Instalment 6: In Mr. Bean's Footsteps – Part Two (Mount Athos) London to Thessaloniki (or Vice Versa)

Instalment 6 of 7

The big bluff: Nausea, St. Luke and the Panagia Portaitissa

From Last Week

Being one day ‘paying’ guests (though long stays were expected to roll up their sleeves) meant there were no plates to wash, so we sauntered out into the sunshine to await our guided tour of the Monastery’s treasures. The world was sweet and I distinctly remember, despite the trials recently endured, how lucky I was to be there in that special moment in time, enjoying the impressive instant: kind hospitality, homemade bread, tomatoes and cheese, sunshine on one’s back and not a care in the world for a few hours at least. How little did I know.

The Arhondaris, presently joins us at the door to the Katholicon (the conventual church in the centre of a monastery), beckoning us in.

We enter the dark interior, and it is some time before my eyes adjust from the brilliance outside, and I am able to discern shapes and outlines. My iris is a film of iridescent star bursts which slowly melt away into the dark golden hues of Byzantine Icons, glimmering under the flicker of pyramids of beeswax candles, dotted around the inner sanctotum, highlighting hidden alcoves and throwing recessed niches into relief.

I am taking all this in, and enjoying the cool and sudden solemnity, a hushing of the outside world. Monk Gandalf, makes an announcement, but my attention is half given, lost as I am an in the sudden change of ambiance.

“Normally I would give this tour myself, but today there is a Medieval Art Historian from the island of Malta in our midst” he announces.

As soon as he mentions the word ‘Malta’, I abruptly check out from my reverie. Could it be possible?, wow! what an unlikely coincidence, another Malteser here, right here, right now? I quickly scan the eclectic group encircled around Gandalf, for the most olive skinned contender of synchronicity personified, but nobody immediately fits the bill.

“I would be honoured, if he gave this tour, in my stead. I will be very interested to see what he has to say about  our famous Icons.” The Arhondaris continues.

My curiosity is piqued. Earlier in the courtyard outside, I had not picked up on the nuances of the Maltese accent. There is, I later recall, a mischievous glint in Gandalf’s eyes.  At this particular point in time, however, it is lost on me.  I crane my neck backwards, there is one tall, stooped, bespectacled and genteel looking, elderly gentleman, grey hair, side-parted. He seems to best tick off the stereotypical, intellectual-in-appearance check list. Only the bow-tie is missing. However his skin tone is more pasty Teutonic than Mediterranean, which signifies nothing really. But, the History/Art department at Malta University, like the Island itself, is a minuscule gold fish bowl and this man has not lectured me, of this I’m sure. So who..?

“There is always something new to learn, and I enjoy rediscovering, our religious and cultural heritage through the eyes of an outsider, especially from a fellow Islander,  so please Mr. Bugeja, I now kindly invite you to take the floor.”

What?!? The odds of another Maltese person on Mount Athos, in the same monastery, on the same day , responding to the same surname as myself, are so unlikely, I am beyond incredulous.

Simultaneously, well before, I become acutely conscious of it, I feel a slight nauseous spreading in the pit of my stomach. I yank my head back to Gandalf. His right hand is outstretched towards me. This can’t be right. Bewildered, I look behind me. As expected there is no-one lurking there. I would have sensed their presence. I suddenly feel sick. My mind acknowledges my stomach. I turn quickly, first left than right. Everybody is staring enquiringly at me. Beads of perspiration sprout from my brow. This can’t be. NO! NO! My head begins to swim. The ground feels shaky. The beeswax candles make everything blurred again. Whilst my mind is reeling with the implications of the trap laid, the realisation dawns too late. The smirking, the chuckling. Gandalf had become a sadistic accomplice in my duplicity. This is a test. I must, no! I HAVE to rise to the occasion, I need to gain control fast. The situation requires instant subjugation of dizziness and nerves.

In retrospect, it was only the glib and boldness of youth that enabled me to take control of the situation so fast and with such sleight of hand. Youth lives for the day, is full of impetuous self-confidence, is rash, spontaneous and daring in its decision making. Self doubt, a need for stability and knowing where one stands comes with the arthritic fixity of age.

I had just turned 22 and this was no time to hesitate. Smoothing my damp palms on my loose trousers, hoping they wouldn’t leave any tell tale marks, I took centre stage, straightening my shoulder sand throwing my head back. I certainly didn’t look the part, dishevelled as I was, but at least I had to give my very best shot at acting it. This was do or die. Lose face so terribly and I would have to give up my hard won bed for the night. That wasn’t going to happen as long as I had bluff on my side and bluff it I was going to. In any case the worst I could do, was make out I was an absent minded professor and well I already looked the part, didn’t I?

“You are too kind” I managed to find it in me to say, as I stared Gandalf in the eye, meanwhile taking his place. “ It would only be presumptuous of me to attempt a similar tour to the one you might give, I have only recently been acquainted with the wealth of art contained in such close quarters on Mount Athos”

Good one Warren!, Presumptuous, nice touch, where did that come from?, so what next? OK keep thinking, work it, work it! Where’s the trap door? OK some Byzantine appropriate jargon, retrieve, retrieve,..ahh yes Triptych, Diptych, wasn’t that a painting with hinges in two parts..OK I espy one..take them there..

This was my mind on speed ..and then the thought ‘nice touch’ led me to think of the phrasal verb ‘touch on’… so…springboard provided…isn’t that how thoughts unravel from each other?

