A little over 18 years I first came to Ancient Delphi, and I have to admit that I only came on this first occasion for a “day trip” as any tourist does.
However, on that first visit I had this strange kind of religious or spiritual awakening; a sudden realization that there were other ways of looking at things from the way I had been used to in England.
I had never been a religious or spiritual person in my younger life and had always had a fairly scientific and practical outlook on life, as perhaps a maths teacher in a London comprehensive school tends to.
Nevertheless, when I came to Delphi, I felt for the first time that I was somewhere sacred and needed to spend more time in this special place.
Subsequently I have spent more than 12 years living here on and off over the last 18 years.
Most readers will already know that Apollo is the God of the sciences, not just medicine, but mathematics and all the other sciences.
He is the God of all the arts, music, and the God of prophecy – the mantic art. In other words, Apollo is the God of the “higher conscience” of humankind, our higher human spirit, and this is why he is also known as the God of Light.
This is not the light we get from a lantern, but the inner light and spirit in our hearts and minds.
Apollo for me is a divine force that guides us towards goodness and virtue, and away from darkness and badness in our thoughts and actions.
He has always been around I believe, all over the world, helping human kind in all sorts of ways with things such as scientific and artistic development. The Renaissance of intellectual, artistic and spiritual thought in the 16th century was to a large part in my opinion driven by the God Apollo.
He is sometimes referred to as the God who helps us from “afar” and we may think he has deserted us. The truth is I believe that he has always been there for us and often still helps us from “afar” today.
For me Apollo is not purely a “Greek” God but a God for us all. Many people will be surprised to know that the ancient Greeks had a big esteem for the “Ethiopians” – the word the ancients used for all black people and not just the small part of Africa called Ethiopia today.
We know the ancient Ethiopians worshipped Apollo, Poseidon and the other Gods from Homer and other sources. Apollo’s mythical son Esclipius who became the God of medicine was a black man, and some believers today like me think it likely that if Apollo slept with a black woman he would take the form of a handsome black man in order to put her at ease.
This history of the Ethiopians which all black people both in Africa and the United States today can be proud of irrespective of their faith, has prompted the creation of an embryonic cultural movement in the inner cities of the United States called Black Apollon.
This movement is not religious but cultural, giving inner city younsters a range of cultural and work training opportunities and offering them “hope” for a better and richer life in a cultural sense. Apollo for me is not a white God – but a God above ethnicity.
At this moment of human existence there is much darkness in the world which takes many forms; from greed and selfishness causing things like poverty and global warming, to a complete absence of positive role models for many young people causing a prolifiration of drug taking, depression and suicide rates.
In my view this is partly the reason that Apollo is again making himself known in all sorts of ways to many people around the world, and that there is a sudden revival in the numbers of people who are beginning to worship and listen to him either consciously or sub-consciously.
The human race is at a critical threshhold at the moment, unparallelled in its history with real threats to its existence like global warming and nuclear polution. I think Apollo is also making himself more known again so that he can help us overcome our difficulties as individual people, nation states, and as a global community.
He is showing us a better way of solving global problems. For example, while President Bush is asking Congress for 200 billion dollars to fight the war in Iraq, the United Nations is going to give North Korea 5 billion dollars in oil each year to end its nuclear program.
The politicians must decide what is the most sensible way of dealing with these important issues and how to deal with similar situations in the future. They must consider urgently whether there are important lessons to be learnt on how the global community should deal with Iran’s nuclear program.
I choose to follow and worship Apollo essentially because it gives me a deep and inner happines. When I say happy, I do not mean the quick and temporary happiness that some people get from getting drunk, or many young people find in taking drugs. I mean a deep inner happiness and contentment that my life has some worth and purpose even if there are difficulties along the way.
I do not suffer from the diseases of consumerism, financial greed, power seeking or other dark afflictions. I am free from these, or rather I try to be with Apollo’s help and guidance. I am trying to build a temple for Apollo; not a temple of mere bricks and mortar, but an inner temple in my heart for him and the hearts of other people who wish to do the same.
These are the temples which I truly believe are the most important to Apollo. To try and do this I am based in Ancient Delphi for most of the year where I offer spiritual guidance and help to pilgrims who come here to visit this sacred place. I feel “called” as it were to do this work for the God since I first came to Delphi 18 years ago.
When Apollo first touches us or begins to reveal himself to us it can be very confusing as I know from my own personal experience, and so I try to be available as much as I can to talk about these and other matters with these pilgrims. Apollo is the top of my priority list these days, and if I can serve him in some small way like this it is a great pleasure for me.
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