A Touch of Magic
12 A Guide
18 September 1974, The Metéora
EVEN WITH THE INFLUX of visitors drawn to the historic monasteries, The Metéora remained relatively unscathed and unchanged. The roads were all paved now with wide spots for parking near the monasteries open to visitors. Automobile traffic squeezed past the buses that brought tourists to the staging areas. After a half-mile walk from the tour bus to the entry area, tourists were given a rundown of the rules. It was a working monastery with thirty monks in residence. Women were directed to wear skirts that hung below their knees and a covering over their heads. A convenient vendor nearby sold drab bits of cloth that could be wrapped as a skirt or pulled up over a woman’s head. When they were suitably attired, the visitors were directed down the two hundred steps to the foot of Great Meteoron. Then they began the ascent up even more stairs and through a narrow passage, carved in the rock and just wide enough for two people to squeeze past each other if they were not large.
At last, they were admitted to the massive structure itself. Metamorfosis Sotiros Monastery (Monastery of the Transfiguration of Christ) covered the entire top of the pinnacle, with its stone walls rising from the sheer cliffs themselves. They walked past the historic but now unused kitchens and wine cellars, the reliquary of skulls of the monastery’s founders, the church, museums, and chapels. At last, Rebecca found herself in a walled courtyard of the monastery, not knowing exactly why she had chosen this day to search a pinnacle for answers. The courtyard was empty. She had arrived early and those tourists who had begun arriving were still far behind in the chapel or museums. The courtyard was terraced and the upper levels allowed a view over the wall to the vast field of rock pinnacles.
She sat in an alcove, her back wedged against the ancient rock, and let her mind drift. She had spent the previous day resting and eating—regaining her strength from the fast she had endured before her vision of the strange monk. This morning, without a plan, she had set out on a walk, her stick, Pele, firmly grasped in her hand. She had ended up here where her spirit could soar among the clouds.
And in the clouds, she met another.
Not human and not divine, yet on a mission directed to her. She joined the flight of a great Golden Eagle. This bird was not like the brass finish of the boiler she had seen in her vision twenty years ago, but rather a strong bird that bore her spirit far above the spires.
And as Rebecca let her spirit fly, she found a solid memory on which she could fix. A well in a courtyard where she looked up into the eyes of the Golden Eagle who summoned them to their fate.
But it was not through her eyes that she looked.
The eagle bore the memory that was filling her mind. The well. And beside it, herself. A flash of understanding filled Rebecca and then the vision was gone as the eagle released her and she fell back to earth to inhabit her body. With her eyes remaining closed, Rebecca held to the vision and began a slow and almost subvocal chant.
Eastern guardian of the air, grant me your power and your strength.
Uplift me with your breath and bear me on your wings.
Protect me from evil and guard me with your watchfulness.
Southern guardian of the fire, grant me your power and your strength.
Uplift me with your warmth and bear me on your flames.
Protect me from evil and guard me with your watchfulness.
Western guardian of the water, grant me your power and your strength.
Uplift me with your flow and bear me on your waves.
Protect me from evil and guard me with your watchfulness.
Northern guardian of the earth, grant me your power and your strength.
Uplift me with your stability and bear me to your peaks.
Protect me from evil and guard me with your watchfulness.
Now may all bear witness.
Guardian of the Spirit, the æther surrounding, grant me your power and your strength.
Uplift me with your otherness and bear me to my soul.
Protect me from evil and guard me with your watchfulness.
On this holy mount I call forth this summoning.
Sadb, the transformation whose name I have taken as my own,
I call you forth, my soul, my inner being.
I summon you to the well of tears,
There to join with my body, to become one with me:
Huntress and Prey.
I summon my Self to the well.
It was daring. She had seen herself through the eyes and memory of the eagle, standing by the well prepared to follow. She had summoned herself to that spot. She was Sadb—the Transformation. And she left the Monastery of Transfiguration to let her soul guide her.
Rebecca let the summoning go as she hiked down from the monastery to the village where she was staying. She had created the visualization. It could not escape, but had to come to her. But if she held it too tightly, it would struggle against her, possibly finding some other form for its manifestation.
She stopped at the taverna early in the evening and ordered a salad. The thick slab of white cheese served on a bed of lettuce, tomatoes, olives, and onion, doused with olive oil and vinegar, called for a glass of wine. She ordered a small carafe of the house red wine and settled in to read her book as she ate at the outdoor table.