“I ..ehhemm..mmmhh (clear throat, gulp, almost stutter, then rein it in Warren!)ww will therefore just touch upon the highlights of your collection that can be ge--eeneralized to art conventions of the period influencing Western technique. Over there for example we can view an…an exemplary triptych…if you could please follow me…”

What on earth was I babbling on about, and where was this torrent of mumbo jumbo coming from..well at least it sounded good and I was buying time wasn’t I? Thank God for triptychs and my recent and only credit in Medieval Art..how was I going to wing this..OK..no time to go down that road…so they are walking toward you, ready to meet you half way at least, so think, think..a few more steps and you will have to be ready to spout something else.

As I summoned them toward me, I was attempting as nonchalantly as possible to rapidly scan my surroundings, as in x-ray vision, trying to glean anything I could use or that could serve me. All my senses where heightened, sharp and focused. The extraneous was immediately discarded, intensely alert as I was to every object, slant of light, shuffle of footsteps.  

Giotto

“So,  I began as soon as my audience had assembled around me, “What we can see in front of us, is a fine example of a Triptych, consisting of a larger central panel with two side wings, commonly used as an altar piece and connected together by hinges. A Byzantine and later Medieval convention that continued to be employed in the art of the early Renaissance ,by artists such as Giotto.”

Remember to breathe. I surreptitiously flash a cursory glance at my audience, from beneath my eyelashes,  as I come up for air. This is all very basic and text book lifted word for word from the one and only sample essay, I had prepared for my exam . So far I had not revealed anything enlightening, but on the other hand, no one was fidgeting.

 “The central panel as you can see is larger than the side panels”, I continued, stating the obvious. “ This introduces the central theme of the birth of the infant Jesus."

Descriptions you see, always buy more time and anyway people like to have their perception of reality confirmed, even if again, I was stating the painfully apparent. At this point ,I turned sideways, slightly giving part of my back to the audience, peering as it were at the painting, as if I could fathom edifying signs and signifiers within the brushstrokes, which being all the better immersed and absorbed in it, I could communicate to the assembled. In actual fact, I was just as hopeful as my audience and certainly no better informed. Stooping as if to get a better look at the painting and clasping my hands behind my back was just a prop, an assumed scholarly stance, willing the painting to divulge its secrets by being proxemically closer acquainted and; my mind, to be prompted and inspired into speech.  I would continue with the obvious I decided. Clearing my throat I resumed the bluff parade.

“The Madonna’s expression is bathed in pathos as she looks down at the future messiah cradling in her arms. However the composition is heavily styli zed and there is a certain rigidity in the pose (here I jab at the icon, following the contours of a particularly stiff and unnaturally looking  baby Jesus, who looks like a shrunken man child, stopping  millimetres short of actually puncturing the painting) which appears two dimensional. As we can see, the Byzantine aesthetic is abstract and anti-naturalistic in character,  concerned predominantly with the translation of theological concepts into artistic expression, whilst  hmmm, distancing itself from the body focused and more naturalised representation of classical antiquity”.

Didn’t that sound professional? Hadn’t I just saved my bacon? The last sentence I had thankfully remembered  and lifted intact from the guide book, for I didn’t recall covering Byzantine art in much detail, if at all in my credit on Medieval art at University, so apart from something about the importance of Icons ( which I had to hold onto for later),  I was doomed.  It was back to triptychs or bust for me.

“The word triptych has its origins in the Greeek 'triptykhos' meaning three-layered. Each panel is connected to the other and often ..errr…represents a three-act dramatic structure with a beginning, a middle and an end. Hmmm..yess…The three fold nature reflects the religious symbolism of the number three and frequently references the holy trinity. Also the artist may establish visual coherency by employing a unified background…. such as a landscape or sky in each panel and amalgamating similar hues and ehhh…pigments.( Long pause….time to lower my shoulders, and appear less stressed).In this particular Triptych we have in front of us, each panel depicts episodes in the New Testament, appertaining to the early life of Jesus Christ. Errr…In the first panel Mary the mother of God visits her sister Elizabeth who can be observed looking towards the Messiah in the central panel.”

At this point I almost crash into the painting in my enthusiasm. I am on a roll thanks be to God and all the saints above.

“In the final panel, on the right, the infant Jesus, is being presented to the elders in the temple, and Simeon is positioned on the far right so his profile turns both to the holy family in the temple but also to the central figures in the middle panel.”

 I just hope the guy was actually called Simeon, I can’t be sure. My Catholic School education has meant that I am quite familiar with every bit-part character in the entire bible, such was the drumming in of religion at every available opportunity. I’m sure we counted in white doves too, during maths. But I haven’t rehearsed and my ‘tour’ is being conducted under duress, besides, I am and was never good with names. Simon or what’s his name, however, is the least of my problems right now. I have no idea whatsoever, who had painted the triptych I was describing, or when or where it was painted. Furthermore I was done with the topic, the painting and the period. Yet I was damned if I was going to invite any questions from the floor to prolong the torture, even though that would have enabled me to purchase more precious time.  But that would have been inviting suicide. In all likelihood I wouldn’t be able to answer any of the questions posed. No, I needed to get away from the painting, even though I was finding it hard to move, rooted to the spot, by a sense of comfort and salvation which the painting now signified for me. I felt as reluctant to move as possibly an early Christian would have, once the Romans had got a whiff of which catacombs they were hiding in. Nevertheless my reserves of bluff were nearing exhaustion. Once more, I needed to think fast. A miracle would also do quite nicely. 

