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Ouranoupoli
I woke up to the alarm at 9:50. I had a strange dream, but Ray… what did he try to say? The Island of Violets actually existed. Michael, an excellent poet and deputy minister, had invited me once to that cafe to celebrate the release of his book, which included also some poems dedicated to me. Michael dreamed of celebrating my wedding in Italy.
I went down for breakfast. Nicolette’s mom used to cook herself. Her breakfasts were much tastier than in hotels. My room was more spacious, and what a gorgeous balcony I had! In the afternoon, the Sun left it, allowing me to dine enjoying the view of the islands in the azure sea; at night, the Moon used to float by, and a mysterious multi-beam star winked me. The house was built on a rock overlooking the sea, in a word, I lived on the top floor of the mysterious Tower in order to calmly talk with Heaven without fear of tsunami. Funny! I was lucky on “13”, that was the number of my apartment on Athos, my dacha and garage, my ex-husband’s flat in Moscow, the last digits of my phone number and so on.
Rising from breakfast, I ran into the maid and asked her not to clean my place every day, just to take out the garbage, since I liked to feel as at home.
Sea – sea – sea … After swimming, I used to plop down in the white sand by the distant rocks, and then to return home, buying on the way some ice cream and fruit in Acropolis Tavern’s minimarket, where I occasionally had dinner.
After reading “The Girl and the Sea”, which hadn’t much to be corrected, I fell into childhood memories, but at exactly 18:00 – I loved everything systemic, not digesting chaos and since it was too hot during the day – I went for a walk to the Athos border, taking with me the Akathist to the “Seeking for the Perished” icon of the Virgin Mary. On the way, I visited the Church of Saints Constantine and Helena, where there were the “Gatekeeper” (Portaitissa), “Quick to Hear” (Gorgoepikoos) and an old icon of St. Petka Paraskeva, beloved by the Greeks and me. The icon of Petka, I had bought on St. Stephen island in Montenegro, where I had lived in a castle on vacation a long time before, was the first hand-painted icon in my house. In Ouranoupoli, you could enter the church in any clothes and shoes, and Greek women didn’t cover their heads with scarves for the memory of the war with Turkey – a protest against Muslim customs. Inside the church, there was air conditioning and chairs for parishioners to sit, except for special moments of liturgy.
The road to the border with Athos started from the Tower and went to the left along the sea, perpendicular to the main street. In about 30 minutes you could see the Zygou monastery, the monument “Protected by UNESCO”, the golden coat of arms of Mount Athos, barbed wire and a small customs house, although in 99% of cases, if the sea wasn’t stormy, they got to Athos by ferry, not by land. I liked that rural road – past the vineyards and olive groves, the lands of local residents, and the tiny luxury hotel “Sketes”, where I wouldn’t have stayed, because the sea after the Tower was different, it changed dramatically, turning from kind and homely to spontaneous and harsh, as if the real border had been located at the Tower.
I reached the border and habitually stopped at the ruined Zygou, first mentioned in 941. Usually access to the excavation area was closed, but Sophia, Dimitra’s daughter, had taken me there and shown all sorts of interesting and curious things. I turned right and walked to the sea along the barbed wire, greeted the Holy Mountain and read the Akathist. Guards by the wire – wasps – were flying to scan intentions, but I wasn’t going to cross the border, and they left me alone.
Sophia had shown me a mysterious cove of stunning beauty to the right of the border. There was a small passage between the rocks, and during the evening tide you could get inside and out only by swimming, so it was no sense to take any value with you – everything had to be left on the rock at the entrance. I climbed one of the rocks to meet the sunset. The Sun was like a burning candle. Having taken a few photos, I found ghosts distinctly manifested on them, so I sent the photos to my friend, Svetlana, and, raising my head, I saw … I could swear, it was the same Monk from the airport! He walked slowly along the shore, sat down at the rock nearby and met the sunset too. When the Sun disappeared, I wandered back. The Monk followed me and turned towards the customs house. I exhaled in relief. There was something about him that distinguished him from other monks, but what?
Dimitra was chatting with her husband and brother at their icon shop opposite the Tower. She greeted me with a smile, offered coffee and asked about my day.
“I went to the border. How is Peter with the keys doing?”
“I’ve phoned the twin monks. They say it’s August and they are full of festive events. I can send you Peter by post in about nine months,” Dimitra offered, handing me coffee. “Today, a couple from Serbia has bought two printed icons, and a man from London, you won’t believe it, has taken away your favorite ‘The 4
Generation’! As he’s entered the shop, got frozen and said, ‘I want it’.”
