Some ancient sites are well known and then there are some that are not. I've come to realise that the less known ones hold a magical history along with tales weaved in mystery and speculation that they are well worth the effort to visit.
How does a historical site claimed as the Oracle of the Dead / Gateway to Hades sound to you? Officially known as The Nekyomanteion of the Acheron, this site is located in Epirus, northern Greece. I confess I never knew this place existed until it reached out to me. Yes, that is right, the energy of this place reached out to me and it happened whilst I was on a family holiday in a nearby holiday location of Parga back in 2015. This is not a technical blog about this ancient site, but a sharing of an alternative experience and life lessons learnt.
After spending all day at the beach, I headed back to my hotel room for an afternoon siesta and to escape the heat. Finding myself restless and unable to sleep I turned to meditation to help me zone out. At some point in my meditation, I recall standing in a stone walled chamber where a pedestal holding a thick open book stood in front of me. Without even looking at the book as yet, I knew it was the Akashic record of my soul's life. I felt its ancient energy drawing me in to show me something. Looking around the chamber, there was a wall of moving souls behind me. It was part of the chamber and non-threatening. Stepping forward towards the Akashic book I then had a vision of a past life appear before me. It was a vision of an old medicine woman in her cottage. She was elderly and busy working in her space full of plants and bottles of different ingredients. People acquiring her remedies were constantly coming and going from her cottage but as time wore on, even though she was busy - she appeared very lonely. There was a sadness about her life. She was in service for the better of humanity but had neglected her own joy of life. The book was trying to warn me - do not repeat this pattern for this is not what life is meant to be about.
The vision of elderly lady and her cottage disappeared and I was then standing back in the chamber. 'I hear you loud and clear' I said and then the walled chamber opened up before me to a green field of flowers and hills. My meditation finished when I stepped out of the chamber and walked through the field.
Coming out of the meditation, I realised that this was no ordinary message. Spirit had to get my attention somehow and heaviness of my life and where I was heading was not pleasant. At the time, I was working in the corporate world and too busy to focus on any other joy in my life. I was tired and over extending myself for my work and others. The message was loud and clear - it was time to change and take action to better balance out my life with work that I am passionate about and joy by having time for myself, my man and life experiences in general.
Dragging out my laptop, I started to do historical searches on the Parga area. Something powerful had tapped into my meditation that felt
different to my previous experiences. Most of the internet brought up history of the last couple of wars in the area, until I did a search of ancient history that I then stumbled across the site of Nekyomanteion of the Acheron that was only 20 minutes drive from where I was staying. Looking through images of the site and its great underground hall, I was shocked to realise that the images matched what I had seen in my meditation (just like the picture at the top of this blog).
To cut a long story short, the Nekyomanteion site was claimed to be a place where people used to go to get information from the dead (an Oracle spot similar to Delphi). Those seeking to receive messages had to go through a ritual process to prepare themselves before entering the great hall. Homer's book, The Odyssey, has a passage where the witch Circe advises Odysseys to find his way to the hall of Hades and Persephone and there to consult the spirit of the blind prophet Teiresias on how to return to his homeland of Ithaca. Using Homer's book, The Odyssey, an archeologist used the story as a guide to find this site sitting under a church of the early 18th century Monastery of Ayios Iannis Prodromos back in 1958.
The memory of this meditation still stays with me now and it was not until I returned to Greece two years later that I actually visited this site and its magnificent history during an intense Greek summer where only a cold Frappe at the local cafe can cool you down! By that stage I had made some positive changes in my life - one was leave the corporate world behind and started doing work that I really enjoyed and found rewarding in all areas of my life.
Travelling is an education in itself and can hold many different experiences. The lesson I wish to share with you is to take the time to look into your current life. Do you have fun where your soul sings? Is there room for laughter, food and drink with your amazing friends, family and even just yourself in a way that is enriching? Are you so caught up in your work that you use the excuse there is no time? No one else has control of your life other than yourself. It is what you think, say and do that makes all the difference. Wake up calls for some people may not be as out there as this was for me, but it can come in many forms to tap you on the shoulder (health being a major one). Enjoy it as much as possible before you feel it is too late.
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