At this critical juncture, I finally dared to finally look in the Arhondaris’s direction. The joke was over,  he had but me on the spot, fair enough, I could forgive him this, but now would he not be satisfied with how I had been faring?, would he give me more reel with which to hang myself or would he come forward in my hour of need, offering to take over?, hadn’t I suffered enough?` But, Gandalf was simply nodding impassively at what I had said, his head cocked slightly to the side. Could he really be oblivious to my fate? Presumably he was either, really in fact incredibly sadistic, or I had misread his body language and he had been taken in by my interview spiel, hook, line and slinker, very much to my detriment.

In any case there was no assistance forthcoming from that quarter. Disgruntled, I had to change tactics. I decided to play the Icon card..but how to stretch it into a paragraph? I knew that Religious Iconography lay at the heart of Byzantine and Orthodox art. In fact I had alluded to as much, and the fact was self evident all around us. There must have been over a hundred Icons displayed in that Church alone. I was aware that there were canons and schools of representation ensuring that the same likeness of a saint, was passed on from artist to artist. This I had picked up upon during the aforementioned visit to the hanging monasteries of Meteora, but I didn’t know  enough about the subject and I didn’t want to stutter and splutter, running out of con fuel whilst barely having introduced the digression. No that wouldn’t do. 

Somehow, somewhere up, in the inner recesses of memory, my Roman analogy rang a bell,  setting off a sequence of synaptic  neuron transmissions that proved to be my salvation. The catacombs reminded me of my father’s home town, Rabat in Malta, where early Christians took refuge in a warren of underground tunnels, hiding from Roman persecution.  Rabat was where St. Paul, who was shipwrecked off the coast of Malta in 60 AD, and who was responsible for the subsequent evangelization of the Islands, was imprisoned. Compulsory catheticism lessons in preparation for my first holy communion had ensured that I could locate the exact biblical reference. St Luke had alluded to St. Paul’s visit in passing in his take on the Acts of the Apostles (XXVIII). St Paul is a demi god on Malta. His feast day rules the roost, and Maltesers are eternally grateful to St. Luke for putting this tiny geographical dot on the world map and for the briefest of citations (but what a palpable citation!) in the bestseller of all time.

Now all these connections and free associations, one thought leading and spilling onto the next, were being made at break neck speed, culminating in my Eureka moment. In similar vein to Paul of Tarsus (way before he became a saint) on his way to Damascus, a flash of blinding white insight, illuminated a dormant, priceless link of information, lazily lying idle in the junk yard of discarded facts in brain. I had been in peril of drowning and had now just been thrown a life jacket.  Unlike PauI, I didn’t fall off my horse literally, but I would have, had I had one. Yess!! YesSS!! YESSSSS!!!

I will explain:  just before my visit to Greece I had attended a wedding which was celebrated in a grotto, hitherto undiscovered (by myself that is), situated beneath the fortified parish church of Mellieha, a coastal town on a high promontory above stretches of white sand below. The grotto was unusual in a predominantly Baroque Malta, in that the altar was surrounded by a semi circular, burnished, and golden, Byzantinesque mosaic .  The décor had been carefully selected to highlight and offset  a rare Icon of the Black Madonna and Child, with a reputation for being miraculous and said to have been painted by St. Luke. The Icon had stuck in my memory by virtue of, for one, being in the byzantine style and secondly because of the colour of the Madonna’s skin, an atypical and uncommon representation of the usually fair skinned , Rubenesque and flowing auburn locked, Rococo portraits and statues of the saint to be found on Malta.

Now, Oh fortuna benedetta! ( blessed fortune), oh! Saving Grace how sweet the sound, blow me over, if Iviron wasn’t renowned on Athos, for its very own miraculous Black Madonna, also said to be painted by St. Luke, according to the Sacred Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This constituted that desperately, delicious tidbit of information - sugarcane juice in the desert, manna from the sky..absolute deliverance if you get my drift, clichés excused - a coincidence sent from heaven to save my ass (OK let me tone it down to my behind) big time!

It is true that the Iberian monastery of Iviron, founded in  the year 980AD, was famed for its library, containing approximately 2,000 manuscripts, 15 liturgical scrolls  and 15,000 printed works, in Georgian, Greek, Hebrew and Latin. The monastery also exhibited the relics of more canonised saints than any other on Mount Athos and stashed away amongst its accumulated treasures; was a 7-branched candelabra in the shape of a lemon tree, made of gold and silver, a gift from the Greeks of Moscow in 1807. My guide book had perfunctorily listed these facts, but had I remembered any of them? Not! 

What had interested me though, was the mention of an Icon entitled ‘Panagia Portaitissa’, the name itself sounded dramatic as in the ‘portrait most portrait’ or ‘a portable panegyric’, which wasn’t too far off the mark actually. It had intimations of la Serenissima, and after all, did not latter day Byzantium begin in Venice and Ravenna? The Icon was Iviron’s most coveted possession, and featured a curious scar on the Virgin Mary’s right cheek. Apparently the icon had been stabbed by an overzealous soldier in Nicaea during a purge of religious Iconography (Iconoclasm) under the fundamentalist Emperor Theophilus (829–842). Much affronted, and determined to give that soldier a good shock, blood, miraculously, is said to have flowed from the gash in the Icon’s cheek.

So Panagia to the rescue, but where was it? Renamed ‘Keeper of the Gates’ (the literal translation of Panagia Portaitissa), the Icon had a reputation for disappearing from the chapel it had been placed in, only to be found hanging on the gates of the monastery each time. This is where the Icon intended to stay put,  not being content to be guarded by the monks , but desiring a more active role as protectress of the enclave. Ostensibly, the Theotokos (Mother of God) confirmed this notion in a dream to St. Gabriel , who  in turn saw it fit to advise a few of the monks. Orders from above.  