Occasionally, Rebecca glanced up at her surroundings. A couple gazed at each other across a table. A mother tried to calm her toddler while the father absently ate a huge plate of pastitsio. A cat prowled around the foot of the tables, looking for scraps and rubbing against the legs of patrons. And in the distance near the peak of a narrow spire, a bird circled, barely visible for the distance.
I see you. And I follow.
19 September 1974, The Metéora, Greece
Rebecca feasted on the breakfast of boiled eggs, cheese, cold cuts, and crusty bread. The strong coffee stimulated her senses as she prepared once again for the day’s adventure. She hoisted her daypack onto her back, took her walking stick in hand, and strode purposefully out of the bed and breakfast. She had thought to visit Holy Trinity Monastery, the most difficult of the Metéora monasteries to reach. It would be a long trek around the heart of the stone pillars before she could even begin the long series of steps to enter the monastery.
As she walked along the Road to the Holy Rocks, it changed rapidly from a paved road to gravel to little more than a goat path. As she left the last of anything that could be construed as a road, she noticed a small sign pointing to her right. ‘San Giorgio Hermitage.’ Rebecca had visited the operating monasteries in the Metéora, but she had not explored the abandoned hermitages that were often built into caves in the massive rocks. She turned off the trail to follow one even less traveled. In half an hour of steady climb, she faced the cliff. Above her, she could see the indentation and yellow color that told her the hermitage was not very high on the rock. She searched back and forth along the trail for an access point when she heard a clatter of stones and “Oof!” to her left. She hurried that direction.
A young man was dusting himself off on the path.
“Oh. Hello there. I just heard what I thought was a fall and came to see if you were injured,” Rebecca said.
“Aii. Stupid clumsy of me. I tried to turn around to take a picture and lost my footing. Are you headed up to the hermitage?” he asked. He had a wide smile and friendly demeanor. Rebecca relaxed.
“I thought I’d try, but haven’t found an access point. Is that it?”
“Yes. It’s really not bad and only about twenty feet up. Just enough to give some old monk privacy. The view is pretty good though. You can see Agios Nicolas, Grand Metéoron, and Varlaam from there,” he said enthusiastically. “I’ve just been exploring the abandoned hermitages and rock climbing. Isn’t this place the best ever?”
“It is, indeed,” Rebecca laughed. “Where are you from?”
“Oxford. I received a travel grant and came directly to here determined to scale all the summits. Have you been to any?”
“Only the accessible ones. I don’t do much technical climbing. This is probably as difficult an ascent as I’ll get.”
“Well, you’ll want to leave your stick behind or put it through the flap of your backpack. It’s really nice and you probably don’t want to leave it lying around. Tell you what, I’ll hang around a few minutes to see that you’ve made it up safely. Then I’m working my way northwest around the face.”
“Thank you. I might be old, but I can climb twenty feet,” she said. She had a strap on her pack to hold the rod Pele and it was secure in a matter of moments. He pointed to the narrow access point and Rebecca began to climb. It really wasn’t a difficult climb as there were clear foot and handholds. It was simply vertical.
The hermitage itself was larger than Rebecca expected. The door had long since rotted or fallen off, so she was able to slide up into the dwelling. The wall covered about fifteen feet of exposed cave, but inside the cave opened farther. It was simply one large room about twenty feet deep. It took only a few minutes to explore and Rebecca could quickly identify where the cooking fire had been and the path of a century of smoke that coursed across the ceiling. She tried to imagine herself living here among the rocks.
She turned to the view the young hiker had mentioned and quickly identified the red roofs of the three monasteries. Sighting along the cliff to her left, she could just see the village and realized why she had not seen the hermitage from any of the vantage points she had. It was quite well concealed and almost always in the shade of the rock. Scanning the other direction, Rebecca caught her breath and held it. A bit farther up the path circling the rock, she could see a ruin. Something about the layout was very familiar and Rebecca hurried to leave the hermitage. Keeping the climber’s words of advice in mind, she did not attempt to turn and see the ruin on her way down the cliff face. He had departed already and as soon as Rebecca’s foot hit the level path, she turned to follow as quickly as she could.
Between trees and rocks, Rebecca had retraced her steps three times before she found the overgrown access to the little circle of stone and foundations. She closed her eyes and remembered the well, the four little dwellings, and the gated wall that surrounded them. Now there were crumbled walls and rusted hinges. But in the center of the cluster was a well that she remembered. Here she had sat with her husband nearly twenty years ago. Here she had fought with Ryan McGuire. Here she had looked at the tree where the eagle waited for her to follow.
Here was where she had summoned her Self to appear.
Rebecca sat by the well of tears and wept.
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