Check out these wild flowers.

Note the wild flowers.

This is a photo I took when hiking on Anti Paros. Note the field of lavender in the back. Very beautiful.

Holy week started yesterday. To give you a little bit of an education, here is some data about what this entails.

From: http://www.webcam-crete.com/sfakia-crete/greekeaster.html

At least 95 percent of all Greeks claim membership in the Greek Orthodox church, part of the Eastern Orthodox church. Until 1054, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches were one body. Theological, political, and cultural differences split the church in two, and those differences were never completely reconciled. Despite the power religion holds over everyday life, most younger Greeks are not devout churchgoers. Aside from the special Easter celebrations, services are attended mainly by old women and young children. And the Greeks often defy their church’s teachings by clinging to beautiful old symbols, rituals and customs of pagan origine. Many Easter traditions originated long before the beginning of the Christian era.

The Greek Orthodox Church does not always celebrate Easter on the same date as the Catholic and Protestant countries. The reason is that the Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar when calculating Easter. This is case even in the churches that otherwise use the Gregorian calendar. When the Greek Orthodox Church in 1923 decided to change to the Gregorian calendar (or rather: a Revised Julian Calendar), they chose to use the astronomical full moon as seen along the meridian of Jerusalem as the basis for calculating Easter, rather than to use the “official” full moon.

Many Easter traditions originated long before the beginning of the Christian era. Like Christmas, which is related to pre-Christian winter festivals, Easter is connected in many ways with pagan rituals that accompanied the arrival of spring. It is possible that the name “Easter” stemmed from that of Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of springtime. Easter is also associated with the Jewish festival of Passover, or Pesach. The term “paschal”, meaning “of Easter”, is derived from the name of the Jewish festival, as are the names of Easter in some foreign languages. In Greek, Easter is called Pascha, meaning passover: It is the eternal Passover from death to life and from earth to heaven.

One of the most common Christian symbols, especially associated with Easter, is the lamb. It is often depicted with a banner that bears a cross, and it is known as the Agnus Dei, meaning “Lamb of God” in Latin.

The origin of the symbol is related directly to the Jewish Passover. In ancient times the Jews sacrificed a lamb in the course of the festival. The early Christians, most of whom were Hebrews, associated the sacrifice of the lamb with Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. They connected the joyous Passover festival, which commemmorates the liberation of the Hebrews from their years of bondage in Egypt, with the liberation from death represented by the Resurrection.

The popularity of lamb as an Easter food is undoubtedly related to its importance as a symbol. During the middle ages roast lamb became the traditional main course of the Pope’s Easter dinner, and it is still customarily served on Easter Sunday in many European countries.

The Easter Egg is associated with beliefs of particularly ancient origin. The egg was an important symbol in the mythologies of many early civilizations, including those of India and Egypt. It was commonly believed that the universe developed from a great egg and that the halves of its shell corresponded to Heaven and earth. The egg was also connected with the springtime fertility rituals of many pre-Christian and Indo-European peoples, like the old Cretans, and both the Egyptians and the Persians made a practice of coloring eggs in the spring.

Greeks mainly color eggs red (scarlet) to signify the blood of Christ. They use hard-boiled eggs (painted red on Holy Thursday) which are baked into twisted sweet-bread loaves or distributed on Easter Sunday; people rap their eggs against their friends’ eggs and the owner of the last uncracked egg is considered lucky.

The 50 days which follow Easter are signified by the Pentecostarion, which are dedicated to the spiritual enjoyment of the participants in the deep belief that God is with all men in everyday life and thoughts.

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Easter begins on the Saturday of Lazarus (the Saturday before Palm Sunday, 1 week before Easter Sunday) with children going from door to door singing the hymn of “Lazaros” and collecting money and eggs.
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On the morning of Palm Sunday people gather in church and are given a cross made from palm fronds, which they put on their icon-stands at home and keep it for the whole of the coming year.

Every evening throughout Holy Week, people gather in church to follow with devoutness the Passion of Christ.

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On Holy Tuesday, housewives make sweet rolls, the koulourakia, and the following day they do the housework, while in the evening they follow the blessing of Holy Oil that takes place in church.
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Holy Thursday is the day for dyeing eggs. In the evening, after the reading of the 12 Gospel, the girls undertake the decoration of the bier of Christ (epitaphios) with garlands of white and purple flowers, so that in the morning of Good Friday it is ready to receive the image of the body of Christ when He is taken down from the cross.
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Good Friday is a day of mourning. The drama of the death of Christ is followed with great devoutness. Sweet things are not eaten-for the love of Christ, who was given vinegar to drink. Soup made with sesame-paste, lettuce or lentils with vinegar is the food eaten on this day. It is considered a great sin to work with a hammer or nails or sew on Good Friday.

Vesper evening on Good Friday is followed by the procession of the bier (representing Christ’s funeral). A band or choir playing or singing solemn music precedes the procession; they are followed by the cantors, the clergy, women bearing myrrh, the altar boys carrying the liturgical fans, scouts and guides, and the people of the region, who sing the hymns throughout the procession. All along its route, people scatter flowers and perfumes on the epitaphios (bier), holding lighted candles in their hands.

