Magical things are patient
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 4 Ιανουαρίου, 2017 Filed under: choses vécues, exploring, festivals, flying, hiking, holidays, ikaria, photography, pleasure, stories, travel, Uncategorized | Tags: agrimi, art, blog review, dreams, enviro-lore, girls, good-conspiracy, Greece, icaria, ikaria, ikarian-enigma, inspirational, island in the aegean sea, ικαρία, modeling, modeling-for-nature, motivational, my-photos, nature, witchcraft 4 Σχόλια~
“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”~
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Dear readers,
you are certainly familiar with the aforementioned quote. It’s usually credited to W.B.Yeats, however, that’s not true. The famous sentence was written by someone who was amazed when he saw for the first time through a magnifying lens the astonishing details of a beautiful wild flower! Therefore, let my blog article be for you today that magnifying lens. Through it you will be able to see some tiny beautiful details and short elusive flashes in the monotonous everyday life of our island. I’m talking about the small, rare and hidden picture instead of the big one -the one which tourism lately has turned into cliché. Let’s save ourselves from that by putting out some powerful subjective worldviews! As my friend Nana whose article I am copying here, says, this is about a…
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«A parallel reality: a collection of special moments recorded through the years and stored in our blogs and Flickr streams, from surreal alienation to oddity, from encounters with animals to performances and improvised rituals, from riddles and witchcraft to extravagance, provocation or simple pleasurable moments and postcard-like snapshots, that’s my way to celebrate Dodecaemeron, the Greek 12 festal days of Christmas and New Year, when earth and skies merge, as they say, and daily toilers like us should stop and rest and say to themselves…»
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~~p.s. A friend asked why these pictures aren’t uploaded to Flickr. One answer is that many of them would create unwanted activity. The main reason, however, is aesthetic. As I’m saying in a comment under my snapshot of Nana’s post on Flickr, first and foremost this thing should be seen a whole.
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When I am tired of the world
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 23 Νοεμβρίου, 2014 Filed under: exploring, hiking, ikaria, photography, stories, Uncategorized | Tags: adventure, aegean, atheras, balancing rocks, empty-landscapes, enviro-lore, Greece, hiking trails, history, ikaria, ikaria-in-winter, ikarian-enigma, ikarian-legends, ikarians, χειμώνας, Ορειβατικός Πεζοπορικός Σύλλογος Ικαρίας, ικαρία, μονοπάτια, landscape shots, landscapes of others, lost-village, monasteries, my-friends, mystic, OPS Ikarias, photography, religion, rocks, thoughts, up-with-lonely-winter 11 Σχόλια ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
You know, the last thing Ikaria is known for is church life and monasticism. The people are very religious in a natural, casual way, indifferent of formalities, nevertheless always showing a sincere and full respect of higher forces which control our destinies. Whether one believes in the salvation of the soul or not, religion provides consolation because, salvation taken apart, it does speak about the soul while economics do not. And believing in the soul, the existence of a soul, whether this soul is immortal or not, is something very important in the life of the island. Religion also provides occasions for celebration and community gatherings. It also offers an explanation for natural things as well as for «luck» : God’s will. And natural things and lucky or unlucky circumstances are also important elements in the consistence of Ikarian life. To cut this short, we have churches – a lot of big and small churches. They are, so to speak, our guardians, houses of God, houses of the spirit (soul) of the community: «be good and be good to each other» (be good to God).
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But what about monasteries? Thereupon we are a failure. Although there are a few monasteries, there is no monastic tradition in Ikaria, at least none as strong as in some other islands. In my opinion, besides our natural dislike for discipline and formalities, the most important reason is that the island is poor and cannot sustain monastic communities. The rocky soil produces hardly enough for the population so the Ikarians, even though devout believers, could not afford, so to speak again, professionals in prayer, experts in salvation. Like everything else in Ikaria, the tending of the soul had to be done by the poeple themselves with the occasional help of an educated priest or solitary monk.