Not your average Icon and thank God for that, because it had wedged itself in my memory. This was just the ticket I needed to get me out of the predicament I was in. Again, if I had begun talking about the Panagia with no conduit to escape, my presentation would have fizzled out ignominiously, in no time at all. I would have just been able to recount the tale of the gash and that was it. Hardly ‘A’  level Art  let alone academia. But now I had a plan, act two to my repertoire. And now back to my audience:

“The Byzantine aesthetic found its widespread.. expression via the medium of the Icon, often small in size and portable. Canons of representation  and artisan schools laid down specific guidelines as to  layout, style and the features of the Saint being depicted. Hmmm…Artistic endeavour was less important than the depth of spiritual sentiment the painting expressed and uhmmm… generated. This was not without peril,  because  in the eyes of religious purists no inanimate combination of pigment and wood could represent the world of spirit. Jesus was only present in the Eucharist and in the wine consumed during religious service. The material itself was dead without soul.”

“One such victim of the second wave of Iconoclasm, is this Monastery’s very own Panagia Portaitissa……”

And here I recounted the Icon’s history, its role as protector of the monastery, interceder of miracles via the Theotokos  and all of the above, which brought me back to its exact location. Turning to the Gandalf, with more than an element of self-satisfaction I asked condescendingly:

“Dear Arhondaris, if you may kindly guide us right now to the exact site of this illustrious Icon, I have an interesting anecdote to share”

By curtly nodding and deferring to him I managed to obscure the fact that I had no idea of the whereabouts of the Icon. I had not especially noticed any Icon on the main gate but then I hadn’t paid any specific attention and for all I knew there might be a dozen dangling from each wrought iron post. It could be anywhere in this church or be housed in one of the monastery’s many chapels consecrated for the specific purpose of the Icon’s veneration and safeguarding (not that the Madonna would approve, if the latter proved to be the case). Locating this Icon would also happily waste time and allow me to compose myself further and hone my escape plan.

I did not need to persuade the Arhondaris. The Icon was the expected highlight and climax of each tour, and all the ‘pilgrims’ were I presumed, curious to check the scar on the Theotokos’s cheek,  out for themselves. It was unusual, I would have guessed, though to refer to the Panagia Portaitissa in media res; so soon in the presentation with minimal foreplay, but I wanted out of this farce and this was my decoy.

Gandalf obliged and we were soon trailing him outside. The harsh and bright exterior sunlight provided intimations of St. Paul again. It may not have blinded us, but the dazzling brilliance had the momentary effect of stunning  one’s thoughts.

The Panagia Portaitissa was in fact, apparently deemed too precious an Icon to be left outside, stuck on the gates and was currently being kept in a chapel in the courtyard across from the main church. Once outside I tried to maintain my distance from the other pilgrims discouraging familiarity and to avoid having to divulge any personal information  appertaining to my academic background primarily. I decided it best to engage the Arhondaris in conversation as we walked abreast, also preventing other pilgrims from asking a question which he might direct at me. Gazing wistfully at the archway I had originally entered the Monastery in, I  entertained brief but wild fantasies of escape. Sleeping in a tree at night in the forest would be infinitesimally  preferable to this fine torture that had been inflicted upon me. Why do humans do this to another? It is although the body requires a continual influx of fight or flight hormones and now that there are no beasts to run away from, we require subtle mind games and traffic jams to release adrenalin into our bloodstreams. They say love makes the world go round. More like fear I say.

I decided to stick to generalities with the Arhondaris, asking him how long the tours normally took and if he gave one each day and if he talked about the same Icons each time or pointed out different objects and their history/spiritual significance, depending on the guests present. I didn’t want to sound too eager but had my ears wide open for any morsel of information I could use in my presentation. In any case we didn’t have far to walk, and our conversation didn’t last long. I had to take centre stage once again in front of the Panagia Portaitissa. The scar was barely discernible as the Icon’s skin colour was made darker still by a patina of age and possibly varnish. I invited the pilgrims to take a closer look at the painting as I had just done. After dispensing with the few facts I had retained about the Icon, I then introduced the anecdote  which I hoped was going to save my bacon.

“The Panagia Portraitissa is of unusual significance to me”, I began. “On the Island of Malta, where I come from, we have our very own Sister Panagia, said to have also been painted by St. Luke and featuring the black Madonna.” 

At this point, the Arhondaris himself leaned further in, I don’t think he had been expecting this or if he had was feigning his curiosity. I knew I had my audience in the palm of my hand just then and I had to milk it to my absolute advantage. There was only one available route of safety to take. I had to change the subject, lead them gently, unawares,  away from the world of  two dimensional and rigid Orthodox Iconography and to my own Mediterranean baroque background of fleshy, sensual and corpulent Catholic saints and sinners. So bit by bit I reeled them in. First by describing where the Maltese black Madonna was located, then by comparing the two paintings. This I did in situ, I had never seen the Panagia before, and had only a vague hazy recollection of the Maltese version, so I just did a Mr. Bean on the spot, stated the obvious, simply describing what I was seeing and then counting on the odds that nobody had seen the Maltese version, and this being in the days before Google on tap, I would be well out of their orbit if they looked it up (come to think of it, how much less easier it is too bluff these days with smart phones). So bar the ‘insignificant’ scar, the Icon in Mellieha, Malta was a near replica according to my comparison. Having established this fact, I then went on to make another Beanesque facsimile vapidity, something about a mother’s protective love for her son and the foreshadowing of future sorrow in the expression on the Madonna’s face, a predicament common to most mothers. Love , sorrow and pain being an unhappy ménage-a-trois, inherent in the human condition from birth until death.