London… I felt something sank inside, and at the same time I saw the Monk, the very same one! He went to the square in front of the Tower, crossed it and…
“Sorry, I have a client!” Dimitra whispered and ducked into her shop, and I took a few steps towards the Tower, but Dimitra returned, “False alarm!”
“The Tower, you say it’s closed…”
“Yes, already for several years. They say the state has no money to maintain the museum. And there’s a problem with the roof. The tower is higher on the old postcards. We get earthquakes from time to time. The top floor collapsed, and there is no money to restore it,” she explained and held out something wrapped in foil. “My mother asked me to give it to you personally! Gingerbread, she cooks herself! For tea!”
After thanking Dimitra and her mother, I headed for the Tower and, abruptly slowing down, walked around it from the square side, then from the seaside. There was a lock on the fence, the lock on the door, and no light in the windows. However, I could swear by all the Saints, that Monk had entered it just a couple of minutes before!
…I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time, so I went out onto the balcony. It was too quiet. Too black the sky. The Moon wanted to tell me something, but the icon of the Virgin Mary at Janis’ shop appeared on the inner screen, and I heard, “Come on, Alice! Remember me, remember!” Yes, there was something important that connected me with the icon, but what? I went back to my room, lay down on the bed, turned off the night light, and tried to fall asleep again.
Somewhere in the Universe
In a building with many doors, people with wings were rushing at lightning speed. One of them, who looked like Guardian Angel, grabbed my hand and quickly led me down the corridor, as if we were late. In the queue at the Information Desk, I spotted the husband of my Moscow neighbor. He smiled and waved at me, wishing me good luck, or did it seem to me? – there was too noisy! – either from the wings rustling, or because at each door there were crowds of people, vigorously discussing something. We went up to the top floor and went through the door with the inscription “Live broadcasting”. A white-robed winged clerk was diligently scribbling words with a feather and an invisible ink in a ghostly book lying on the equally ghostly table. However, everything in the mysterious building seemed rather vague. Having finished with writing, he glanced at us and asked,
“Standard?”
“Yes, Bro,” nodded the Angel.
“What’s your name?” the clerk turned to me, I answered, he wrote down my name, put a tick next to it and handed the book to the Angel. “Put down the dates and time yourself. And sign it. There was a precedent here the other day. I was accused of putting the wrong number. They began to figure it out and found the Guardian’s fault. It was exactly midnight there, and the clock was a little behind!”
“When will it be sent?” asked the Angel, signing the paper.
“We have a new decree, three times a day in live broadcasting, so don’t worry, Bro, it’ll reach everyone! Good luck, Alice!”
I wanted to ask what that meant and where we were, but someone called out to me. I turned around and saw Ray. And instantly… the building was gone. There were no more people, no clerks with wings, just the black sky, the stars, me and Ray. Lightning ran across the sky. It flashed in red zigzags and died down, flashed and died down, but there was no thunder anywhere.
“Ray, what’s going on?” I asked.
“Lightning,” Ray replied calmly, coming close to me.
“What kind of lightning?”
“Telegram”.
“Telegram?” I was surprised. “To whom?”
“To the whole Universe, Alice,” Ray replied and … disappeared.
Ouranoupoli
I woke up. It was still night on Athos. I went out to the balcony. Absolute silence and too black sky, not a cloud, when suddenly … I saw the same flash as in my dream! The sky flashed with red zigzags and died down, flashed and died down, flashed and died down…
38 Before/3 After. House No. 1
Garden of Stones
Somewhere in the Universe
“Now let’s talk about me,” said Saturn, swaying in his rocking chair by the fireplace. “I’m a heavy planet surrounded by many rings. I bring all sorts of restrictions to the Sphere of Life where I find myself. I deprive of something or create obstacles in achieving results. I force a person to work with maximum dedication, take responsibility, exercise strict discipline. At the same time, I’m a symbol of wisdom, strength of the Spirit, reason, intellect and even calculation. I’m quite lonely and conservative. I mean old people, the elder relatives in the family, grandparents, but, as many magi say, I don’t like children, because wise old age is closer to me. I’m strict with children, I prefer mature personalities. At the moment of your incarnation, I’m guesting in the Moon Sphere, and I feel bad here, I don’t like water, so I often sit by the fireplace warming my bones, and you’ll love fireplaces on Earth too. The Moon and I are too different. She lives with emotions. I live with mind. She is chaotic and changeable, and I’m systemic, oppressed by everything that breaks the rules and violates stability, I love constancy. She is the follower, and I’m the leader, moreover, I rigidly dictate my terms and demand unconditional obedience. She is a humanist, and I have a mathematical mindset. She is vague, and I’m extra-precise. She is the wave. I’m the rock. Saturn in Cancer is called an exile.”
