In order to understand the story I’m about to tell, there are a few important things the reader needs to know about my life. First and possibly the most important element to this particular story is the fact that I spent the entire preceding decade, watching dozens of my closest friends die in the prime of their lives. Death is absolutely the greatest teacher about life! To understand it, to embrace it as a natural part of life is to become without fear.

I know why so many people run away from death. Watching it, experiencing the spirit leave the body, being embraced by the peace of its aura changes and challenges everything one believes from living in the temporal world. Whether you identify as an atheist, agnostic or are a devoted member of a religious system, you come away with the certain knowledge that there is something more than what we understand as the temporal world. For myself, I was already half way to that understanding. I came away from facing death, impregnated with the inability to ignore the spiritual side of my existence. I also came out of the closet, unashamed to share my stories because of fear of being labeled crazy. I have learned to separate myself from responsibility for how others interpret my stories. I simply tell what I have experienced first hand.     

At the time of this story I was involved in a relationship that was based on truth and trust. It is so much easier to do things that other people see as courageous, when you have a loving companion walking beside you, supporting you with every step! My partner Rob was trained as a yoga teacher. Together we were on a spiritual quest compelled by our dance with mortality. On the edge of eternity there is no room for deception. As a result of embracing life without fear, all of our illusions fell aside and our true paths were revealed. Once you decide to walk on the “life path” that already belongs to you, magic surrounds you in each and every moment. Many guides appear in many different forms to keep you moving in the proper direction.

By 1990, my mind was already opened to the infinite possibilities that exist among all the known spiritual traditions, taking from each one the elements that resonated from my own experiences. My biggest awakening came from my many friends who allowed me to share the last moments of their lives. But even in the middle of the intimate dance with death, I still hungered for more understanding. I studied the teaching of Joseph Campbell, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and took workshops with Steven and Ondrea Levine, Ram Dass and Shirley MacLaine, while also studying and embracing the teachings of native American Shamans. When Rob went off to the Greek island of Lesbos in the spring of 1990, we were both ready, as Rob so aptly phrased it: “to close our eyes, hold our breath and leap into the water!”

Back in the 1960s, as a teenager, perhaps while waiting for an appointment in a doctor’s office, I had picked up a copy of Reader’s Digest to pass the time. I read a story of an American family who sold all their worldly possessions, took their children out of school, then embarked on a trip around the world. Decades later the essence of that story still rested within my heart, waiting to awaken the idea that anything is possible. I recalled the Readers Digest story when Rob returned from Lesbos with the story of his meeting with a young man from Sweden who sold mandalas on the streets of Mitilini. The truth was, I felt envy for that family in Readers Digest the day I read it. Even back then, when the family seemed so unbelievably brave, I knew in my heart, that is who I really am.

“The Swedish man identified himself as a renunciate,” Rob told me, as if I knew what a renunciate was. He explained that the man had given up all material possessions and lived with trust that the universe would provide everything he needed. He fashioned mandalas out of wire and sold them to tourists. The act of making the mandalas was in itself a meditation on the self. In Sanskrit Mandala means circle and in Tibetan Buddhism they represent the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious. In mandalas, circles represent the spirit, the quest for centering oneself in order to operate consciously. The young Swedish man’s simple practice of sitting on the street in Mitilini, selling his art, had magically transformed our two lives 6,000 miles away. He was simply another guide, like the family in Readers Digest, sent to encourage us down our own path. The most important thing about guides is that you must first be conscious enough to see them, and then you must have the courage to acknowledge them in order to understand their messages.

The process of selling all our worldly possessions bore a very strange similarity to the Kübler-Ross stages of grief and the process of death we had witnessed in our friends who had passed. In the beginning of the process we were aware of our extreme attachment to THINGS. We were clever enough to mentally attach our ability to escape to our capitalist upbringings, knowing that each thing we sold provided more money in the travel fund! The unexpected surprise came in the form of awareness that each item that left our possession brought a feeling closer to total freedom. So eventually the capitalist money model was replaced with an image of rings being removed from the chains attached to our legs!

Both Rob and I were members of Pan American Airways frequent flier program, accumulating hundreds of thousands of miles over the years. We booked two free open ended tickets to Europe to begin our adventure. When Pan Am went bankrupt a year later we jokingly claimed it was because we flew for free so often!

After spending a major portion of the first year in Berlin during the reunification of Germany, we felt another guide calling us on to our next destination. In Lesbos, Rob had spoken with a woman from Utah, about a place on the south coast of Crete in the Greek Islands. She had described the village of Loutro as the most powerful spiritual place she had ever visited in the world. We both agreed that her story had been another subtle clue in our quest to find our true path. Combined with the story of the renunciate in Mitilini, the family in Readers Digest and the fact that we both had free tickets on Pan Am from Berlin to Athens, Loutro seemed to be calling us!

The View From Our Balcony In Loutro

Loutro met all our expectations and more. The magic, the spiritual energy of this magnificent place were able to remove the last link from the chain of our former lives and beliefs. By the spring of 1992, we were teaching yoga classes in a 19th century castle ruins. Each time our old fears of survival would raise their ugly heads, the universe would provide resolutions so swift and obvious, we were finally forced to give up on fear entirely, coming to the last stage of death: Acceptance! We accepted that it was possible to wake up each day with absolutely nothing to do, nowhere to go, just allowing life to come to us. We accepted life without television, without telephones, without many distractions of the modern world. Surprisingly, each day was so full and so productive and so rewarding, I’ve never been able to duplicate it since.