If I recall correctly, I went as far to venture a guess as to the origin of choice for the Madonna’s skin colour,  briefly citing the connection with the forgotten early Christian and  ancient Jewish Ethiopian communities, who settled further inland, following waves of successive pogroms. The Black Theokotos represented a universal mother they could relate to . Another raison –d-etre,  presented itself in the flight to Egypt where the Essene Tribes (of which Mary, the Mother of Jesus was a member) had also settled. The Black Madonna now became a Christian candidate for Isis. These theories all came from the top of my head, unsubstantiated by hard evidence, merely a hotchpotch of hypothesis harvested from several books I had read on the early life of Jesus. I went to anchor my theories on the selection of ethnicity with a gauche general statement about the unlikelihood of a Middle Eastern woman having snow white skin anyway. No sooner uttered, I decided that I was diving deep into dangerous waters and needed to make a  quick turnabout back to land and more grounded observation. 

Steering the conversation back to Malta together with St. Luke and St. Paul, seemed a safer course to sail, and I resolved to shipwreck my presentation on these shores with a lengthy digression on how Malta became Christian. Here I was on secure territory and could invite and encourage questions from the floor. Malta was an unknown entity for many of the pilgrims present, so the remainder of my presentation comprised a synopsis of the Island’s long and variegated history, from the Neolithic temples to British Colonial Rule, via village festas, statues of patron saints being carried aloft by penitent parishioners, pyrotechnics and partisan politics. For the main, the treasures of Iviron and their secrets remained unexposed to the scrutiny of scholars during my presentation that day. However my presumed  reputation as Medieval scholar had escaped unscathed and I could calmly suppose that  I had rightfully earned my supper and overnight stay that evening.  Nonetheless I would be giving my fellow pilgrims a wide berth for the rest of the day.

Final Instalment out next week

Instalment 4: In Mr. Bean's Footsteps – Part Two (Mount Athos) London to Thessaloniki (or Vice Versa)

Instalment 4 of 7 .
'The monks are 'worth it',the Brooklyn Skateboarder and  interview nerves'

From last week:

The vegetation became less thick and in the distance I could get occasional, fleeting glimpses of the scintillating Mediterranean below, sparkling, and inviting under the scorching  sun which was already quite high up in the sky.

At the edge of the forest, the slopes of hillside cascade downwards,  in terraced fields of wheat, halting at the walls of Iviron, my destination. 

Now Read on....
 

I have not dallied too long in the forest, for far below, shading my eyes and squinting, I can see two other back-packed pilgrims approaching the monastery. I figure that more or less I must be on time, and that these pilgrims must have bedded down at a Monastery further down the coast. I tumble down the fields of wheat in a competitive race to try and pre-empt them and secure my place for the night before they get there. The odds are against me. Although it seems that we are equidistant from the monastery entrance, their trajectory is a horizontal one, whilst the terrain dictates that mine is diagonal and involves a great deal of stumbling over rock and scrub.

Someone who looks like Gandalf, with a white flowing beard and hair scooped up in a bun beneath a tall black pillbox hat, is standing across from a bridge, straddling a gurgling stream. Gaining on their advantage, the two other travellers beat me to it. They talk to him after partaking of some refreshments and he points first in my direction and then towards the monastery.  By the time I collect myself, catch my breath and wipe the perspiration off my brow, they have disappeared into the Monastery walls.

I feel sheepish, a little stupid as I walk up to the monk on the far end of the bridge. I must have looked a trifle desperate tearing down the cultivated fields, and then suddenly dragging my steps. Probably disrespectful too, though I had been careful not to trample any crops and had kept to the perimeter of the fields, but still. The monk approaches me, he holds a plate of Loukoumi out towards me, (Loukoumi = Turkish delight, but here it is not Turkish). On a little wooden stool there is also a tray with a glass of ouzo for me, a very welcome sight having transversed a forest to get here. The setting is pastoral and idyllic. It feels almost staged. Does this monk stand by the bridge all morning every day? the Loukoumi, dusted with icing sugar tastes delicious and the ouzo goes to my head immediately. The Monk, Iviron’s Arhondaris (as he informs me) speaks perfect English. He welcomes me, enquires when I arrived on the peninsula, and if I intend to stay the night. I reply in the affirmative, if it is possible of course and if he does not commit a positive reply, he does not refuse me, but tells me to follow the others and wait in the central courtyard inside.

Once inside, I greet the other pilgrims who are chatting quietly on one side of an enormous cistern in the centre of the courtyard. Just across, my jaw slackens, as my eyes widen spontaneously and blink in disbelief at the incongruous scene unfolding before me. A row of black top hats sit haphazardly on the rim of the well besides a motley group of monks who are alternatively standing and leaning against the cistern and each other. The majority of them have a full head of hair scraped back from their temples into a tightly wound coil at the back of their heads and held in place by a variety of slides, clips, sticks, twigs, pencils and pins. However one elderly monk is in the process of removing the very last restraining pin, and the tight coil, suddenly springs back, unfurling a curtain of white snow. The monk shakes his head as if in an Oreal hair conditioner advert because ‘he is worth it’ and for a few split seconds, the scenario unfolds in Head and Shoulders  slow motion, as this waterfall of hair bounces to the right and then to the left, finally settling on his stooped shoulders and cascading down his back. I stand gawping there, whilst, as if on cue, these monks, who had only a minute ago resembled, a group of Spigolatrici, lay nuns with their dour habits and tight (hair) buns, begin collectively removing their hair pins, uncoiling their hair, waving it and shaking it loose.  One monk startles me by flipping his head forward, running his hands though his hair over the back of his scalp, disentangling any knots and then snorting, tossing his mane backwards. This swishing screen of grey streaked, salt and pepper and snow white hair, reminds me less of a group of monks and more of a group of head banging Hells Angels bikers or possibly; a posse of ageing hippies. It must have something to do with the Samson myth: preserving virility, virginity, strength and dedicating your life to God. Their hair is waist long and totally cool and to my mind utterly rebellious. The sun is bearing down and I imagine it must be hot under those gabardine pillar box hats. However the Roman Catholic Parish Priests back home have short sides and back, and my mind has a hard time reconciling the flowing locks with the word ecclesiastic.  However this is not the only double take, I am about to make this day. The Gods have prescribed a set of short, sharp shocks in store for me today.

