ODYSSEY TOURS to ANCIENT GREECE
Peter O'Connor and Brian Clark are your guides for this unique tour to the sacred sites of ancient Greece. Like pilgrims in the ancient world we will journey to sacred sites honouring the gods and goddesses who presided over transitions in the life cycle. These sanctuaries were an integral aspect of the religious life of the ancient Greek and as such were the sacred temenos where transitions in one's life could be ritualised and rendered meaningful. Dreams and divination were part of the ancient Greeks' religious life and on this pilgrimage we will visit the ancient sites that were dedicated to dream incubation, healing and oracles.
As part of the tour Peter O'Connor will conduct an ongoing dream group to enrich and give meaning to our experience of these sacred precincts. Brian Clark will facilitate groups exploring relevant mythological and historical connections. Both Brian and Peter will lead discussion groups and seminars on various topics including myths, literature and rituals.
Fees include 13 nights accommodation based on double occupancy in 3-4 star hotels with private facilities, all breakfasts, welcome and final dinners, five lunches, all land and sea transportation within Greece, entrance fees to all museums and sacred sites, tips, guides, tuition fees, reading booklet and all materials.
TOTAL PRICE: AU $ 5,995.00
if paid in full before 1/12/2008 - AU $ 5,495.00
Payments received after April 1, 2009 will be subject to a surcharge. Fees are based on double occupancy. If single occupancy is available a single supplement of Australian $795.00 will apply.
Tour space is limited so early registration is advised. To ensure a place please remit a non-refundable deposit of Australian $ 500.00 to Odyssey at the Chiron Centre. Please make cheques payable to the Chiron Centre.
Upon registration travel brochures and further information is available. Should you have questions please contact Brian Clark at the Chiron Centre on (03) 8415-0315.
DAY 1 Tuesday, April 21, 2009  ATHENS
Our journey begins in Athens the central focus for the classical
period where the seeds of mathematics, astronomy, architecture, philosophy, theatre and science were sown influencing the course of Western civilisation. We will gather in the early evening in our Hotel Amalia to meet one another and orientate ourselves for the journey which lay in front of us. After, we will walk through the colourful Plaka and its maze of shops and boutiques to our taverna where we will share our first meal together.
DAY 2 Wednesday, April 22 ATHENS
In the morning we will board our private bus to visit the sanctuary
of Artemis Brauronia on the east coast of Attica. At this sacred
precinct young girls were initiated into the cult of Artemis by dressing and dancing as she-bears to prepare themselves for their transition into puberty. In the classical period Brauron was the revered site of pubescent initiation and home of Iphigenia, the surrogate priestess of Artemis. Today the site is also a wildlife sanctuary. After our visit we will travel to the town of Lavrio for lunch. In the afternoon we will visit the temple of Poseidon at Sounion on the tip of Attica. Here King Aegeus grieved when he glimpsed the black sails of his son Theseus’ ship as it returned from Crete. In the late afternoon we will return to Athens where you will be free to explore the Acropolis, the Plaka and the Monastraki.
DAY 3 Thursday, April 23 ATHENS
Today we will visit the sanctuary of Rhamnous, one of the most 
remote of the Athenian demes situated on the north east coast
of Attica. On this sanctuary were temples to two pre-Olympian goddesses, Themis and Nemesis. A goddess of justice and order Themis was a Titaness, mother of the Fates and the Seasons. Nemesis was also a goddess of law and justice, personifying divine retribution. Together the goddesses’ represent both civic and primal aspects of justice. After our visit we will travel a short distance north to Oropus and the oracular site of Amphiareion. In the idyllic countryside is a sanctuary dedicated to Amphiaraus, a heroic warrior and seer who also had a reputation for healing sickness. Dream incubation and divination were practiced by priests of Amphiaraus at this sacred site. Like ancient pilgrims we will have time to reflect and petition the god for our well being. After lunch in the nearby town of Oropus, we will return to Athens in the late afternoon. In the evening we will gather together and walk to the Benaki Museum for an after hours visit.
