I'm all too familiar with taking the road less traveled to reach the higher ground to a place of worship. I watched with amazement these new modern pilgrims biking and hiking the way up the tallest mountain I have ever encountered in my life, to get to such a place.And as we rode up the mountain,curling around its bends, I felt the air getting thinner in my lungs, and crisper against my cheeks. The blue of the sky played hide and seek with the clouds. The higher we went, the deeper we found yourselves in them. I remembered The Xoklissi tou Ai Lios on the mountain of Taigetos. I'm not sure how long we had to walk, but we reached it late in the night. It was the middle of summer but we had brought coats. We slept under its moon shed shadow, under a sky so full of stars that I had felt I could spoon them out of the sky, into my mouth. How do people pick these places?Does the earth call to them, with a voice sweet like that of their mother, piercing through their senses, into their hearts? Is there an unseen energy, undefined by words? These sacred places filled with beauty and reverence.We reached a plateau and were greeted by hundreds of locals equalised by their faith.They too were waiting to either be pulled up by a telepheric, or to finish the hike on foot.We squeezed together much too intimately for American standards And were pulled to the top.The scent of wild spices enveloped us. Children ran past us, through us, as my eyes gently caressed The florentine bronze sculptures of the journey of Christ with the Cross and remembered being one of those children too. Running down the mountain, through my fathers village, to reach the church for evening Easter masses. And the
re above the clouds Monsserate stood Humbly glorious. I walked up the steps, through the arches into the church. The Black Virgin Mary...I had not expected her. I could no longer contain my emotions in Her presence. I surrendered and cried...