I have been staring too long and indiscreetly, so reluctantly, I prise my gaze away from these rockabilly monks to better absorb my equally fascinating surroundings.

The monastery design is organic. Ramparts and staircases, jutting balconies and wooden walkways, interweave and pile up upon each other. The courtyard is one of many, each one leading into the next, surrounded by windows, perched high up above bare walls, by galleries and steeple towers.

Whirling around, happily ensconced within these austere but honey hued fortress-like bastions, I feel safe in this citadel of contemplation. I have arrived and these last two week’s struggles have been unreservedly worth it. I’m in a Monastery on Mount Athos and even if by some thwarted fate I am not destined to sleep here tonight, I have crossed the hallowed threshold. It feels as though I entered a Tardis in Thessaloniki in 1993 and have been transported way back in time to somewhere universal, to the magic castle in everyone’s enchanted fairy tale. And then my gaze alights on something dissonant, incongruous. The whirling stops and I do a double take. More like ‘Back to the Future’. A bright shock of yellowed platinum, tufting from darkened roots atop a Nirvana t-shirt. It can’t be, yes it must be, it’s gotta be the skateboarder from Brooklyn. I had forgotten him entirely, preoccupied predominantly, as I had been since boarding that barge at Ouranoupoli, with the pressing issue of accommodation.

The skateboarder has just appeared at the head of a flight of stairs descending to the courtyard where we are standing. His curious gaze, no doubt checking out the new comers, pans on me a few seconds after I have I have noticed him. We stare at each other for a bit and then still all agog with delayed surprise, I raise my hand in a wave and then use it to point down at my luggage, remembering just in time to give him a thumbs up. I am very grateful to be here and this is all so incredibly, spontaneously synchronistic, that I’m beyond disbelief. I even want to hug the skateboarder and enthusiastically shake his hand a million times, enough to give him Parkinson’s. Just think, a day earlier he had been slotted into my nemesis, ‘public enemy number one’, pigeonhole and now he was such a happy familiar sight. He waved back at me nonchalantly and began walking down the steps, whilst chatting to two other pilgrims who had made an entrance behind him. After nodding a few hellos to us newbies he casually greeted me with a “so you made it after all” astringency. Overeager and gauche in comparison, I bombarded him with a hundred questions: how had he got here?, had he caught the bus in time?, why hadn’t  he waited for me? Had he thought I would catch up with him? Where had he spent the night?, had it been at Iviron? I also wondered if the monks had said anything about his appearance but this I didn’t ask. In fact he seemed to brush away most of what I asked and instead cut in over what one of his companions were beginning to say, and announced in a loud, brash twang that the guest monk had instructed him to show us to our dormitory and yes we could follow him. Despite feeling a slight pang of jealousy at how quickly he had become top guest dog and irritated by his lack of interest in my recent ‘ordeal’, my heart gladdened at the news of a bed for the night. The other pilgrims however looked dubiously at him, the other monk at the bridge - wasn’t he the guest monk after all? Had he not told us to wait in the courtyard. Mr.  Brooklyn, though, was already up some of the stairs beckoning to me, talking ten to the dozen; how awesome and how amazing the monastery was and how he could show us the run of the place. By the time I had got to the top of stairs, I realised I was the only one following him and beginning to wonder if associating with him would actually garner me no favours in the ‘bag a bed’ department. Luckily Gandalf had just entered the courtyard with another pilgrim in tow, facilitating ‘trespassing’ damage limitation on my behalf. Our heads are counted, thankfully reaching an imagined acceptable tally in Gandalf’s mind view, and with the faintest of bows, he courteously asks us to follow him. Leaving his tray of empty glasses on the rim of the cistern, he joins us on the staircase.

On the landing he pauses in front of me. He looks at the skateboarder and then at me, smiles enigmatically, almost imperceptivity, and we part asunder for him to pass through. As if by unspoken admonishment we bring up the tail end of this eclectic group of sombre pilgrims. I am less angry with the skateboarder for potentially jeopardising my chances, than happy with having made it into the daily quota. After all he had been thoughtful enough to leave my bag at Ourianapoli. There would have been no way of knowing which monastery he had decided to visit and I would have ended up on a wild goose chase. Our meeting at the same monastery happened to be pure chance, and only because, as he informed me, he had decided to stay on another night. Otherwise he would have already have been on his way. Slightly lowering his voice, reflecting, his recent downgrade from tour leader, but nonetheless still conspicuously loud and jangling in the long empty corridors and quiet solitude of the monastery, Mr. Skateboarder prattles on about the monastery’s bio rhythms and then listing a whole litany of complaints; how early he had to get up (Ungodly..ironic given the location), how weird and rude the monks were (spaced out, uncommunicative), how hungry he always is (no canteen, no candy) and how cold the ‘showers’ are (bloody freezing, Christ, man).