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Yet, there are exeptions. If monasteries didn’t thrive, small hermitages were abundant in the slopes of Mt Atheras. But let’s not think that these retreats were inhabited by anchorites who pursued unification with God like in Mt Athos or Sinai. Though little is known about the lives of these people, it’s obvious to me that they were more or less ordinary men and women who either by some misfortune or simply because of taste, discarded the joys of the marital bed and the comforts of village and family life. They walked away from the world, seeking solitude, entrusting their fate to their labouring hands, to good God and to Mother nature. I am all respect for them. It’s hard to believe that in am island as virgin and wild as Ikaria and in a time when most settlements were of the kind of «lost villages» (see, entry), there were people who sought even more solitude and peace! Out-of-the-worldness must be some sort of second nature to us. The outer the better, the further the better, the remotest and most inaccessible is the best, ask my friend Nana & co about it!
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Anyway, this entry was not meant to be a dissertation of the religious ethics of the Aegean. I have come to Ikaria for the winter and recently my friends, the explorers of OPS Ikarias, in the course of a project to create a long-distance trail from one side of the island to the other, have been in love with a wild area under the tops of Mt Atheras where according to local legends various groups of monks lived in different periods of time from the 15th century to the 1800s. I saw the photos and I found these landscapes absolutely enthralling.
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What made men and women walk out of the world and settle in places like this? What kind of experiences were they after? Were they looking for God? Did they want be gods themselves? Was it because of a practical reason such as piracy, oppression, social disorder and percecutions? Or is it something inherent to the human nature? Escapism? Some people just drop everything and go?.. Is that it? 🙄
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I have always been too committed to everything I do and to everybody I love to even think about escaping. But as I am growing older, sometimes I am tired of the world and this makes me wonder. Until I sort this out, you take a good look at those rocky wildernesses. Take a good look at those vast views to the mountains above, the sea straight ahead and the skies all over. I am inviting you to find your answer.
The Two Sides
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 24 Αυγούστου, 2014 Filed under: choses vécues, exploring, festivals, holidays, ikaria, photography, pleasure, stories, travel, Uncategorized | Tags: aegean, anti-mykonos, architecture, August, blog review, contradictions, empty-landscapes, festival, freedom, Greece, greeks-in-crisis, ikaria, ikarian-enigma, ikarian-legends, ikarians, πανηγύρια, ικαρία, my-idea, panigiri, photography, politics, riddle, slacker politics, up-with-lonely-winter, winter 4 Σχόλια
Dear readers, hoping that you are familiar with my idea of presenting selected material about Ikaria loaded on the internet by bloggers, photographers and writers, I am proudly presenting to you today in an interesting collation the works of two women photographers, Kerstin Hehmann from Germany and Isabelle Gressier from France. Unlike Zdeněk Senkyrik from my previous entry, whose photos are carefully set with an emphasis on landscapes, Kerstin and Isabelle come with ‘snapshots‘, the one of happy people who dance in various summer festivals and the other of silent buildings, isolated or deserted houses in wintry landscapes. It was my fancy to put Kerstin and Isabelle’s very dissimilar photos side by side in this entry. I wanted to make a point and I am very satisfied of the result. I hope that you too, my dear readers, after a little bit of thought, will be able to see the connection.
Dear readers, you haven’t grasped the connection yet? Here’s another dozen of collated shots 😳
Does this picture by Kerstin of a valley lost in the mountains which doesn’t see a living soul for months and suddenly it’s stuffed with cars and people for no apparent reason, help you understand? I suppose not 😳
Dear readers, this is stuff to talk about for hours and maybe also make a book of. It’s our beloved ikarian enigma and I won’t bother you with it anymore. But before I let off, allow me to suggest to you to read the following parts of an interview by Nikos Dayandas, the maker of «Little Land», about his experiences in Ikaria. Our friend Elina found it, chose the best parts and added them in a comment under my entry about this great documentary. Here they are translated in English. This interview does not solve the riddle of «The Two Sides», yet it’s a few steps to the right direction. It’s one of the best and shortest descriptions that I have ever heard or read about life on our island.
