The Gods II

So we have had a series of problems with flying, with really weird weather (Lots of rain in July!  Rain for days at a time! Thunderstorms!), and with electronics (computers, cameras, wifi generally).  In my first post of the summer, I went through the pantheon trying to work out who was pissed at us.  At that point, I'd narrowed it down to Hermes, Zeus, and perhaps Poseidon.  Poseidon seems to have been quiet, so it seems to be Hermes, Zeus, or both.  Before we fly again, I decided to do what I can to acknowledge their influence and perhaps appease them.

Zeus scares me the most because he is literally awesome.  The ancient Greeks knew that; his temples are Olympian in scale.

Temple of Olympian Zeus in  Athens, Parthenon in the background.

And when they fell, they fell violently.

Fallen column at Olympian Zeus in Athens

Fallen column capital at Olympia

These just tumbled down like dominoes in the earthquake of the 7th century. (Olympia)

So today we visited the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens with some tribute.  We had bought a sacrifice (normally an animal) at the Paniyiri on Wednesday especially for this purpose:

A typical paniyiri treat:  red candy rooster which I have written about before. We figured it was an animal, and would melt, not leaving any litter once I took the wrapper off.

We also got a Zeus reproduction coin and a small evil eye bracelet.  Here is what we did:

We found a stone to represent the altar stone, and sacrificed the chicken against it.

Then I left my bracelet on a nearby tree.

Phil found a rock under my bracelet tree with an indentation in which to leave the coin, lightly camoflauged.

We figured that either Zeus would collect them or some small child would find them and be delighted to discover treasure.

We hope Zeus accepts our tribute.

We wanted to thank Athena, so after a farewell dinner at Dipylon with most of the students, we took a small, adventurous contingent with us to leave our tribute to Athena and stop by the best gelato place in Greece.  We planned to leave it in a geocache on the Odeion, figuring that Athena was wisdom, but also cleverness, and would appreciate the puzzle of a geocache on the Acropolis.  But it was the night of the total lunar eclipse, so we got sideline watching it happen on the Areopagus, right at the entrance to the Acropolis. Gracie, one of our students, had the brilliant idea of leaving it at the oldest olive tree we could find, in honor of the story of Athena and Poseidon's contest to become patron of Athens -- he gave them salt water and she gave them an olive tree on the top of the Acropolis.  So Gracie climbed a tree and place the coin in crook, and I tied the bracelet to  a branch.

Then we walked towards Syndagma, and after all these years, finally discovered the wonderful little village of Anafiotika right at the top of Plaka.  How lovely to end our trip with a new secret treasure! Although the eclipse suggests destruction and chaos, this adventure suggested success, so we felt like our gifts had been accepted.

Hermes is a little tougher.  There was no obvious place to leave an offering. Phil said that he would have been recognized in "Herms" blocks of stone on the roadsides, often at a crossroads with a human head and perhaps a phallus. There weren't any that we knew of outside of museums, so I thought that perhaps the little ecklesakis, the tiny churches or sacred spaces which are also found on roadsides might be the modern day equivalent.  We didn't see any downtown or in Aghia Paraskevi but on  our trips up Hymettus we always passed one, and I'd visited it before once when trying to  ask for help for some of my friends who were battling breast cancer.  I left a coin with a rabbit and chariot on it along with another bracelet in the sacred space, with a jasmine flower I'd been wearing outside just to cover the bases.

The little church. These are built to thank a saint marking the spot of an accident, as I understand it.  We build roadside memorials too, in the US, but not as little churches. There is an icon, an  oil light, and a lighter inside.

My bracelet and coin in  the lower right hand corner. You can see a part of the oil lamp and one of the icons on the left.

The jasmine flower is on the stone supporting the little church.

I hope that all our offerings will be accepted and the we will all have smooth travels home, and no more interference in our lives from the gods!

Goodbye Athens....