“Am I an exile? Are you both, Moon and Saturn, my major planets?”
“There is a conflict, that will exist in your Self throughout the entire incarnation. It’s difficult for the Moon to express a variety of feelings and emotions, and I incline to clarity and limit the quantity. Your task is to process quantity into quality, structuring chaos, build meaningful systems and give them to the world, for example, in a few words that are worth their weight in gold. You can make a career as an excellent organizer and a bossy person, but outside of work, remain soft and follower as the Moon. You’ll be drawn to elder and wise people in general, and with children … telling them bedtime stories, like the Moon, you’ll show extreme severity in education, while selflessly protecting them as a wall, like Saturn. An increased sense of duty will hang on your shoulders as a heavy burden of responsibility.”
“What about my parents? Will I see them before incarnation?”
“Yes, later,” Saturn sighed.
“My soul, not everything is so bad,” the Guardian encouraged me. “If you become a workaholic, you won’t get sick.”
“You are running ahead again,” Saturn reproached the Guardian. “I don’t like lazybones, but I encourage those who work diligently and laboriously, delving into details, digging deep, pondering over the true meaning, classifying and building logical relationships, systematizing data, organizing processes within the strictly specified framework of the Space of Time, and that requires maximum concentration on the subject and, as a consequence, silence and the absence of crowds. You’ll achieve the best results alone, either by working for yourself or on yourself, the latter is a more appropriate expression, since it’s about your Self. In relationships with people, you are extremely reserved and silent. Initially, you take a defensive stance, just in case no one offends you. The hypersensitive Moon is secretive, cautious and distrustful, like Saturn. Impregnable and cold rock, alienated from reality outwardly, you are full of raging waves of feelings inside. Many people will consider you a difficult person to communicate with, your face bears the stamp of excessive seriousness, it’s hard and even strange for you to smile without cause, and there will really be few reasons for joy, while your simple phrases are difficult for ordinary people to interpret, and certainly, with your honesty and thirst for justice few people will get along. As a consequence, you’ll become increasingly silent, more and more withdrawn, and even in crowds you’ll feel desert loneliness. Here is the strict division into ‘I’ and ‘they’.”
“Work on your Self and grow spiritually,” the Guardian consoled. “The fewer superficial contacts you have, the higher you climb the Stairs of Spirit, and the wiser thoughts in a concise form you give out to the world as a result.”
“Angel, you keep trying, as people say, to run ahead of the train. It’s good and right when guarding yours on Earth,” Saturn chuckled, “but we are still in Heaven, and still in House No. 1. Of course, it’s important for Rukh to establish herself in the eyes of the world. There is a strong need for respect and recognition by others, for love, at least by close ones. Not getting the support and approval you deserve, you shouldn’t give up, but work even harder and better, self-organizing, perfecting your Self and the results of your work. This is the process of Self-improvement and honing the skill in Saturn way. I’m not Jupiter, so I don’t recognize anything easy. My favorite earthly saying, ‘Patience and work will overcome everything.’ Without complaints about troubles and obstacles. No looking for someone to blame. No condemnation. Without allowing yourself to be lazy or idle. Without envying anyone. And then, step by step, overcoming hardships and restrictions, even periodically falling down, but getting up, starting all from the very beginning again and persistently and humbly continuing your Path, clenching your willpower into a fist, you’ll be able to climb a high mountain and receive a deserved reward.”
“There isn’t even a bed to sleep in here,” I said thoughtfully.
“You’ll have rest, don’t worry,” the Guardian encouraged me, “in an ascetic mode. Monks, for example, sleep several hours a day.”
“Now about the fortress,” Saturn continued. “You’ll cling with claws to everything that brings you the feeling of safety and security in the outer and inner worlds, based on the principle that good is not sought beyond good. You need guarantees, being especially concerned about the issue of comfortable old age, to create a reliable family, to have your own, albeit small, house-fortress, any real estate, that is, something material. You’ll carefully and reverently treat everything that you get by hard work, and without it, as you understand, nothing will be obtained. When ties are broken or solid ground under your feet is lost, a deep depression is possible.”