That’s all from me for now, goodbye. The micro goes to Nikos 
«Going there I realized that the island was full of young people who were indeed non-Ikarians or they were Ikarians who hadn’t been born or lived in Ikaria.»
«There is no local who doesn’t do two or three jobs at the same time; from a little garden near his or her house to the beehives at some distant hillside; from a sour cherry orchard in a field to the sheepfold in some place near.»
«It’s given that they work very hard. They just have this particularity that they do everything in their own time, everyone in his own clearly personal understanding of when is the right moment to do something.»
«When you are there, you do get the feeling that things really are a bit slower. You are surrounded by a strange calmness, everything is peaceful, the people are mild too. In Crete, for example, Cretans are intense characters. Cretan music is fast, their drinks are very strong. The Ikarian culture on the other hand is different, milder. It’s the sound of the little violin, their dance is a slow circular dance, they add water to their wine…»
«When you arrive there, your first impression is, first of all, the nature and its wildness. You see right away that the place hasn’t been developed.»
«You, know, because I have studied archeology, the Ikarians in many aspects remind to me of the Ionian civilization, they have almost ancient Greek tendencies. Everything they do, their pace and their activities are «all in good measure«. Or like a granny says in the film, life goes like a circle from good to bad and back again. This is, let’s say, the Heraclitean «everything flows«. The way they see things is founded on some basic ideas which are deeply rooted in Greek philosophy, even though they aren’t themselves necessarily aware of the fact.»
and the best (according to Elina and of course I agree!)
« … Ikarians also had another particularity in their society. The island has always had a liking to Communism and because the local communists had a very hard time with persecussions and exiles, after democracy was restored in 1974 the people started to reward them with mayoral posts. This is the political dimension of the mysticism of the place. So for several decades you had KKE partisans fixed in public posts through which European Union funding came and every time they said: «Leave it. We won’t take it!» They wrote all that on their balls, something that may have seemed criminal at that time, however today you can say that they may have been saved exactly because of that. Because it’s a place that hasn’t changed.»
😛
Reblog : Περίπου το 30 π.Χ.
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 1 Ιουνίου, 2014 Filed under: choses vécues, exploring, ikaria, stories | Tags: aegean, agrimi-mou, camping-in-ikaria, communism, Greece, greek-entries, ikaria, ikarian-enigma, ikarian-legends, ικαρία, Makridakis, my-beta-island, my-friends, poetry, Political Humour, politics, Red Island, red myth, slacker politics, summer 3 Σχόλια
Δόξα! Δόξα!
Σήμερα Πρωτη του Καλοκαιριου και ενω οι λέξεις-κλειδια που οδηγουν στα μπλογκ μας μαρτυρουν ότι παρα πολλοί ανθρωποι ψαχνουν πληροφοριες για καμπινγκ στην Ικαρία, εφετος η αγαπημενη μου Νανα δεν νοιαζεται για «τις αναγκες του κοινου ενοψη του Αυγουστου» (♦). Φευγει πιο περα, μακρια. Δινει το στιγμα της, δημοσιευοντας το…
. «Εδώ λοιπόν που λέτε είχαμε εκλογές και κυκλοφόρησε κόσμος και αν και δεν δυσαρεστήθηκα με τα αποτελέσματα, δεν την γλύτωσα και μελαγχόλησα όπως πάντα το παθαίνω με την πολλή πολιτικούρα. Ευτυχώς όμως γελάσαμε με το … (διαβαστε περισσοτερα)
Με τετοιο πνευμα, τρελη διαθεση και πολλη δουλεια…
ΚΑΛΟ ΚΑΛΟΚΑΙΡΙ!!!
(♦)Παρολα αυτα, αγαπημενοι αναγνωστες, επειδη δεν θελουμε να γινουν ποτε ξανα
αυτα τα πραγματα
η προταση μας για να κανετε καμπινγκ στην Ικαρια βρισκεται στο
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Paper Island
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 26 Οκτωβρίου, 2013 Filed under: choses vécues, exploring, flying, ikaria, stories | Tags: adventures, aegean, allegory, dream islands, dreams, enviro-lore, explorers, fiction, Greece, history, ikaria, ikarian-enigma, ikarian-legends, island in the aegean sea, islands, ικαρία, legends, map, metaphor, my-idea, myths, paper island, philosophy, poetry, thoughts, tourist-legends, utopia, why-ikaria 13 Σχόλια
Why some islands are not just islands?
