29.4.14

7 - The morning of the Oracle

After breakfast, the tour bus took us up to the Delphi archeological site.
The plan was to visit the famous museum before the ruins, but too many buses were parked already in front of the entrance, so we were taken to the temple of Athena first, to kill some time.
Not many people came down, so when I took this picture I was alone.

What happened here was, again, something I've never experienced before. I was about to walk by the temple of Athena, towards the bus, when the air stopped me, literally. That's the only way I can describe it. I was walking back and something in the air or the air itself "physically" stopped me. So I stopped, astonished.

The temple, to my right, felt extremely quiet and heavy. I looked at it respectfully, acknowledging its unique roundness, trying to understand why I couldn't walk by it, yet.
The camera in my hands started to feel intrusive, out of place. I put it away and heard my self say: "I've waited for this day most of my life. I can't be a tourist today."
Then I looked at the temple and said: "From now on it is a meditation."
I walked up in silence and spoke very little the rest of time, and only with Oscar.

Later on I understood: I couldn't pass Athena's temple without asking for wisdom first. She's, after all, Wisdom's goddess. I was rude and didn't honor her presence, but she showed me.  Her temple is at the base of the sanctuary for a reason; the pilgrim would reach it before Apollo's temple and the rest of the complex. Athena would help the visitor with the necessary wisdom to ask the right question, and to interpret the answer correctly. And, in my case, to be able to actually hear the answer itself in the first place.  

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