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Greek Retreat - 2008

Greek Retreat

2008

This report was originally a blog by Alexandros on Gnosticweb

Fifty three people came together for this Greek retreat, representing the Cyprus, Australia, Norway, Canada, US, Germany, Bulgaria, Greece.


Let’s make a review to the Greek retreat, where we had the chance to visit archeological monuments and beautiful places upon the mountains and down near the sea…

The frequent changes of pictures and places gave us a motivation to investigate intensively how we can be in the present moment and what our attitude is towards an ancient monument, a sunset or even inside a cave.

All these places proved to be an excellent source of energy and inspiration for us and our practices.

We had the chance to do some special practices of concentration on the sound of the waves of the sea and the sight of stars at night, as well.

We also felt the power of Mantras and the revival power of Yoga Asanas, a series of exercises taught at the retreat.

So our adventure begins…


In front of the ancient temple of Poseidon at Sounio (a place nearby Athens).
Serapfim (Cyprus Centre) guiding the group there.
A nice view from Poseidon’s Temple…

After 6 hours driving we arrived at Dasiko Horio in Amfissa which was the place of the retreat.

“Dasiko Horio” means “Forest Village” in English and it is a small village that includes 20 wooden houses surrounded by firs…

One of the wooden houses…
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Ioannis (London Center) spoke to us about the importance of the retreat and gave us a few guidelines about how we could benefit most from it.
Here Ioannis is giving us some tips about awareness and self-observation a few minutes before the awareness walk begins.

Students were split into 3 groups with Ioannis, Seraphim, and Alexandros (Athens Centre).

One of the group guided by Alexandros…
During a walk we find this…
The next day we went to Delphi, the place where the Ancient Greek saying “know thyself” was inscribed in the past…

Delphi became our goal for astral.
Exploring the museum of Delphi…
A beautiful visitor out there…
Lunch time to Dasiko Horio
Later we played a very interesting game. Ioannis split us into 2 groups guided by Seraphim and Trent (Melbourne Center).

We played basketball and according to the rules each player had to put the ball into the basket having his eyes tied up and after other players spinning him quite a few times! During this game we learnt how to observe our inner world, be clear inside and use our intuition in order to find the target.

Giorgos (student of Athens Center) is trying to find the right direction to shoot.
The next day early in the morning we had the chance to go to the top of a mountain and see the sunrise from there. The altitude was 1500m.
We tried to be in the moment as the sun was rising…We felt that there was a unity among the team after that…
A great view from there…
After the sunrise, we practised the Yoga Asanas with the guidance of Seraphim.
The next visit was on the mount Parnassus (2250m), which is said to be the sacred mountain of the god Apollo and the 9 nymphs.


We arrived at a nice place called Eptastomo, which means “7 mouths” in English, and there are 7 gates going under the ground.
A lot of legends about fairies, nymphs and other creatures are abundant there. At this place there is also a cave which is said to be linked to the nymphs.

Going to see the 7 gates…
After that short exploration, we did a mantra all together with the guidance of Ioannis and then each of us had the opportunity to investigate how it is to be in the present moment exploring this place on his own...
Jim (US student) doing his practice…
After exploring the 7 gates we went to “Korikio Andro”, a cave on the mount Parnassus
Trent some steps before the entrance of the cave…
Inside the cave we found this stalagmite…
Ioannis split us into 2groups for some tasks, so one group was responsible for bringing wood so that we can light a fire and the other group was responsible for carrying some stones so that we can make a circle and sit around it.
With the guidance of Trent we did a mantra inside the cave… We all felt the power of sound in this special place…
Later Christos (Greek student) played for us the amazing musical instrument called “Nay”.
Back to Dasiko Horio the practices were continued….
The last day of the retreat we went to the sea…
The view from there…
Going down to the coast…
It was a quiet coast with no other people there so we had the chance to experience some peaceful moments by the sea.
Look at this…
Preparing the dinner (left to right): Dimitra (Greek Student), Eleni (Greek student), Lilia (Cyprus student), Marina (Greek student) and Venia (Greek Student)…
Later a set of practices started. Here Vadim (Canada student) while practicing…
After the sunset…
… we gathered all together and Ioannis told us to concentrate on the sound of the waves. It was amazing…
And the final group photo…


We all took much strength and more knowledge about ourselves and the way we act in different situations…

This retreat taught us how we can be in the present moment t in different places, in different situations…

At the end of the retreat we all felt that we were a strong team…