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On Holy Saturday evening, the Resurrection mass (Anastasi =resurrection, the Resurrection of Jesus) takes place. At midnight the ceremony of lighting of candles is the most significant moment of the year. People, carefully, take home their lighted candles with the holy light of the Resurrection. Before entering their houses they make a cross with the smoke of the candle on top of the door, they light the oil candle before their icon-stand, and try to keep this light burning throughout the year.

The Midnight service is without a doubt the most important day on the calendar. At midnight all the lights are extinguished in the church and the priest comes from behind the doors on the altar carrying a candle. He walks to someone in the front row and lights their candle and these people who receive the light of the resurrection, the light is a symbol of the resurrection, pass the light from candle to candle and the light fills the church. Everybody leaves the church just before midnight, singing a song the words of which mean, Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. Through death conquering death. At midnight at the moment of the resurrection all the families have gone to church together, all standing sort of huddled in these little insular units and everybody kisses everybody and say, ‘Christos anesti, Christos anesti, Christ has risen, indeed He has risen. And it’s a very touching moment. In the moment of conquering death, it has a certain meaning to kiss your grandparents at that point, who you know you’ll be burying soon. And to be kissing the children who are coming up, who will be replacing you in the next generation. And there’s a feeling of the weight of centuries. People have been saying these prayers unchanged for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

In Crete it’s a custom to carry this candle back home, taking care the flame is not extinguished. At the house 3 crosses are made with the flame above the entrance door: the black soot ‘paints’ the crosses, in order to bless the house and its inhabitants by the light of Christ’s resurrection.

Ok. I know that I haven’t written a lot lately. After my hectic life before traveling to Europe followed by a three-week, whirlwind tour across Europe, I’ve taken the last week to just regather my life, sort out what direction the next two months are going in, and get set in a routine that will get me there. Though this is not yet accomplished, I am here, I have started school, and I have set into what could be considered a routine.

I have decided to take the following classes here to enhance my education.

Figure Drawing
Basic Drawing
Darkroom Photography
Digital Photography
Mosaic
Painting
Creative Writing
Literature
Art History

It is a hell of a lot, but I don’t see the point of working hard here while I’m here, and while I have the attention of the amazing mentors that the school has provided.

Here’s how I spent my last week while I was busy NOT writing on my blog J

Monday, I went to the all school meeting where I got the basic idea of what classes are being offered, etc. We also talked about other super important things like “If someone discovers they have an extra 10 pair of underwear, would they kindly return them to the laundry.”

After the meeting, I went to the darkroom and re-familiarized myself with it. I met with my darkroom mentor, and we had a cup of coffee while I explained the things that I had been up to for the past year. She then took me back to the darkroom and told me to develop film.

It was an amazing experience to be back in the darkroom. Last year, I had so much trouble in there and it was like a torture to have to go there. I had this amazing ability to not go there because of it’s association with pain. This first time in the darkroom was amazingly simple and easy. It was all old hat, and somehow, over my amazing break from the darkroom, I have this magical ability to make everything work just perfectly!

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I went to classes and got myself settled. My painting studio is where it was last year, and it’s just a great thing. I like being down there with the doors that are so tall and wide. I can throw them open while I paint, and I really like it.

Friday again was very special for me. We were going to go on a hike, but when it came down to it, there were only three of us that were going to be able to go, and John wanted to return very early. We got on the boat to Anti Paros and he walked us to the edge of town and pointed in the direction we should go. We had been there before, so we had some idea of the direction that we were going in. We walked and walked and found a field full of flowers. The poppies were blooming, and the whole field was dotted with red poppies and assorted other yellow and purple flowers. It was definitely a mythic experience to be in the field, and I can certainly see where the Greek myths came from, they were born in a field of poppies. It really was magical. I sure hope that they are still out when Jared comes to see me in a week and a half, because they are just something else.

After that, we went down to the beach. No one was there, and it was completely private. None of us had our swim gear. It was such a nice day, etc., etc. You can use your imagination to figure out how we ended up going swimming. The water was very cool, but it was quite nice. We got out to sit on the rocks to dry off, and that completed another perfect section to the afternoon.

As we started to walk back in, the clouds rolled in after us. By the time we completed our 1.5-hour walk back to town, the rain was pouring. We got on the boat and had a rough ride back home. It was nice to sit in the bus as it drove half way around the island to get back to Parikia.

I am working on the photos now, and I will try to post one or two of them. It was, however, the first time in a long time that I shot more film than digital. It felt good, and the photos looked GREAT when I took them into the darkroom.

Today is beautiful Greek Palm Sunday. I went into the church and had a very good time. I just stood there and watched them do their thing. Everyone got herbs and palm leaves. The church was decorated with palm leaves weaved into amazing shapes (like donkeys). It was kind of fun to hear them chant in Greek. I felt like an outsider, but no one looked twice at me, because anyone is welcome in a Greek church. The ritual was very interesting, but I can see how it has it’s roots in pre-Christian religion.

Today, I am headed to the darkroom and likely to the beach. I’ll tell you all about it when I’ve done it.

Happy Latin Easter!!!!

This is me at my favorite spot

This field of Lupin was Heavenly.

Some photos I took on my hike yesterday…just for your personal Blog viewing. Enjoy…

One photo from Prague at night.