Namaste, A gifted reader and friend once told me that I would live in a foreign country in a house on a hill overlooking the ocean. She saw the house as Mediterranean style, whitewashed by sunshine with an inner courtyard. Because I adore Mexico, for years I thought it would be Mexico as I have often traveled there. Greece is also a favorite of mine. The mainland and the islands are joyous to me and I often imagined it to be a Greek Island. My first visit to Athens in 1978 was like coming home as I walked the streets I knew where to go and identified what alleyways to take as shortcuts through the ancient city. I seemed to know the city well although I was traveling there for the first time. Returning to Greece each time I feel like I am returning home. Nafplion on the mainland about a two-hour drive from Athens, on the Peloponnese penisula resonated with me in the same way as Athens. It happened by chance that I went there with my son in 2009 as an afterthought. Like all who travel to the islands, I love the beauty of Santorini and it’s volcano.  The first time I visited we anchored in the harbor and I went uphill by donkey and walked back down to the port in the evenings to board a private yacht. Now on my last couple of visits there has been the cable car. My son and I loved Mykonos, also. What is there not to love?   Mykonos, Greece Why does this happen? I don’t live on an island or beside the sea. Most everything the same reader has told me has happened. Still, I live in the desert. The reader also told me that I return to America when I am very old. Time is flying by and pray tell. . . when is old? Am I invested in the outcome? Maybe in the beginning I was dreaming and fantasizing of a life I did not have. I do love to travel but my life in America is filled with family, friends, and happiness.   I do not speak Spanish well nor can I say but two words in Greek. I was engaged to a Greek fellow in Seattle many years ago and with true serendipity, Greek people and opportunities involving Greece come into my life and consciousness often in the form of Greek friends every where I go. However, I have no plans to sell my house and leave for Greece. I have learned to no longer invest in the outcome of my destiny; it is the process not the outcome that is the journey. Instead, I try to live in the moment. It does take some practice. We...

Namaste, I returned last week from a trip to Egypt, Turkey and the Greek Isles. It did not occur to me until I was flying home that I indeed had experienced a “Kairos” event, preceded by a Kairos moment when on a whim I asked my son, Barry, what in the world he wanted to see in this lifetime and if he could go anywhere where would it be? He immediately answered, “The Pyramids.” The fact that he is single once more and I could take the time off from my practice was nothing short of a miracle. Also, our ability to pull the money together for an extraordinary trip was in itself miraculous. We did not book until quite late with only a few cabins left on the ship as my son‘s passport had been stolen and we could not book until his new one arrived. But alas, it came and we obtained a choice cabin with a wonderful view from our large window looking out to the sea. We had not taken a trip together since he was a teenager but somehow all the stars aligned to create a vacation together as mother and son. We flew to Istanbul staying a few days in town seeing the sites, the Blue Mosque, Sophia Hagia, the Grand Bazaar and recuperating from jet lag in our luxurious hotel, before boarding the Norwegian Jade for a 12 day cruise. The Biblical words, fullness of time,” came to mind as interpreted by the noted Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich who described Kairos time as “the fullness of time,” or “moments in which conditions are ripe for events to transcend in linear time and take on greater, even eternal, significance.” My son had not been to this part of the world and I had been to all but lovely Mykonos which we both truly loved. Santorini, Mykonos and Napflion on the mainland of Greece were our favorites as was Istanbul and of course Cairo with its mystical Pyramids. We left the ship in Alexandria and traveled to Cairo, staying at the Mena House close to the Giza Plateau where we could almost touch the stone. The experience was fantastic and we were blessed with a wonderful guide for our tour of Egypt. He was associated with the North Africa Tour Company and was without a doubt the best informed, charming guide I have ever had anywhere in the world. I salute you Hamy! I learned more from him in a few days than my entire previous tour of Egypt some years ago. It was indeed an “opportune” time. The trip itself was true Kairos. The Sphinx at Giza Plateau “The two meanings of the...