 13th Century Castle Ruins, Loutro, Crete

Sunrise in Loutro

I cannot speak for others, but here’s what happened to me in this environment of being disconnected from the modern world. My sense of belonging to life, belonging to the greater scheme of the universe was heightened in a way I had never known before. My dreams became clearer, many times connecting seamlessly to the reality of my waking hours. I felt a loving connection to all other living things.

Our first relationship with a non-human came in the form of a goat we affectionately named Lucy. Lucy reminded us of our dog Lucy, in both appearance and behavior. Our dog Lucy thought she was a cat, but the goat Lucy thought she was human. Lucy came to every yoga class, deliberately separating herself from the rest of the herd, their presence perceive only  by the gentle sound of bells ringing from the distant hillside. Lucy’s bell however, could often be heard violently clanging as she desperately tried to escape with a yoga student’s backpack. She was very adept at unzipping the backpacks to remove someone’s lunch or an apple designated for an after yoga snack. Nobody seemed to care except the shepherd who could not accept a goat with a mind of its own. We all adopted Lucky as our mascot, eventually adding a warning before classes, for all students to keep their backpacks close to their yoga mats.

 Lucy the Yoga Goat

It didn’t take long to understand that full moons in Loutro were an undeniably big event each month! After sunset the first light of the full moon could be detected behind the hills that spread from Sfakia up to the village of Anapolis, directly above Loutro. Soon the first edge of the enormous yellow ball of light would begin to slide out from behind the mountains, until the entire moon was exposed across the now shimmering water of Loutro Bay. Tourists would gasp in appreciation, local men would down shots of Ouzo like water and inevitably, during the night, someone would start a fight, or tables and chairs would be thrown into the water, or somebody’s husband would be caught sleeping with a tourist. No one was spared the energy of the full moon.

It was on the night of a full moon that I first met the käuzchen. In German it means the little owl. On that first night the käuzchen came to me in my dreams, the sound of his piercing call penetrating from the waking world into my dream world. When I awoke the next morning, just before sunrise, he was perched on the balcony, facing my bed just a few feet away. He stayed just long enough to establish our relationship, then flew up the mountain side, perhaps to rest in a tree until sunset. During the following months and years, in my heightened state of awareness, I had to acknowledge that the owl was always there in the background, calling, during each intense spiritual experience or transformation in my ever changing new life.

A pattern began to emerge. When the owl’s call would penetrate my dreams, I would awaken with a sudden sense of energy and purpose. There was no use trying to go back to sleep. I would quietly pull on my shorts and shoes and walk outside, careful not to wake Rob. Then the owl would hop from tree to tree, calling, then waiting for me to come closer, as if leading me to some important destination. On nights when there was no moon, I was surprised to find the path up the mountainside lit by the Milky Way, and perhaps all the other stars that seemed to hang from the sky like millions of tiny droplets of light, ready to fall down upon the earth. Each time the käuzchen would lead me to another destination to have a different experience. Each time I came closer to nature, to my self, to my true path! When I came completely away from the influence of the artificial light of the modern world, I connected to the timeless energy of spirit. The olive trees had stories to tell. I could feel the energies of humans who had walked the same paths perhaps centuries before. In that state of peace, even my clothes and my shoes seemed like the last links in the chain of possessions that obscured my view of true spirit. The only material possession I had left to cling to was my dense temporal body. If I let go of it, I could surely fly!  

One night on a full moon the käuzchen came once again, but this time, instead of the mountain path behind Pandalitza’s house, he came to my balcony. I put on my shoes and shorts and began the familiar routine of chasing him from tree to tree. But on this night he led me down through the village to the path that follows the coast west to Phoenix. When we came to the ancient ruins, just beyond the chapel, the käuzchen flew up the hill leading up to the tower above Loutro. There was no path to the tower. It was strewn with huge rocks, a dangerous way for anyone but a goat. I stood on the Phoenix path below, bewildered, staring up at the tower that was illuminated by the bright moonlight. The käuzchen was persistent in his call to me. His short pierce screeching now echoed in the empty chamber of the tower. My heart began to race and I was reintroduced to an old friend called fear.

The Tower Above Loutro

But then something or someone touched my left shoulder and the fear was replaced with an all consuming peace. I would swear I heard the sound of Lucy’s bell clanging as if she had just absconded with someone’s backpack. Without forethought I jumped onto the first rock and began a quick and deliberate ascension to the tower above. My ascent was accompanied by the sound of Lucy’s bell as if it were attached to my own neck. I flew from stone to stone without fear as if my feet never really touched the rocks, but simply brushed by them in flight. The next thing I knew I was standing in the entrance of the tower, looking up into the moonlight. There on the ridge of the tower sat the käuzchen, looking down with what seemed great approval. Then he flew off into the White Mountains and I never saw or heard him again.

To read more about Loutro, please see my story: 

THE TOWER ABOVE LOUTRO

published by flashpoint magazine