“If I understood correctly,” I suddenly remembered, “Saturn gives difficulties and deprives of something, restricts me in some way. So the breakup is going to happen anyway? House No. 1 in the timeline corresponds to the period of childhood, doesn’t it?”
“You are all like your Guardian, running ahead, although your thought is working in the right direction. The most important emotional traumas happen in childhood. Usually, children with Saturn in Cancer, not receiving care and affection, have certain difficulties with their parents and subsequently in their own families with spouses – due to the difficulties in expressing feelings, and with their children – due to strictness in upbringing, which leads to disappointment in people, withdrawal into oneself, a deep feeling of dissatisfaction with life. If everything is fine in the family, the ties may be forcibly severed, the dissolution of the continuity of generations. In this case, one constantly returns to the Past, as for the life-giving source from which one draws strength, and in general lives more in the Past than in the Future, falling into childhood memories and nostalgic for the lost or unfulfilled, has a painful dependence on the Past or on parents. An eternal child at heart, one tries to preserve the connection disappeared into oblivion at least in one’s own inner world, constantly connecting the thread torn by reality, supporting the continuity of generations with all the fibers of the soul. Even if there was no gap, but childhood was spent in cold alienation as for the level of feelings, one will try to compensate the warmth in one’s own family.”
“So my parents won’t love me!” I felt very sad.
“I didn’t say that,” Saturn stated, not without a note of sadness. “The Creator said, ‘Be like children, and you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Anyway, traditions, family values and the Past are very important to you. Now a little about personal life, since the Moon and the Sign of Cancer mean the intimate Sphere too. I deprive of earthly temptations by some restrictions on emotional joys. It’s not you who restrain yourself in passions and don’t enjoy life to the fullest, it’s the set up in your passport. Everything that happens in your destiny, according to the Creator’s plan, is exclusively for your benefit. You may become not just a serious, but a very deep and wise person who sees and is able to express in exact words at least part of the truth that you’ll definitely unearth in the process of working on yourself. And now I’ll show you something interesting, let’s go.”
Saturn took a candle, we left the cell and went down to the Dungeon.
“This is the Well from which you’ll draw your strength,” Saturn commented, “you can look inside.”
I hovered over the Well. It seemed bottomless, but suddenly I noticed the Moon in it!
“It’s not the goal of our journey,” Saturn said, and we flew along the corridors, that resembled an intricate labyrinth.
Suddenly we found ourselves in a beautiful cave with a mountain lake and an unusual garden.
“My Garden of Stones. Sometimes I cross trees to get a unique healing effect.”
We wandered slowly between the trees, and Saturn, not without pride, spoke about the energy contained in the stones and its influence on souls.
“As a child, playing in the yard with girls, when choosing one of the four Realms, you’ll take under your control the Underground one. Later you’ll start looking for stones and make jewelry. You’ll feel stones like the Moon and love them like Saturn. Here is Larimar, for example. The magical stone of the lost Atlantis. It awakens the memory of the Past. Delicate, isn’t it?” Saturn asked, and his gaze became softer. “And this is the Moonstone. It’s yours, Rukh. It knows to fulfill wishes and contributes to the disclosure of creativity. The Moon will give it to you.”
“Saturn gives a penchant for collecting,” the Guardian clarified, “an interest in antiques, history and archeology, due to fixation on the Past with a particular focus on its values. You’ll enjoy diving headlong into the information flow, digging out something interesting and hidden, fishing out rare specimens, analyzing and systematizing data, making collections and showing them to friends, sharing knowledge.”
“The Garden of Stones will bring you joy, even if not much. You’ll find also unique alive icons on Earth. You’ve already seen some of them in my cell… Now I need to rest a bit,” Saturn apologized, and the Guardian and I left for the Library.
Library of the Universe
“Angel, Saturn said he would limit my earthly passions and temptations, and he doesn’t like children. Will I have children?”
“You’re so funny, Rukh!” the Guardian smiled. “You’ll get children, but your Saturn is a wizard. You’ll become a very pretty creature with magical attraction of the opposite sex beings. In order to prevent you from sinking into the abyss of earthly passions, a heavenly tattoo will appear on your earthly body at the moment of incarnation. I’ve recently sent a little mouse to your mother, she got frightened of it and … Any birthmark is a sign of Heaven. Trying to attract attention, people make something similar on their skin, but their sophistication has an artificial flavor. Given the nature of Cancer, you’ll be very shy of the heavenly sign, minimizing the number of contacts in the Sphere of earthly passions.”
