MY GREEK HERITAGE

MY GREEK HERITAGE

By

Spyros Pavlou, PhD

I wanted to share with you a quote from Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco. Kazantzakis is a renowned Greek author. 

The economic turmoil that has gripped Europe the last few weeks is dominating the international news, and Greece’s financial Crisis (see my previous blog) has distracted people’s opinions and perceptions of what Greece is today; not really too different from Kazantzakis’ description.

“I was returning to get to know Attica, that is what I thought, but I was returning to get to know my soul; in the trees, in the mountains, in the solitude I sought to find and to know my soul – all was in vain; my heart did not pulse, an indisputable sign that I was not to find what I sought.

One day only, just one noon, I thought I found it. I had gone alone to Sounio; the sun was burning and summer had come, the wounded pines were bleeding resin and the air was redolent with its aroma. A cicada came and sat on my shoulder and for some time we walked together; all of me smelled of pine, I had become one.

Suddenly, as I walked out of the grove of pine trees, I saw the white columns of the Temple of Poseidon and in between them, the glittering, dark blue, and the blessed sea. My knees buckled. I came to a standstill. ”This is Beauty”, I thought, “this is wingless Nike, the apex of joy, man cannot reach anything higher. This is Greece…”

Nikos Kazantzakis (Excerpt from Report to Greco)