Why can some islands be both real and fictional?
Why do some islands attain a second life in literature?
What do some islands seem to attract big ideas, illusions and dreams?
Why are some islands, more often than others, chosen as sceneries of tales of escape?
Why do some islands appear in novels, satires, utopias and moral tales, more than other islands?
Why some islands, besides being made of rocks and soil like all islands, can also be, as I am calling them, paper islands?
I say, the more an island is an island, the more it makes you dream
Because democracy is no good in dreaming, we can say it loudly :
Some islands are more islands than other islands
«The élan that draws humans toward islands extends the double movement that produces islands in themselves. Dreaming of islands – whether with joy or in fear, it doesn’t matter – is dreaming of pulling away, of being already seperate, far from any continent, of being lost and alone – or it is dreaming of starting from scratch, recreating, beginning anew. Some islands drifted away from the continent, but the island is also that toward which one drifts; other islands originated in the ocean, but the island is also the origin, radical and absolute.»
Gilles Deleuzes
I have found the words of this contemporary French philosopher through a comment by a learned person in Kristin’s blog or Mararoa’s blog which unfortunately I am unable to spot now. That comment linked to a chapter of the glorious wikispace «Dream Islands» which I think, sustains and explains my humble thoughts herebefore. That chapter is entitled:
Island as a ‘catch-all’ concept
After Deleuzes’s quote it goes:
«Islands burn into the minds of children from an early age. They emerge in the first literature where they are prominent in Homer’s Odyssey, and Plato’s island of Atlantis is perhaps the most famous mythical island of all time. The seclusion and autonomy that an island suggests has nourished the literary imagination for millennia, but the island setting as a site for the spiritual, emotional, or psychological transformation of human character has remained a constant in Western literature. The Greeks were the first to develop the island-book as such, but Roman writers showed much less interest in insular themes. On the fringes of Europe, Island stories were generously developed in the ‘imrama’, which were medieval Irish accounts of mythical Atlantic island voyages of chiefs and saints.
From Homer to Charles Kingsley the island narrative...»
The other chapters of Dream Islands are very enlightening too. Notably :
«Islands are no longer bound up so immediately with a self-sufficient agrarian life, its rituals and the cultivation of social solidarity. They instead begin to function as an antidote to the increasing division of labor and social stratification of the mainland. For modern islanders their environment functions as a vehicle for the display of individual temperament, talent, and interest, which runs against the grain of a standardized mainland global consumer culture. Islands therefore become loci of the impress of distinctive personality, interest, and emotion in sensuous production. In particular, they often function as a font of individual artistic production compared with the old rituals and epics, such as the poems of Homer, primeval biblical history and the Icelandic sagas, which linked everyone to common ways of life.
An important resource for modern islanders is nature. What we seek on islands is what we love in nature. Friedrich Shiller described…»
«A dream island is a distinctive and desirable place to be, which is defined within a physical, cultural, administrative, biological, mental, or virtual boundary. It is likely that most people’s dream islands would fall within the physical, administrative and biological categories.»
(Don’t miss the link to «Cultural Islands» )
«Paradise or Purgatory, Heaven or Hell, islands leave no one indifferent – and least of all the world’s artists, poets and writers, musicians and scholars, as reflected in the sampling the following links : Writings and Art
Unfortunately the link to the last chapter «Islands as Utopias» is no more valid. Instead, I am giving you a link to the standard Wikipedia :
That was all on the subject and I think it wasn’t too little. Read about one of the oldest ideas in the world and be inspired. But some day leave the paper behind and follow the dream to find out what truth there is to it. Defy the distance and sail through the shoals and the booming high surf.
A real island may be waiting for you thereafter and therein.