We settled down in the chairs of the Reading Hall, the book flew into my hands and opened at the page with “The Mist” miniature.
“There is nothing scary in this book, believe me,” the Guardian reassured me, instantly scanning my feelings.
“So will I never know the cause? What happened in the Future?”
“You’re too fixated on the cause, Rukh. You should read the story about the broken mirrors in the City, whose inhabitants left for the World of Mists, ‘And your last thought is ringing like a bell – life is over, and you haven’t managed to do something very, very important…’ You will write that at the age of 13, Rukh.”
Gifts of the Magi
Ouranoupoli
Taking the icons already acquired, I went to the pier at the Tower. The excursion ship used to depart for the foot of the Holy Mountain every morning at 10:30. It ran along the south-western coast, sheltered by neighboring isles and the peninsula Sithonia, only in good weather and only to the foot, since right beyond it, at the cape of the peninsula, there was an abyss with a sharp drop in depth of up to 1,000 meters. The other side of the Athos peninsula was almost always turbulent, so people travelled to pay their respects to the Holy Mountain from Ouranoupoli.
Traveling along the shore, you could admire the natural beauty, but there were many beautiful places on Earth, Mount Athos was unique. According to legend, the mountain was named after the titan Athos, who threw a stone at Poseidon, then the legend ended in two – according to one version, Athos the Titan died, according to another, Poseidon died.
In 48—49 AD, during a storm, the ship with the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John the Theologian came to the shores of Athos in the area of the Iviron monastery. The local pagan temples collapsed instantly, the inhabitants converted to Christianity, and the Virgin Mary asked the Creator to give that place to Her, because She liked it so much. Since then, Athos had been considered the Garden of the Virgin, and one of the most famous Athos icons was called the Athos Virgin Mary, or the Abbess of the Holy Mountain.
There were more than 200 cells, hermitages, as well as caves for ascetics, and 20 large monasteries on Athos. One of them was St. Panteleimon (aka Rossikon, or Russik), the Russian one, one Serbian and one Bulgarian, the rest were Greek. The first monastery, Great Lavra, was founded by St. Athanasius the Athonite in 963 on the south-eastern side of the peninsula, but back in 676, the Emperor Constantine transferred the entire peninsula to the eternal property of the monks, and the oldest temple was considered to be the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin not far from the capital of Athos, built in around 335.
The first monastery to appear from the south-western side of Athos was the Bulgarian Zograf with the unpainted icon of St. George, miraculously manifested on the icon board. After Zograf, there was the Greek monastery of the 10
century Docheiariou with the “Quick to Hear” icon, and immediately after it there was Xenophontos with the relics of the Holy Martyrs Marina and Petka Paraskeva and not only.
Each monastery had its own shrines, as well as a library where printed books, ancient manuscripts and papyrus scrolls were stored. I mentally recalled the most famous Athos wonderworking icons of the Virgin Mary:
“Gatekeeper” (Iverskaya, or Portaitissa), painted by Saint Apostle Luke the Evangelist, in Iviron,
“Pantanassa” and “Sacrifice” in Vatopedi,
“Quick to Hear” in Docheiariou,
“Three-handed” and “Milk-Giver” in Hilandar,
“House-Builder” in Great Lavra,
“The Elder” in Pantokratoros,
“Axion Estin” in Karyes,
“Virgin Mary of Jerusalem” and “Virgin Mary of Athos” in Russik,
“Way-Finder” (Hodegetria) in Xenophontos,
“Virgin Mary of the Akathist” in Dionysiou…
Among the famous relics, kept on Mount Athos, there were the Belt of the Virgin Mary in Vatopedi, the head of St. Panteleimon and the foot of Andrew the First-Called in Russik, the relics of John the Baptist in Dionysiou, particles of the Life-giving Cross, the Gifts of the Magi, etc.
