“The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean“ focuses on the accomplishment of a dozen tasks that The Idiot is given to accomplish by Circe, the enchantress who turned Odysseus’ crew into swine.
This excerpt from the walking adventure from the chapter entitled Homeward Bound recounts the achievement of Circe’s twelfth task: Make your own homeward journey to your own Ithaka and write a heartfelt and cathartic account about the importance of home and friends.
“Homeward Bound” is set in Redding, California, where The Idiot went to school as a youth.
Here are the initial paragraphs of Homeward Bound:
“Nothing is as sweet as a man’s own country.” – The Odyssey
“The idea of returning is significant for all of us.” – Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao Daily Meditations
The predominant theme in Homer’s Odyssey is, of course, the 20-year absence of Odysseus and his effort to return to Ithaka – and everything that his island home meant to him in real, regal, and symbolic terms. That voyage may be responsible for two ongoing trends in Greece: the desire to travel and the homing instinct. Greek emigrants, perhaps influenced by Odysseus’ adventurous voyage and painstaking return, still seem genetically programmed to wander worldwide, often on ships and usually to earn money. And then they almost invariably return to their native villages in the autumn or winter of their lives.
My years of wandering make it clear why Circe’s twelfth task for me is to “Make your own homeward journey to your own Ithaka and write a heartfelt and cathartic account about the importance of home and friends.” After an absence of more than four decades, I am duly returning to the northern California town where I lived as a kid.
My last, and most serious, weeks of training for the Hellespont swim took place in Whiskeytown Lake near Redding. I was at this same spot, with 10,000 others, on September 28, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy dedicated the dam that created this recreational manmade lake. Just before I returned to Turkey to walk through Gallipoli and into Troy, I was in the water every morning to train for my Byronic, if not ironic, attempt to swim from Europe to Asia….
Training to swim the Hellespont in Whiskeytown Lake near Redding, California.
The Idiot returned to Redding to encounter his mother and write “The Idiot and the Odyssey II.”
The Idiot kept in shape locally for MedTrekking by meditatively walking local trails and the Peace Labyrinth.
Coming home included summiting Mount Shasta, the Northern California equivalent of Mount Olympus.
Want more? Simply download the interactive and/or paperback versions of “The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean” @ http://followtheidiot.com/purchase.
Next week: An excerpt from the chapter Sleeping With Helen Of Troy recounts the successful finale of the ninth labor dictated by Circe: You may not choose to sleep with me, Kalypso, Sappho, or even Nausikaa but you must meet them all and absolutely spend a night with Helen of Troy.
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