Fishinthepan (Tavari-Lesvos, Sept 2013)

Have you ever experienced, while been in this organized world with its tight schedule (actually you know really it's in your mind) and then unexpectedly you find yourself in a spot where things are flowing more natural and easy, unpredictable and time doesn't move so straight? I know, you're probably thinking about Osho Afroz. Well, yes, and then, Afroz didn't root accidentally in this island. So, I'm talking today about discoverous routes that you can ake in the islandof Lesvos and find yourself in places like Kyr-Panagiotis fish taverna. Those who get impressed by the light will constrain themselves in the fancy tavernas that flock one side of the Tavari bay. At the end of the other side, just in front of the small port for the fishing boats, a blue door and three tables on the sand under the tree and dim light. Panagiotis works alone but he always has company. The day these photos were taken, a few old fishermen and a couple from Belgium that come every year after year and seem "adopted by him. If there is fish-that is if Panagiotis caught stuff in his nets-you eat. If the weather was bad, you starve-that's why we always call before going.

Ides Of September (Eressos land, 2013)

I can't exactly say why I wrote this title for the post, paraphrasing the Ides of March. Here's what I read in Wikipedia: "The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martii or Idus Martiae) is a day on the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March. It was marked by several religious observances, and became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. The death of Caesar made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history, as one of the events that marked the transition from the historical period known as the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Although March (Martius) was the third month of the Julian calendar, in the oldest Roman calendar it was the first month of the year. The holidays observed by the Romans from the first through the Ides often reflect their origin as new year celebrations." And in National Geographic: "Until that day Julius Caesar ruled Rome. The traditional Republican government had been supplanted by a temporary dictatorship, one that Caesar very much wished to make permanent...They [the assassins] were not able to bring back the Republic, and really what they did was usher in more of a permanent dictatorship under the future Roman emperors—the opposite of what they intended."

Shakespeare, with his Julius Caesar tragedy, made the expression "the Ides of March" to signify a fateful day. Here is the relevant passage: Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear. Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March. Caesar: What man is that? Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March. Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2, 15-19

Of course for me , my acquaintance with the expression was through listening to the legendary American band from the 60's-70's, Ides of March and their amazing tune "Vehicle". In this way I had a completely different idea about the meaning of the expression in my mind. And I will not try to give a definition of what the Ides of September means, let your imagination makes its own. I'll just say that I brought the vehicle that I call my body to Eressos and Osho Afroz meditation center, one September for the first time. I experienced something totally new in my life. It wasn't the friends I made, the sense of family. These sre found in other places too. It was something invisible, intangible, something like freedom, by feeling gratitude for the vehicle while not identifying with it anymore. I guess it's what we call awareness. I spent the whole month there and finally I had to return to the city. From the first moment I stepped into it I realized I need to beware, since my hearth felt wide open while people around me were carrying their armours and weapons. And I kept on moving, watching how my mind while fighting in trying to bring "democracy" brings more "dictatorship" and I kept coming back every year to Eressos and the Buddha field.

Experiencing cool and happy experiences, difficult and hard experiences, all wonderfull and significant in the path to know thou self, diving deep, taking it easy, each time feeling like a new era, a new year. In September of 2013, when these photos are taken, I "descended" into the "underworld" of the Darkness Meditation, in total darkness, to surface changed on the wonderfull nudist beach of Eressos, feeling "nothing to do, nowhere to go", nothing to accomplish, just being -as I hope these photos show. And this year I stayed again the whole September, seeing myself, being again in this family feeling, which is always there but more prominent when the noise of July and August fades out, realizing that the place of sadness that this month used to bare for me because of the end of summer, is now taken by the joy of a full experience lived and a new beginning, like a new year, coming.

So I wrote a lot, when i could let my pictures speak. I hope that all these connections (from Julius to William, to a hippie band and to Eressos outter space land)make sense, or even better, that it doesn't! Just, for you people that are allready feeling yourselves coming to Osho Afroz next season, consider also coming in "out of season", like September. Shakespeare spoke, me spoke, the last word is of...: "All alternatives are open. Choose to be blissful" Osho.

Cool Fu and Food For Soul (Osho Afroz mc, summer 2013)

...while editing the photos of an amazing summer this year in Lesvos, in Eressos and in Osho Afroz meditation center, here are some from summer of 2013, from this thread of celebration that connects every now time of life in this wonderfull Buddha space...