I can’t wait to make my getaway and distance myself from him, even if he is a source of familiarity and I am more on his wavelength than the scholarly distant and grey, first impression of the other pilgrims in the courtyard. I remind myself that theoretically I am an impostor, and no better than my acquaintance from Brooklyn, being neither an Art Historian, a Theologian or a Religious. In a way we are complicit and co-plotters, and have become ‘blood brothers’ in our determination to get here.

The Guest Monk shows us to our shared dorm, a row of solemn metal beds with pristine white, but musty smelling sheets, a simple bedside table and not much else. Two of our company have been upgraded to single cells, presumably because of their clerical status but also because they are here on an extended sojourn. I choose one of the few remaining empty beds and exchange greetings with an olive skinned and curly dark haired man, sitting reading on the bed adjacent to mine. He tells me that he is here to obtain the monk’s blessing for his upcoming nuptials, a tradition followed by many Greek Orthodox on the mainland. Gandalf points to a list of rules and regulations pinned to the wall which complement and add on to a similar list issued together with our permit. He instructs us to adhere to these rules, to wear long clothing covering all our limbs at all times and not to take photographs of the monks or of the interior of the monastery and of its many chapels. When we have settled in, we are to  register and present our Diamonitiria(permit)in his ‘office’ . One of the other pilgrims, if asked will show us where. The Guest Monk takes his leave, swishing out of the room to show the upgraded pilgrims their abode, and I move towards one of the small, narrow, windows recessed into the wall opposite me. The view is breathtaking once again. Over the terracotta tiles and in between the many belfries, the streaming sunlight glints upon the sea.  Just a few fathoms out of the little harbour, one monk on a small fishing boat casts a net into the sea. Another monk with sleeves rolled up and a smock on top of his habit is leaning out of a balcony, a level below me to sandpaper a wooden shutter. In the fields, just up from the monastery,  three bearded men, who are not monks,  are busy harvesting the tall ears of wheat planted in the spring. In an out yard just outside the monastery, a monk is walking in and out of a shed carrying and laying out freshly painted icons to dry. I imagine there is some kind of division of labour in force, and every monk has a role, no doubt assigned according to talent and natural inclination. In fact I learn later that, agriculture including bee keeping and olive picking, fishing, woodcarving, spirit distillation, iconography, tailoring, and book binding are the traditional pursuits, (although apparently in 2013, 20 years on,  taxi driving and IT maintenance have also made the monastic occupation list, but I don’t want to spoil things just yet, just wait for Installation 7 for links ).

This reminds me of the Medieval great chain of being, an hierarchical ordered view of the universe, mirroring the heavenly ascension from angels to seraphims to God (him)self.  Due to the dwindling numbers of monks, most of the monasteries on Mount Athos, which had previously been Idiorhythmatic, (where monks ate in their own quarters and worshipped and studied when and where they wanted) had converted to a more rigid Cenobitic status (with a clearly defined timetable of common worship and repast). Iviron seemed to be making the slow transition, where work duties remained Idiorythmatic, but one religious service and one meal in the day was Cenobitic. None of the monks appeared to be working together, but then the monastery was vast and rambling and therefore its inhabitants had to be spread as thinly as possible across the multiple chores required by the upkeep and daily running of the establishment.

Still the scene is tranquil and serene as if this was how things had always been and ‘progress’ had not been allowed to trespass on these shores. Pirates, and barbarian invasions, might have been a bother in the past, hence the bastions and fortifications, but a reigning feeling of peace did seem to lay low on the land and to suggest that this holy land had always been spared.  High up at the window, I rub my arms in glee, just so, so happy to be here and to be witnessing this pastoral scene.

I turn to my skateboarder friend, who has been talking to himself these last ten minutes and is eager for a captive audience, and ask him if he can show me the way to the guest monk’s ‘office’. On the way there he shows me the bathrooms, which have a bucket and pail for cold water ‘showers’ and hole in the floor toilets in the Turkish style , whilst others have wooden boxed seats. He laughs at these, but I think they are probably practical for a monk with several layers of underclothing and skirts, who might need to attend quickly to an urgent call of nature. Nonetheless, that would entail a clever balancing act as I would find out much later for myself, (the hard way as usual) with an enormous backpack, hippypants, and a bad case of Delhi belly, in an open sewer passing for a public convenience in a train station in India. Talk about human origami.

Mr. Brooklyn (I have forgotten both his and the Arhondaris's name unfortunately, a casualty of the passage of time, but then I’ve never been good with names to tell you the truth, so let’s call Mr. Brooklyn David from now on), led me down an interminable passage of right angled corridors, up and down narrow wooden staircases, long halls, and dark empty tightly shuttered galleries, past rows of cells with rusty door knobs and dusty loggias. Iviron was famous for its immensely rich library and treasury but only the lucky few got a peek. David told me he was hoping to hang around long enough to get in. I began to wonder if I should have been leaving a trail of pebbles behind me. How on earth was I going to find my way back to the dorm? I really did not want to rely upon David. On the way, with no prompting from myself this time, David filled me in with his version on how he had got to Mount Athos. The missing details are filled in. In the rush to get to the station, he had not noticed I was not running behind him. He had reached  the station just in time to get on the bus which was on the verge of departing. He had asked the bus driver to wait for me, but when, after five minutes, I had still not turned up, the impatient mutterings of passengers on the bus, urging the driver to get a move on, had decided the driver to do just that. It was only fifteen minutes later, having settled on the bus, that my friend realised he was still clutching my bag.