Orthodox Athos had its own rules. Sunset marked midnight, regardless of the clock time. The monks had to eat twice a day – in the morning and in the evening – after the liturgy. They practically didn’t sleep constantly praying for the whole world. Christmas in Ouranoupoli used to fall on December 25, and 5 kilometers away on Athos it was celebrated on January 7, because Athos lived according to the old (Julian) calendar with a difference of 13 days from the calendar of secular Greece, the fixed holidays were celebrated according to the old style. The Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar, was created by Alexandrian astrologers based on the astronomical principles of Hellenistic Egypt, and introduced on January 01, 45 BC. In Old Russia, the calendar was called the “Circle making Peace/World”. I would call it the Matrix of the Space of Time. The Gregorian calendar (new style) was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 in Catholic countries on the basis of astronomical recalculations made due to the shift of the vernal equinox, which determined the annual dates of Easter, and the mismatch of Easter full moons with astronomical ones. Then the Gregorian calendar was used almost everywhere. When I thought about the high level of astronomy knowledge back in Ancient Egypt and India, I heard the voice of Eternity, “The time of one’s life is a drop in the ocean, Alice, as is the one’s knowledge, in particular yours.”
We were sailing up to Russik, located almost on the shore. In 2016, the monastery was overflowing with pilgrims, celebrating the 1,000 anniversary of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos, and that time they were preparing for St. Panteleimon Day, on August 9, being temporarily closed for pilgrims. About 70 monks and novices were serving in Russik, and their library contained more than 20,000 books and manuscripts. Once upon a time, the glorified St. Silouan the Athonite, helping people attacked by laziness and idleness, lived there.
The next monastery, Xeropotamou, at a level of 200m above the sea, almost above the port of Dafni (or Daphne), possessed, among other relics, the largest part of the Life-giving Cross with a hole from a nail.
The main pier of Athos on that side of the peninsula, the port of Dafni, was a small jetty. Buses ran on Mount Athos, but, in my opinion, it was better to travel on foot, although easier to get lost. I heard amazing stories from pilgrims about old monks appearing out of nowhere to show the way, and immediately disappearing. To visit Mount Athos, men must obtain a visa (diamonitirion) in advance, since, and especially on holidays, monasteries might not accept pilgrims. Climbing the Holy Mountain, as a rule, started after the blessing by monks already on the territory of Athos. Janis said that more than once, at the foot of the Mountain, his groups had to linger for several days, because the monks didn’t give their blessing for the ascent. Oh, if I had been a man! I was an ordinary girl, and even the princess, on the way to Vatopedi in 422, had heard the voice of the Virgin, stopping her not to embarrass the monks. In 1045, Vladimir Monomakh issued a decree that women were not allowed on the territory of Athos, except for the Virgin Mary. There were no female animals on Athos, although some people specified the exceptions, such as chickens and cats, since chickens gave eggs used for tempera colors making needed for icon painting, and cats caught mice. The Athos locals said that a woman-journalist had decided to explore the Holy Mountain a few years before, but she went swimming and was eaten by a shark, which had never been found in the Athos waters. It’s interesting, the area of Ouranoupoli used to be called the Great Guard.
The choir of the cliff monastery Simonopetra, “Simeon’s rock”, considered to be the best by the Athos locals. When St. Simeon decided to found a monastery there, the monks resisted – the place was dangerous, and one of them fell into the abyss. Simeon got upset, prayed, and the monk who had fallen from the cliff suddenly returned alive and healthy. Closer to the Holy Mountain, there were the monasteries of Gregoriou and Dionysiou, in the latter the right hand of John the Baptist was kept.
Finally, I was looking at the Mountain, “Hello! What a blessing that You have allowed me to come back here to You!”
The Holy Mountain had an evident pyramid shape. Facing the boat with its concave side, it seemed to me a mirror – it allowed you to see yourself through its eyes. The Mountain scanned our thoughts and feelings, could change Space, Time and people. It resembled the Tibetan Kailash, although it was lower than Kailash – the height above sea level was 2,033 meters. The Mountain used to be covered with a wreath of clouds, even when the sky was cloudless, as a sign that the Virgin was on Athos. Clouds on the Mountain were unusual. Once I saw a wreath of faces of Saints and angels, and then the image of St. George the Victorious. I even managed to photograph St. George on his horse hitting the Dragon with the spear. After that he turned into an ordinary cloud and sailed away. At the top of the Mountain, the Cross was erected and a small temple of the Transfiguration was built. The mysterious 12 ascetic monks lived in the desert there, being invisible even to most Athonite monks. Or rather, one could see them if they allowed it. When one of the 12 ascetics passed into the Other World, one of the monks living on Athos was summoned and suddenly disappeared from his monastery or cell.
A boat with the shrines from St. Pavlou, the nearest monastery to the Mountain, docked to our ship. The monks placed the casket in the center of the joint tables on the lower deck. A queue lined up. People wondered what it was there.
“The Gifts of the Magi!”