Ikaria, October 26, 2013
No Gas Til Tuesday (2)
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 8 Σεπτεμβρίου, 2013 Filed under: choses vécues, exploring, festivals, hiking, ikaria, photography, stories | Tags: adventure, aegean, autumn, blog, blog review, carnaval, contradictions, dance, easter, explorers, family, festival, Greece, Greek-easter, hiking, hiking club, hiking trails, history, ikaria, ikaria-in-winter, ikarian-enigma, ikarians, island in the aegean sea, χειμώνας, ικαρία, μονοπάτια, lifestyle, local identity, panigiri, photography, religion, stories, summer, tradition, trails, village, weather, why-ikaria, winter 3 Σχόλια_Blog Review Ikaria 2012 # 10 The Explorers (1b)_
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Hello readers!
I hope that some of you are by now familiar with my idea of reviewing a selection of blog entries about my island. I also hope that my most faithful followers have read «No Gas Til Tuesday (1)» -the first part of selected entries from an entire blog dedicated to living in Ikaria written by jandcfox. Jackie has been undoubtedly the best of that category of bloggers who I have decided to name «Explorers». Don’t misunderstand me; there have probably been a lot of people who have taken risks and had many interesting adventures in Ikaria. The difference with Jackie is that she shared her experiences with the world. And she did this through a well-written and frequently updated blog wonderfully enriched with many great pictures!
We are in the middle of September so time falls right for the second and last part. It is about living in Ikaria «off season» when the island empties from tourists, visitors and relatives; that is, living in the Ikaria of the all-year-long residents, which, some say, is The True Ikaria. ☺
What was it like? Has she won the bet? See for yourselves. Read my selection of blog entries of Jackie in Ikaria, September 2012 – June 2013
(As always, a selection of the blogger’s own words appear when you move your mouse over the highlighted links and photos. VERY USEFUL TO HASTY READERS!)
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Until Next Year! Και Του Χρόνου!
Indeed, these people have set a good example. Yes, a good example.
How unlike me, that’s all I have to say, and that says it all.
♥
Note : As I have said many times before in my reviews, comments and credits should be adressed to the bloggers, not to me! As far as I am concerned, all I want is to send more readers to these amazing people -my explorers. All I wish is that my choices are good.
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No Gas Til Tuesday (1)
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 17 Ιουνίου, 2013 Filed under: choses vécues, exploring, festivals, hiking, ikaria, photography, stories | Tags: adventure, aegean, autumn, blog, blog review, contradictions, dance, explorers, festival, Greece, hiking, hiking trails, history, ikaria, ikaria-in-winter, ikarian-enigma, ikarians, island in the aegean sea, χειμώνας, ικαρία, μονοπάτια, lifestyle, local identity, panigiri, photography, stories, summer, tradition, trails, weather, why-ikaria, winter 3 Σχόλια_Blog Review Ikaria 2012 # 9 The Explorers (1a)_
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Are done with the longevity thing yet? It seems so. At least I didn’t hear they wrote «WELCOME TO THE ISLAND OF LONGEVITY» on the wavebreakers or the air control tower. I think the noise is dimming to something like «Ikaria is a special, ancient and very natural island» -something that makes more sense, don’t you agree? No problem with anthropologists, it’s been ages since we boiled one in our cauldrons… ☺ ☺
Yet, in my opinion, our «special, ancient and very natural island» calls more for explorers.
Our explorers are usually careful not to project their own realities over a place and many are those who devote a lot of time and energy to search every pocket and fold. Our explorers take risks. Some of them too, the most admirable, share their adventures with you and me on the web. That kind of people I had in mind when I started this set of blog entries. Thinking about it, I could have just reblogged, but no, I said. I believed that my first champions, Danae, Ikaroia, Jernej and Johanna, deserved more than to recommend a link and perhaps also decorate it with a sample photo. Since then, several tributes have been paid and now, five years after, the experience has expanded. Don’t ask me how, yet it’s a fact. Some of of my explorers have chosen to live on the island!