This explanation satisfied me. At least he had asked the driver to wait for me. OK he had not jumped off the bus, but then he had had the good sense to leave my luggage at Ourianapolis and I thanked him for this, although come to think of it, anyone could have taken it, lying as it was in the middle of that café cum ticket office. But then he had to dump it somewhere and that was probably a good a place as any, I suppose.

Finally we get to the Arhondaris’s office. There is one pilgrim before me and another in the office with the guest monk so I settle to wait my turn. David insists on waiting with me. I protest, saying there is no need but here is no shaking him. He tells me he will take me on a tour of the grounds when I’m done. I groan inwardly, “shit I’m stuck with this guy”, I feel trapped and I am a little irritated by what I am now perceiving as clinginess or insensitivity. Yet despite being vexed, I acknowledge that it will be the price I have to pay for not feeling lonely or ill at ease amongst the scholars. Besides, it would save much time from being lost in that maze of corridors. Whilst David proceeds to persecute our neighbour with his incessant monologue, the demon, dormant butterflies begin to flutter under my diaphragm. What is it about humans that having ‘tamed’ the jungle we invent a galaxy of conventions to intimidate our own kind?, to make them feel inferior, to put them in their place, somehow like a baboon might cuff a young insubordinate male, anything to stimulate the release of adrenalin and take us back fight or flight into the jungle albeit a cement and concrete one.

Interviews of any kind, even those where I feel that I have the upper hand, stress me out. Like those God awful round robins, having to introduce yourself. The waiting is the worse. This was no different. OK, so I more or less had a bed for the night, I had a permit, I seemed to have been included in the day’s tally but ultimately I was here by subterfuge. Stupidly I had failed to ask David how he had schemed his way through the interview and felt embarrassed to ask him now, in front of the other pilgrim. What should I say? The truth? That I had always been interested in the monastic tradition, no matter what the denomination/religion, that I was curious? But wouldn’t that put me in the tourist category? Should I lie and say that I was here to determine if I had a religious calling and was interested in possibly converting to the Orthodox faith. Was that a lie really? Hadn’t I always felt drawn to a life of seclusion, hadn’t I imagined myself tending some herb garden, concocting remedies in communicative silence under the tutelage of some wizened, inspiring keeper of the keys to all things esoteric? I was indeed on a sabbatical myself from Uni(versity), had taken time off.  
 
My parents had separated a year before, somehow jump starting a year of alienation and increasing dissatisfaction, with the academic course I was following, my chosen path in life, a dark night of the soul that saw me rebelling and questioning everything. I experienced an ongoing mind block whenever I had to sit down and write anything, I couldn’t study, my mind was a blank…I began skiving lessons, procrastinating reality, running away by regressing sucking my thumb and re-reading Enid Blyton ‘Famous Five’ go on an adventure jaunts. One day I decided that I didn’t actually have to go to a marketing exam I was due to sit for in an hour. Why couldn’t I take destiny into my own hands? Why couldn’t I say no and just do the opposite, take the road less travelled? Why shouldn’t I just for once run contrary to what was expected out of me? I recalled the last time this thought had entered my head, when It first dawned on me that the possibility existed out there, of colliding with the status quo, of saying NO!. I was 10 years old, even younger, I forget, on a visit to the dentist. The wait in the faded grey and orange, old fashioned waiting room was agonising. I knew I was probably going to have a tooth extracted. All the other children accompanied by their frazzled mums were younger than me, and theoretically I was supposed to set an example of courageous stoic resignation to my fate. Not so, I recall feeling terribly ashamed on my descent at having turned up the apprehension factor an octave after my shenanigans which involved jumping out of the dentist’s chair, shouting that they were not going to touch me, running down the stairs being caught and clinging to the banisters whilst yelling at the dentist who was holding onto one of my legs which were swinging horizontally in the air, the dental assistant holding onto my other leg and my mother contributing to the general wailing with her embarrassed remonstrations. Needless to say I didn’t get my way and years later I found myself thinking well maybe this time I’ll just do what I feel like for a change. So here I was deliberating whether I should go to that test in half an hour. The fact also remained that I hadn’t really studied much and had attended classes even less. This was a mandatory credit, core to the syllabus and I should by now have changed and be in the car on my way to that exam room.  

 Instead I thought to myself that I might as well just continue sitting  on the bog reading Herman Hesse’s compelling ‘ Narziss and Goldmund’, rather than the boring text book tome I should have been stuck into the last couple of days. That was the longest toilet sitting ever. My legs went numb and I had a red ring on my ass for the entire day.  I made sure, with guilty nervous pleasure, that I stayed perched on that rim until the gong to start scribbling (would have) sounded in that exam hall a few miles away. Then I slickly sprang off the W.C. and found a more comfortable seat for my perusal of that book, which incidentally juxtaposes the lives of a monastic with a free spirited artist. Guilty by birth, by virtue of have being indoctrinated into the Catholic faith, I began my first flirtations with rebellion, a decade too late. I dropped out of University. I started pushing myself out of my comfort zone, going out late alone. I hooked up with this group of African Maritime Lawyers and after a night of partying and listening to live music in this jazz bar we would see dawn in over a cup of scalding and taste bud annihilating Mauritanian chili soup on the patio of one of their student digs.

A softly spoken but authoritative ‘next’ interrupts my reverie. One pilgrim exists leaving the door ajar. The pilgrim who is sitting next to David looks immensely relieved and jumps up. However he merely accompanies the other guy, so that means it is my turn to go in, and I have not had any chance to speak to David about his strategy of stay.

To be continued next week...