It’s Advent ! December 1 to Noel. In the house of the man I carry, we had advent calendars for the children with chocolate in each window, they opened a window each night. SO. the man I carry decided to make the blog an advent calendar and give each of you a gift each day! Advent itself is a wild story. “Christians have spoken of the three comings of Christ: in the flesh in Bethlehem, in our hearts daily, and in glory at the end of time”. So advent is body, mind, and spirit. First the body, next spirit and finally.. the Hopi prophesy. Advent was in existence from about 480, introduced by the Council of Tours of 567 was to order monks to fast every day in the month of December until Christmas.

The man I carry, has written 3 novels that were not published or.. even shared.

First novel is about Leto, the shape shifting goddess who is the mother of Artemis god of the moon and Apollo god of the sun. it is a fiction about the life of Leto and a modern woman on a quest. The second novel is about bears. The third is about the island Tinos Greece.

So the man I carry decided to give you a chapter a day from each book, alternating.. You can read them as a serial, like Netflix..

So the first day a chapter from Leto, The next Bears, The third Tinos

Here is the first gift. Chapter One from Leto Returns, A Love Story.

LETO RETURNS. A LOVE Story

Chapter 1

Nadia

The map

She lay on her back on the soft earth and looked up at the endless sky. Tears rolled down her cheeks and blurred her vision as she gazed upwards. She felt the ground beneath her back, she felt her legs, then, felt the ground give way beneath her like an endless sponge. She had been lying here for as long as she could remember, from when she guessed the secret, from when she realized what was happening to her, from when she understood it’s huge implications on her short life.

She was in the very center of a round bowl, a place where the earth was soft beyond measure. She had found her way there after many wanderings, many escapes and many pilgrimages. As she lay on the earth she felt herself sinking and rising at once. She felt her body dissolve and give way to something much greater and older. She felt her very cells reorganizing and making something new without her. This was no surprise now, it had become who she was, is, and will be forever.

As she lay there and as she sunk and rose at once she heard this voice, “Welcome Nadia, just let yourself fall, rise, and fall, and surrender. We will take beyond perfect care of you here and forever more.” She did not know if she was still crying, still lost in her life. She did not know any longer if the pain she had been carrying like a huge burden was still there or where it had gone. She felt animals around her taking her pain, wolves, bears, eagles, owls, deer all seemed to be eating what remained of her pain and of her body as she floated away from it, to where she not knew.

In space, she was on Delos, an archeological site in the Greek Cycladic islands. She was lying where she had wandered, at first aimlessly, in the blurred world of her endless tears of suffering. It had all been taken from her and in her loss she had set forth on her journey, not easy in these times. Her sufferings had been endless, not even defined anymore, they were epic. In her suffering visions of pain, sorrow, and fear, some days she was forced to help burn babies in ritual fires, some days she was raped and violated with violence, some days it was only in the cold of alienated loneliness and separation from all. What were these visions that had never stopped, were they memories, dreams? Nadia did not know the answer to this question, but the visions were hers and they had made her life a hell on earth. Lately, the sufferings all swirled and arrived and became one and separated as if she was many women in many lives. She had no idea what this all meant but she knew her life had slowly turned into  endless unbearable pain.

Next to her lay the map. She had found this strange map on the train as she wandered south in Italy trying to leave her pain behind her. She was on the train heading towards Sicily for reasons she could not imagine and through her tears was was staring out of the window at the passing countryside. A stranger was sitting in the aisle seat next to her. He had not spoken a word to her or even made eye contact. She could see that he was reading a typed document and underlining occasionally as he read. He seemed nervous and anxious. As he worked, h e did not look at her or speak. Suddenly, in a jump like a grasshopper, he got up from his seat and left. He practically disappeared in front of her eyes like a magic trick. When he left, she looked where he had been and she found a folded piece of paper on the seat. She picked it up. It felt strange to the touch, almost warm and wet. She slowly opened it and saw it was some kind of map. On the top of the paper , it said, “Sacred temples on the ancient site of Delos” and below the title was a hand drawn map of areas and squares, with no labels. Instead, there were small pictures on each site like geometric shapes that looked like someone had drawn them from old dreams. (Enclose jpg of map)

When Nadia arrived in Bari she got off the train. She went to a small hotel near the sea. To her, the town was jumbled and had small curvy streets leading to unknown places up hills. The sea was down below the hotel and she saw large boats moored in the port. The hotel had a computer in the lobby and she looked up Delos on the internet. She discovered that Delos was in Greece, in the Cycladic islands, almost directly across the Aegean sea and then across Greece from where she was now. She saw dots on the internet site about Delos showing ferry routes leading from Bari directly to Western Greece.  Before she went to bed she stared at the map and found herself getting sleepy and drifting off. In her pre sleep visionary state, she saw a very bright light, she was inside this light and it felt comforting and cleansing. She felt a gentle wind blowing right through her taking away what needed to leave. For the first time in her short life she felt and saw her suffering and pain and her frightening images drifting away like clouds in the sky. In her half visions, she opened her eyes and saw ancient marble streets, she saw people walking in strange clothes, she saw dancers and she heard exotic music. She started to see herself there too and then she woke for a moment and in a flash, decided to go to Delos.