Dear readers, today I am proudly presenting to you Greek/American Jackie, author of nogastiltuesday, who decided to leave the States with her three children and live for one year in Ikaria, the island where her father was born and has a home.
Don’t say you weren’t puzzled by the strange name of her blog? The explanation is in one of her first entries, also pinned also at the top of her home page. The point is that instead of being daunted by that good example of «greek ways», she was challenged and some years later she came looking for more. She came to understand. Explore and understand the land, the people, the culture, the nature, everyday life, the four seasons, the weather, the language and so much more. Explore, understand, appreciate and teach her three adorable children to appreciate as well.
I am a mother myself so I am familiar with the task. However, I shouldn’t identify and add my personal touch. I’d rather let Jackie speak on her own through the entries of her wonderful blog that I chose for you in today’s review.
«No Gas Til Tuesday» comes like a diary. In an experiential and direct way, Jackie writes often twice and three times every week and that over a period of several months! And I am not counting the bulky comment exchange under each entry! It would be impossible for me (and probably for WordPress) to load all the entries I have chosen in one page. Perforce I have divided the material in two parts: The first part (1a) is Summer 2012 and the second part (1b) includes Autumn, Winter, Spring and part of Summer 2012-13.
As always, a selection of the blogger’s own words appear when you move your mouse over the highlighted links to the pages as well as over the photos.
There we go through Jackie’s Summer 2012 (1a) :
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Let this very touching entry be the last from Jackie’s blog for now.
She has talked there about two feelings that I am afraid I know too well.
The Greeks have invented the richest and most beautiful words for them:
Mελαγχολία and Νοσταλγία.
♥
I could write an essay about the topic here and now, yet WP started to jam on me. I’ve got to go. See you in a few weeks with more No Gas Til Tuesday.
Note : As I have said many times before in my reviews, comments and credits should be adressed to the bloggers, not to me! As far as I am concerned, all I want is to send more readers to these amazing people -my explorers. All I wish is that my choices are good.
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What I believe
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 9 Απριλίου, 2013 Filed under: choses vécues, ikaria, stories, Uncategorized | Tags: aegean, agrimi, death, for-ikaria, Greece, ikarian-enigma, island in the aegean sea, ικαρία, literature, my-beta-island, my-feet, my-idea, nature, no-inhibitions, photography, poetry, religion, rubble, thoughts, truths, wasteland, what-it-takes 8 Σχόλια
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Photo taken in Ikaria
featuring on Instagram.
Poetry by J.G. Ballard
What I believe
I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.
I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of abandoned hotels.
. . .
I believe in the death of tomorrow, in the exhaustion of time, in our search for a new time within the smiles . . .
. . .
I believe in madness, in the truth of the inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers, in the disease stored up for the human race by the Apollo astronauts.
I believe in nothing.
I believe in Max Ernst, Delvaux, Dali, Titian, Goya, Leonardo, Vermeer, Chirico, Magritte, Redon, Duerer, Tanguy, the Facteur Cheval, the Watts Towers, Boecklin, Francis Bacon, and all the invisible artists within the psychiatric institutions of the planet.
I believe in the impossibility of existence, in the humour of mountains, in the absurdity of electromagnetism, in the farce of geometry, in the cruelty of arithmetic, in the murderous intent of logic.
I believe in adolescent women, in their corruption by their own leg stances, in the purity of their dishevelled bodies, in the traces of their pudenda left in the bathrooms of shabby motels.
I believe in flight, in the beauty of the wing, and in the beauty of everything that has ever flown, in the stone thrown by a small child that carries with it the wisdom of statesmen and midwives.
I believe in the gentleness of the surgeon’s knife, in the limitless geometry of the cinema screen, in the hidden universe within supermarkets, in the loneliness of the sun, in the garrulousness of planets, in the repetitiveness or ourselves, in the inexistence of the universe and the boredom of the atom.
. . .
I believe in the non-existence of the past, in the death of the future, and the infinite possibilities of the present.
I believe in the derangement of the senses: in Rimbaud, William Burroughs, Huysmans, Genet, Celine, Swift, Defoe, Carroll, Coleridge, Kafka.
