Our Experience in Kalikalos

Hello from Kalikalos!

Here Hania and Georg, from Argentina and Germany. We are travelling through communities and landed in this amazing experimental project led by Jock Millenson. We are really amazed and surprised to find this mixture of vacations, seminars and comunal life. Quite a challenge!!!!

In our morning meeting, speaking about vision, lots of reactions came in...We had only one minute to express our opinions, hopes, observations and personal visions about Kalikalos and comunal life in general. This was great, because it led us to be essential.

So, we would like to share with you our 'minute'...
Having visited other communities around America, we find Kalikalos as an pioneer laboratory to learn day by day living in the New Earth, as it is today. We are challenged to mix and put together very different stages of life. How to do it...? These are some of the conclusions of this morning:

Give up our big western Egos, make lighter our "psicological luggage", learn to be simple, fast and effective. And understand that no matters how many success, or degrees we have, we are all in a kindergarden of communal life. Love and flexibility, are the priorities. Leave your old world behind and begin to be innocent and willing to learn again as a child. Pure love and high tolerance are our highest intentions to achieve. We try and try every day, it is no so easy...but is possible.

Any way, this is an exeptionally beautyfull spot, with blue waters and mysterious mountains around, led by an experienced guide like Jock, who lived in Findhorn, and can share a lot with us, gipsies and eternal seekers. We recommend everybody to come over and participate.

Blessings to all.

Hania & Gerog

Walk to Tympani Kissos

Yesterday, Mark took me on an incredible walk. Our journey was to Tympani Kissos, or the drum of Kissos. There is reason behind the name. Tympani Kissos is a place where rushing spring water comes gushing down Mt. Pelion in torential rapids and strikes the ancient rock below making the sound similar to that of mallets beating on a drum. When we arrived, the water was flowing slowly, and it made the sound more similar to a snare drum than a tympani drum, but what can you expect in july when it is in the eighties or nineties every day. Once the water rushed off the mountain it fell into a gorgeous clear pool. How refreshing this pool of ice-cold spring water must be on a hot summer's day. Unfortunately, Mark and I deemed it too dangerous to climb down to the pool because we weren't sure we could make it back up. So we spent the better part of an hour at Tympani Kissos and departed on a different route than we came on.

The route that we arrived on was quite spectacular. Mark, a seasoned hiker of Pelion told me he only discovered the route four years ago from a shepherd he met on his journey.

To be brief, we basically followed concrete channels and pipes that had been built for the purpose of diverting water from the spring to the villages of Mt. Pelion. At first we followed a concrete channel through the forest. This channel must have been hundreds of years old. There were parts of our walk were we had to balance on the channel, as we crossed the mountainside. Eventually we observed more modern channeling of the water through pipes. We continued our adventure through the forest and eventually heard the rapid rushing of water--we knew we were getting close.

On the last leg of our journey we had to traverse along a narrow path etched into a rock face where we had to crouch to avoid hitting our heads. We then heard the water rushing strong and "beating on the rock below". The last thing we had to do was to crawl through a dark mountain tunnel to get to the rock face overlooking the rushing water and the pool. This was an amazing walk and it was excellent to know that I had traveled one of the least-traveled paths in Pelion to see one of the most amazing sites in Pelion.

Jeremy Zaks, Queens New York

Course in Miracles at Kalikalos

Well, I've just spent two weeks on a beautiful mountain called PILION in mainland Greece close to the Aegean sea, staying at Kalikalos Holistic retreat centre in Kissos village. And what a blessing, in every way.

I came here to attend a FORGIVENESS workshop with COURSE IN MIRACLES teacher, Annie Blampied, from Sussex, England. Everything was great about this Centre, from its host, former academic psychologist Jock Millenson (a very experienced community leader) to the workshop with Annie, and what I would call "the community spirit". something that is hard to put in words, but is definitely alive and well here.

Till now I have lived mostly on my own or with my family, but here I found I really do like this community living. In fact I like it so well, that I think I will bring more of it to my own life. And when i can, come back here again probably.


We five participants (me and four women!) of the workshop dug deep in the sessions and faced our deepest shadows and we sure did let in some light! I would recommend Annie's workshops to anyone interested in improving their life situation, and where better to do it than in brilliant sunshine (despite us hitting a freaky June where the weather was hotter and sunnier back home in Surrey than it was here in Greece for a change) and on the beaches of the Pelion peninsula, still unspoilt by foreign tourism.

So I say, come out to Kalikalos and experience it for yourself!

Freddy Brant, Sutton, Surrey