"Doesn't it feel like a movie set? I doesn't feel real," Michelle said as we walked home the other night. Matheus said the same thing about Patmos feeling like a movie set this Summer. To me, this is most true at night when the lights are aglow along the crooked pathways that run past buildings that are in many cases hundreds of years old. The fact that I walk out of my house into the midst of what could easily be a postcard is - at least for a guy from the Los Angeles suburbs – weird.
I can say the same about having Christmas Eve services in a large cave (named for the Apocalypse no less). Or on a much lesser note the fact that my house is stone and I have a water well under it. Honestly, I could probably go one much further if I thought about it and it's best not to analyze too much.
Patmos in the Summer is magical. In some ways, it's like Disneyland – it's a perfect world of Summer joy at least for many of the international tourists who come to stay. For others – particularly those who come on cruise ships – the religious and historical significance of the island is frequently emphasized. Their tours usually head from the boats straight up the hill to the monastery. I suppose if you only have four hours on Patmos, the monastery might be what stands out most since there are many beautiful beaches and towns throughout Greece.
In the Spring, Patmos is a pilgrimage site for many of the Greek Orthodox faithful who come to spend Orthodox Easter. Five days of ceremonies, events, prayer and feasts take place with the monastery and numerous churches throughout the island involved. Buses shuttle worshippers up to the monastery every night. When I saw this in 2022, I was taken aback. Skala had a buzz I had never seen before. Greek families often stay five people to a one-bedroom Airbnb and everyone is outside smoking. The town has a din in the evenings, parking is almost impossible, but the streets are filled with warmth.
So it would seem Christmas too would be a draw. Only it isn't.
"I don't know why no one stays around for Christmas anymore, Manolis who owns the organic shop said. "They used to all stay for Christmas. It was nice."
Some still do. Kind of. Christina and Dimitris said this is their first year ever going away for Christmas – they enjoy celebrating here because it is religious and special. Only going to Athens was the only way to be together with all three of their adult and almost-adult children. So this year is different, but they consider it a one-off.
Maria from whom I bought the house said she and her family used to sometimes come to Patmos for Christmas for the same reason as people come in Easter – it's a holy island and she found Christmas on Patmos especially meaningful. She also credits her son's recovery from cancer to the prayers she said on Patmos and those of the head priest at the monastery. She says Patmos really is holy.
When Michelle stepped off the ferry this past Summer, she immediately felt a sense of spirituality and peace here and while Jewish, came to find all the churches special and important. I found her reaction intriguing.
Obviously, I've been drawn to Patmos since 2010. I agree there is something here that calls to me – that makes me feel more grounded and settled, but also more clear-eyed and reflective. There's a pervasive gentleness and ease. I could say similar things about Bali which always felt like the most spiritual place I have ever spent time. Not only does Bali make me feel closer to the divine, but some strange and magical things happen there. It's like living in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.
There are places all over the world known for their spirituality – some energy or experience people have only in those places. I know people who find Varanasi spiritually powerful and of course multitudes from around the world feel that way about Jerusalem. I myself did not – which along with not liking lox brings my Jewish credentials very much into question. That's a topic for another day.
Besides giving those who don't believe in spirituality some fodder, for those of us with a spiritual side, this does bring up the interesting idea that maybe people have different spiritual profiles or frequencies. Could it be like music where some of us resonate deeply with some material and less with others? Or maybe at different times and moments, different things resonate? Who knows, maybe there's a time in my future when I experience the Kotel differently than in my 20s or early 40s?
I also wonder if places people find to be especially spiritual aren't just that – places with some kind of greater spiritual energy the way volcanoes are spots that give off more heat from under the Earth's crust? Perhaps the fact that Patmos is a Holy Island for the Greek Orthodox Church is simply a matter of the people who were here finding a comprehensible context for what they encountered? In other words, perhaps painting Patmos' energy with a Greek Orthodox brush was the only way to make sense of things?
Similarly, the Balinese pantheon of animistic spirits mixed with the Hindu gods may have helped express something felt that had no name. Had Bali been colonized by Greece, there might be a story of the Mother Mary saving a Balinese child from an oversized snake rather than a Barong saving a princess from an evil spirit. In other words, the energetic phenomenon might be the same, but there would be a new narrative around it. And we could play this game ad infinitum substituting different religions and cultures.
Clearly this is the case for Jerusalem which is central to the stories of three major religions – all of which keep presence there and which over time have each had control of the city. Perhaps whether it was where King David consecrated the First Temple housing the Ark of the Covenant or where Jesus carried the cross or where Mohammad flew in the night before visiting Heaven is less significant than the fact that there is a strong, underlying spirituality that moved very different groups of people in very different times to assign it great importance?
Certainly all of this runs contrary to my problem with the Kotel – the Western Wall or Wailing Wall which is an outer retaining wall of the Second Temple. I don't like the idea that God exists more in or at the wall than anywhere else. To me, the way many people treat the wall feels like it comes very close to idolatry. Why should slipping a prayer or note into the crevices of a wall be more effective than a prayer anywhere else?
Yet what I'm saying about certain places having particularly strong or unique spiritual energies buys into the idea there is more of something here than there. How do I square that with my idea of a singular, universal God? I don't have an answer other than the Wall bothers me in part because it's a place people hope to be heard better – that their prayer will carry more weight in that spot. Does that mean a person who can't afford to travel to Israel has a lesser change of their prayer for their loved one's health and healing being heard? Is there spiritual cutting in line? And do the monastery and cave here on Patmos represent such a cutting in line – or are they more places to spend Easter finding greater meaning and basking in the spiritual glow of the place where Revelations was written? I suspect the second, but I don't really know.
I do know there are places where I feel more connected to the divine. There are places where I find the room to be spiritual and where spirituality seems to come for me. I used to feel the soft, gentle hand of Bali rocking me to sleep – telling me everything was just as it should be. On Patmos I feel a sense of protection and balance – also that things are as they should be. Somehow on Patmos life just feels less complicated and more joyful. I'm clearly not alone in feeling this way here – or on Bali. Many others report experiencing something similar. Or maybe being on pretty islands helps us open our hearts, minds and souls and if I could do the same at home, Westlake would be heaven on Earth?
Maybe these are questions requiring no answers or solutions? Finding our spirituality, the ways we feel connected and the places that help us do that are up to each of us. It could be "Different strokes for different folks" – not to be confused with Diff'rent Strokes which is for all folks. Maybe my Patmos is your Jerusalem, his Varanasi and her Lhasa? Or perhaps these places are just illusions – spiritual training wheels of sorts – we work from until we've figured out what they offer is really ours to claim anytime, anywhere?
I don't know. But as Emily's Aunt Penny said after we told her about a man in Bangkok we saw taking four women to his hotel room and Emily asking what someone could even do with four women, "I don't know, but I'll be thinking about that all day long…."
