The Odyssey: An ancient guide to awakening with Athena Potari

For Athena Potari, as for many ancient Greeks, The Odyssey is a multi-layered source of wisdom. An allegory for the soul's journey home from the illusion of duality to its true nature as consciousness. A guide to spiritual insight.

Athena joined us from an island in the Aegean Sea near Delos, the birthplace of Apollo, in an exhilarating talk that revealed many hidden depths in the characters and stories we know so well.

For me at least, it was significantly more exciting than the recent movie or translation I read!

Some of my highlights:

Odysseus comes from the Greek verb meaning I suffer. Consciousness caught in pain because it has forgotten who it is. Athena draws a straight line to Buddhist and Hindu thought, with Troy signifying samsara.

Deeper still, in Odysseus is hidden the prefix we still use in English when things go wrong. Dysfunctional. Discord. Dissonance. It also shares the same root as duo, linked to duality.

Its opposite is the syllable eu we find in Eudaimonia, in euphoria, signifying benevolence. Divine nature. The One.

So Odysseus is the one who travels from dys to eu. A journey across the sea (an allegory for the turbulent psyche) towards home and towards Penelope, the light of awareness that weaves worlds.

After many trials and tribulations, he wakes up in Ithica, where there are still many destructive habits of the mind that must be conquered for peace to reign.

Even the number of suitors listed in the Odyssey has spiritual significance. 108 is the number of beads in a rosary, the number of delusions in Buddhism, the number of cycles required in Yogic breathwork.

Reviving an Ancient Tradition

After many years in the seas of Oxford and Harvard academia, Athena has returned to her home country where she helps lead a renaissance of Hellenic spirituality.

After subjugation by Byzantine and Ottoman empires, this tradition has been suppressed for 17th centuries, and today we see the first generation free to practise it.

But there are many other suitors for the soul of Greece, and the battle is not quite won:

At the same time as the movie was released and raised public awareness, the Greek Government passed a bill (overnight) giving away all ancient sites to private anonymous corporations for the next 100 years!

Athena asks, if you are so inspired, to sign the petition against the commercialisation of ancient spiritual and archeological heritage, The Acropolis, Delphi, Mystras...

Sign the Petition

Greece’s Cultural Heritage Not For Sale / Η Ελληνική Πολιτιστική Κληρονομιά Δεν Πωλείται

Change.org

We also discussed:

• How to resist the sirens of your life and remain secure to your mast
• Why creation exists, according to Aristotle
• Why the new adaptation has landed so badly in Greece

As always, I look forward to your thoughts!

Amir

Timestamps

0:00:00 Welcome to Athena Potari
0:06:45 Cavafy’s Ithaka, read by Sean Connery
0:11:06 Reclaiming the spiritual heart of ancient Greece
0:15:06 The Odyssey as a journey home to yourself
0:23:41 Reading Odysseus’s name as a path beyond duality
0:28:59 Ethics as a way of being
0:35:30 Why Helen cannot be found in Troy
0:40:22 The Lotus Eaters: when pleasure makes us forget
0:42:20 Navigating between anger and fear
0:45:47 Calypso: when comfort keeps you from home
0:48:03 Losing everything before the homecoming
0:51:25 Why higher knowledge is not yet awakening
0:53:18 Odysseus wakes up in Ithaca
0:55:01 Why the journey continues after awakening
0:56:38 Penelope: the awareness that never fell asleep
1:00:07 Who gets to tell the Hellenic story?
1:07:21 Athena’s call to protect Greek heritage
1:11:06 Why must Odysseus lose all his companions?
1:15:18 The Iliad and Odyssey: two movements of one journey
1:20:32 Reading Homer: translations or ancient Greek?
1:24:37 How Penelope weaves the world
1:33:03 Why would the One become the many?
1:42:03 A pause for connection and shared reflections
1:48:06 The Sirens: staying true when temptation calls
1:53:32 Athena’s own Odyssey: leaving Oxford, coming home
1:58:16 Closing reflections and ways to stay connected

Recording

You can purchase this talk as a one-off recording here: https://dandelion.events/e/h5hjk

Or members of With Reality in Mind can see it below: