Prophecy

I wrote a book. It was called, Behind the Ivory Veil. It hasn't been published yet. I only wrote it 35 years ago. But this summer, I am rewriting and preparing the manuscript for publication. Even though it has little eroticism in it, it will be published under the author name Devon Layne since the next book has already been published under his name (The Props Master 1: Ritual Reality).

Here's the rub. I was very big into mythology when I was in my 20s and 30s. I wrote about a myth that 'could fit' within the body of Greek mythology, but that crosses over into some of the British Isles mythology. A large part of the series of books was based on Keat's poem, "Hyperion." I set part of the story in northern England (The Lake District) and part of it in the Meteora of Greece. (Of course, there was the mandatory part set in Indianapolis.) I'd visited the Lakes, but had never been to Greece. But oh, how I researched! This was in the days before the Internet and my mother, who had been to Greece, wanted to know when I had visited Greece as she recognized every landmark. It was all libraries.

I swore that one day, I would visit this magical place.

Today, I was blown away when I actually saw the cliffs of Meteora. I'd been prepared for cliffs a hundred or two hundred feet high. 300-400 meters? Oh, my God! I have never seen anything so majestic and awe-inspiring!

Tomorrow, the seven remaining monasteries are all open to visitors and I plan to attempt the full ten kilometer circuit that connects them. Lots of elevation gain. Some of it is pretty steep.

But that brings me to the subject of this little post. The prophecy.

I've always been willing (maybe pushy) to talk about what I was writing. Back in the late 70s, I met a woman from Greece. I don't remember her name. Our conversation was one of those that take place suddenly with deep intensity between two people who never see each other again. I told her about the story. She knew the area well. She told me about how difficult it was after the war when children were being kidnapped by the communists to be raised in the true way. They were fleeing their homes and hiding in the rocky slopes to escape. And the women would gather at the well and weep for their children and their lost husbands and their country.

I wrote a lot of that into the next draft of the book. (I've written fourteen drafts of that one because I kept learning how to write better.)

Then she spoke the prophecy, which I had forgotten until I actually got to Greece this week. I don't have the exact words, of course, but this is what I remember.

"You will go to Greece one day. Not soon, but one day. You will go to Kastraki in the Meteora and sip Retsina with the old men at the taverna. It will not be until you have known great love and great sorrow. That is when you will go to the well and weep. And you will understand."

I asked the desk clerk at my little hotel if there were some old well somewhere. She (in her 20s) shook her head and said, "No. There is nothing like that." Ah well. So to speak. I went out to find food and wine. And I reached the church in the central square of Kastraki.

 This might not be the well she spoke of. But sitting here, looking at the Meteora and the monasteries perched on their summits, it was easy to let the tears flow. I will return here each day of my visit and wait for the understanding.