3 - My Question.

Ever since I read Plato's account of Socrates and the Oracle of Delphi I've wanted to go there. I was convinced the Oracle would speak to me as well. I was a young teenager then so it was easy to dream like that, but it was at the age of forty when I was finally able to go.

I had envisioned myself entering a small open temple, more in the shape of Athena's than Apollo's, on top of a hill near the ocean. I imagined the answer to my question coming to me arms open, head up and eyes closed, in the whisper of a soft sea breeze entering directly into my mind and heart. I didn't know then about the institution in Delphi, its priests and Pythia, its laws and treasuries, which resembled more an organized religion than a powerful place on Earth.

When I learned, after arriving to Greece, that the Oracle in the past was given inside the temple of Apollo, I imagined then myself standing on its ruins facing the vast valley bellow. I envisioned the Oracle, the words, clear in my mind, the obvious answer in a riddle to the important question I'd ask.

In early July of 2008, there was only one question I needed to ask: "Should I quit my job?"

After teaching art for six happy years at a high school in New Jersey, I wanted to concentrate more on my own artwork. I had already met with my three school administrators and resigned, but they didn't accept it, and asked me to think about it more, suggesting this and that. My trip to Greece was in a few weeks from then, so I told them during a meeting that I knew then what my question was going to be for the oracle. I didn't really have one yet. I told them that I will know for sure what to do after I get its answer in Delphi. They looked at me as if they suddenly realized I was crazy, that I had been coo-coo all along and they just realized it :-)