. . .
I believe in the next five minutes.
I believe in the history of my feet.
I believe in migraines, the boredom of afternoons, the fear of calendars, the treachery of clocks.
I believe in anxiety, psychosis and despair.
I believe in the perversions, in the infatuations with trees, princesses, prime ministers, derelict filling stations (more beautiful than the Taj Mahal), clouds and birds.
I believe in the death of the emotions and the triumph of the imagination.
. . .
I believe in anxiety, psychosis and despair.
I believe in the perversions, in the infatuations with trees, princesses, prime ministers, derelict filling stations (more beautiful than the Taj Mahal), clouds and birds.
I believe in the death of the emotions and the triumph of the imagination.
I believe all reasons.
I believe all hallucinations.
I believe all anger.
I believe all mythologies, memories, lies, fantasies, evasions.
I believe in the mystery and melancholy of a hand, in the kindness of trees, in the wisdom of light.
J.G. B.
The full poem without my arbitrary omissions can be found at 
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φree αssoσiation
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 17 Μαρτίου, 2013 Filed under: choses vécues, exploring, ikaria, photography, stories, travel | Tags: adventures, aegean, catharsis, cinema, dilemma, documentary, freedom, grateful exiled, Greece, Greeks, greeks-in-crisis, ikaria, ikaria-in-winter, ikarian-enigma, ikarians, immigrants, island in the aegean sea, ικαρία, μετανάστες, lifestyle, Little Land, longevity, love, stories, teleplaywright, transitions, up-with-lonely-winter, why-ikaria, winter 14 Σχόλια.
Heroica, outdoors, Walden Pond, to the limit, border line, risque, manual labor, white trash, love, underdevelopment, exodus, yokel, immigration, resettlement, crisis, herbs, loneliness, roots, land, doom, grunge, economic warfare, Yasnaya Polyana, recession, countryside, burst bubble, low profile, wasted, frugal, hillbilly, community, stranger, mellow, lost, hardships, diexodus, booze, urban, rural, pick-up van, person, stake, hippy, individualism, gossip, solidarity, reset, farm, panic management, armpits, bet, freedom, jobs, insecurity, fiction, soul, experiment, partnership, danger, Leo Tolstoy, garden, myths, nature, exile, mice, culture, backyard, junk, dreams, adventure, wastes, bicycle, stubborn, hands, limited ressources, tradition, macchia, man, pay, nakedness, crops, untidy, tourism, happiness, eyes, self-relience, legend, investments, woman, new life, idea, spirit of discovery, firewood, Ithaca, break up, boots, valley, Robinson, degraded, discipline, generation, dirty, festivals, futilism, hair, economic rebel, expression, wrong, hope, unattachement, D.H. Lawrence, tribal, work, debate, cigarettes, machinery, winter, night swims, strong legs, all year long, Henry David Thoreau, cistern, hi-tec proletariat, sex, destiny, ecological, beard, fringe, new model, escape, Robert Lewis Stevenson, utopia, fortune, heartbreak.
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LITTLE LAND – trailer from Anemon on Vimeo.
A documentary by Nikos Dayandas
Listed in «Habitats«
Thessaloniki Doc Film Fest 15, ID:616 Thursday 21, 2013, 20:30 at OΛYMΠION
Thessaloniki Doc Film Fest 15, ID:835 Saturday 23, 2013, 17:30 at Τ. MAPKETAKH
ERT tv and ARTE tv on dates yet undefined.
Blog Review Ikaria 2011-12 # 8
Δημοσιεύθηκε: 14 Ιανουαρίου, 2013 Filed under: ikaria, photography, stories | Tags: adventures, aegean, August, blog, blog review, ferries, Greece, health, healthcare, ikaria, ikaria-in-winter, ikarian-enigma, ikarians, island in the aegean sea, ικαρία, lifestyle, longevity, peaceful island, photographer, photography, stories, storm, sustainable model, tourism, travel, winter holidays 5 ΣχόλιαI am very interested in reading personal accounts about my island… blah blah blah… STOP! What am I talking about? This time I don’t need to keep in touch with the place from far away because I have moved to Ikaria for my usual winter holidays at last! Still in the course of time I have grown an interest and a curiosity about people’s stories and photos from Ikaria shared in a blog or similar personal page.
