor restaurant

In the courtyard of the Buyuk Han,

We eat humus and dolmades, and more.

 

Then we follow the way

to Rüstem Kitabevi,

Oldest publisher in Cyprus,

Now a coffee house where

Arabic or Greek (who can tell) hard rock

Jangles and bangs from the main room,

Drawing us to the energy.

“Private Party!” says the owner,

As she blocks our way, but offers instead

Another party:  Old books

Modern Islamic art, brightly lit.

A place out of time.

 

Common music and food echo

What the graffiti speak: One Cyprus.

Not the two countries

Proclaimed and striving against one another

By politicians and citizens

asleep to their essential unity,

Connections woven like lace souvenir coasters

Protecting against the evil eyes of envy and division.

 

Someday, maybe: One Cyprus.

Someday, maybe: One World.

 

 

                        6

 

Final night Training dinner celebration:

Preparing to leave Athina-Athens and Kiprou-Cyprus.

So many more souls opening,

Following the deepening roads to the heart,

All of us were touched and changed,

More deeply woven into one another.

 

Afterward, what could be more

Absurd than a salsa-latin fusion band

Playing their hearts out

(“Guantanamera” and “Desposita”)

For El dia de los Muertos

In skeleton costumes…

At a Mexican restaurant in Nicosia?

 

How about falafel and humus vegan tacos?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A perfect ending to our Athens-Cyprus

EFT training adventure,

Twenty-first century psychotherapy

Following ancient trade-routes

Like neural pathways in the brain,

Accompanied by electric violin. 

 

 

                        7

 

Journeying home:

Morning, coming over the pass toward Larnaca;

The sea not wine-dark

But glowing molten, golden chryso

Like fire pyro.

 

Landing in Athens,

White buildings, red earth, sparse grass

Like an ancient California, my home,

Glowing in the sun.

 

Returning, first Athens, then Frankfurt:

Modern Greece appears to be

The route for refugees.

I am subjected to multiple additional passport checks:

Police check me first coming off the plane

Then again at the gate for my flight to Glasgow.

 

Soon we will all be refugees,

But where will there be for us

To take refuge

If the world is ruined

By war and climate change?

 

 

                        8

 

Telos:

On this journey through

These ancient places

Blue skies rhyme with my time

Growing up in California,

The place I will soon return to.

 

As a teacher, I felt myself set free

In these places,

Muse-struck, not heedless but

Present in each moment.

 

Not far from the end of my life:

Who knows how much time

Between now and then?

 

But in the meantime

Each day is a gift:

I’m happy just to touch these lives,

And to be touched by them,

As if doing just this

Was the true meaning of my life.

 

                                    -Robert Elliott, 31 Oct – 7 Nov 2022, Athens-Nicosia-Glasgow