To be honest with you, it was difficult to choose entries that satisfied the term «personal». The business of longevity and the noise in the media got on top of everything last year, so I assume several writers felt obliged to add their own ideas about the matter, a matter which is as big and fleeting as life itself, therefore we may have had important contributions towards a better understanding of our existence, maybe also towards a new, better and more sustainable model of economic development for the world but allow me, I am unable to follow this track. I have missed entries like, just to sample, the one by Australian photographer Adam Monk, Theo, the German writer about Greece and Jim Lesses, the Ikarian Australian traveller of the globe.
But don’t get dissappointed because there still has been material to present.
As I said in the forenote of the first part, my ambition was to review, not just blogroll, so I wrote a few words about each blog entry and I picked out pictures and quotes. These quotes I sometimes hid “behind the pictures”. Move your mouse over to read them.
The first selected entry is by Paul Zamenopoulos, a Greek photo blogger
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and I like it very much because with his photos he is offering evidence about how wild and dangerous our peaceful island can be from one moment to the other. So, behold the arrival of high speed F/B NISSOS MYKONOS in Agios Kirikos port on August 11, 2011. Thanks God, nobody was hurt and the brave ship wasn’t damaged.
It’s worth to click and open these photos to see them large, LARGE!
But Paul is not all for sea drama. By clicking on the pebbles you can look at the usual peaceful side of Ikaria in his archives of that August of 2011.
Thank you very much, Paul! To the next time!
And now forward to one of my favorites…
and there I wish you could read Greek, or Cypriot Greek to be presice. Evlampia who is a young doctor assigned at the hospital of Agios Kirikos, the capital of the island pays honor to the blog-o-sphere because her blog is a diary of her life and work in Ikaria, like mine had been years ago, hurray!
Such enjoyable, spontaneously written entries, I so much love her when she often switches into dialect and on top of it, sometimes typed in Greeklish! Overall, Evlampia’s blog proves a diamond (for those who can access it, that is), moreover because she holds an important position as a physician in the health care system so she has seen and experienced a lot!
As to whether she has liked and understood Ikaria or not, I am just letting a few of her photos scattered as they are among her blog entries to speak. See and judge for yourselves. Read translated quotes from the relevant pages hidden behind the photos.
This is the kind of doctors we need in the island! Out of my heart I wish her the best!
And now welcoming …
the writer of Yiasou Ikaria! (eng. «Cheers Ikaria«!), a blog in English in the same line as the previous one, that is, like a diary, which promises «True stories from this remote and exotic Aegean island (Ikaria), full of charming and eccentric characters will be updated every week.» and as a matter of fact the anonymous blogger has kept his promise. He has been posting various humorous and truthful entries about life on the island at least twice a month since October 2011. He is indeed Your Greek Guide, or rather Your Ikarian Guide! Because many visitors, even the travelled ones, once they land in Ikaria so often feel as they have fallen from the sky, this is the blog for them to read and learn how to let things come as they come. 🙂
All posts are… well… informative 🙂 so I can’t but list them all with as best descriptions as I can. There are very few photos in this blog but as I hope you will found out, they are completely uncessary.
Here it goes. A few lines out of the entries are hidden behind the links and/or the pictures.
Damnit the sun will melt your wings! 
Agios Kirikos 
Shopping in Ikaria 
The Claw Machine 
The One Euro Store 
What was that?! 
New Airport 
The Lottery 
Flying to Ikaria 
Beer Run 
Really?! 
The Garbage Truck 
Contradictions 
What Garbage?? 
and several more… 🙂 from Your Greek Guide – so well written and by all means, well meant. The most striking is that, if I am not mistaken, there is not a single word about Longevity!!!
And with this great blog I am closing this month’s review of entries. Stay tuned for the next harvest.
I love you, my readers!
Eleni's Blog in Ikaria 
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