DAY 4 Friday, April 24 AEGINA
Before travelling across the Saronic Gulf to the island of Aegina, 
we will visit Eleusis where the most celebrated mysteries of the
ancient world, the Eleusinian Mysteries, were enacted. For over a millennium pilgrims came to experience the mysteries of death and rebirth, just as Demeter’s daughter Kore had done when she was abducted into the underworld. At Eleusis we will stand on the sacred ground dedicated to the great goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, which hold the mystery of the Eleusinian initiations. After visiting the sacred site we will have lunch together before travelling to the port of Piraeus. In the mid afternoon we will transfer to the Island of Aegina where we will be met by a local bus that will take us to the other side of island and the Hotel Apollo. In the evening we will gather together in the seminar room to reflect on and absorb what we have experienced to date.
DAY 5 Saturday, April 25 AEGINA
Today we will board our private bus to visit to the ancient 
sanctuary of Aphaia. The temple named after the goddess
Aphaia is a fine example of a classical Doric style temple considered one of the more important temples in antiquity. The goddess was a protector of the island and is linked to the Cretan goddess Britomartis who fled to the island for sanctuary. In the late afternoon we will gather together in the seminar room for the first seminar in a series on myth, dream and psyche.
DAY 6 Sunday, April 26 AEGINA
The morning is free to rest and relax. In the early afternoon we
will gather together to continue our seminar series. In the evening we will all board our private bus that will take us to the other side of the island to the village of Perdika for a traditional meal.
DAY 7 Monday, April 27 AEGINA
In the morning we will gather together to continue our seminar 
series. After a light lunch we will board our private bus and
visit the main town of Aegina, the temple of Apollo and museum. We will have time to visit the town and later take a scenic tour of the island.
DAY 8 Tuesday, April 28 NAUPLION
In the morning we will take the ferry across the Saronic Gulf 
to Methana on the Argolid, where we will be met by our
motorcoach which will take us to Troezen, the birthplace of Theseus and the cult site of his only son, Hippolytus. Here on the cliffs Hippolytus fell to his death having been falsely accused of impiety by his stepmother Phaedra. And here Asclepius the great god of healing resurrected the innocent boy as a favour for his aunt Artemis. On this site we will see a sanctuary of Asclepius and a temple to Hippolytus. Then we will travel to the Venetian seaside port of Nauplion, the original capital of modern
Greece where we will stay for three nights.
DAY 9 Wednesday, April 29 NAUPLION
In the morning we will visit Asclepius’ main healing sanctuary 
at Epidaurus, the location where dream and psyche meet.
Set in the gentle Argolid Hills surrounded with pine trees and oleanders, people from all over the ancient world would visit this sacred sanctuary to honour Asclepius, the God of Healing, hoping for a dream vision to cure their illness. We will tour the site starting from the main gate where the ancient pilgrims would have entered, as well as visiting the famous theatre, the small museum, and the Tholos. After our visit we will return to Nauplion, regrouping in the early evening to reflect on our
experiences to date.
DAY 10 Thursday, April 30 NAUPLION
After breakfast we will travel to the ancient city of Mycenae, 
founded by the hero Perseus, the great-grandfather of Heracles,
and home to Agamemnon the general who lead the Greek army to Troy. It was in the cursed house of Atreus that Clytemnestra murdered her husband when he returned from the Trojan War. Her son Orestes avenged that murder which resulted in the first trial in the Athenian courts at the Areopagus, the mythological cycle that Aeschylus dramatised in the Oresteian Trilogy. After our visit, we will travel across the Gulf of Corinth to a site sacred to the goddess Hera. Perachora is situated on a
promontory jutting into the Gulf of Corinth. As a harbour sanctuary pilgrims would arrive by boat and take refuge protected by the goddess. Here on this gentle site we can have a picnic. On the way back to Nauplion we will stop to see the canal of Corinth.
DAY 11 Friday, May 1 DELPHI
May Day is a national holiday and this will be our travel day. We depart Nauplion for the beautiful town of Delphi, nestled on Mt. Parnassus, filled with jewellery shops and handicraft boutiques. Our journey will take us back over the Gulf of Corinth through Attica and Boetia.
DAY 12 Saturday, May 2 DELPHI
In the morning we will visit the museum at Delphi with our local 
guide in order to orientate us to this magnificent site. Here we
will see beautiful artefacts from the treasuries as well as the famous statue of the Charioteer. Then the tour guide will take us through the site built into the slopes of Mount Parnassus where we will see the Rock of the Sibyl, the magnificent treasuries, and the Temple of Apollo where the Pythia prophesied. We will have some spare time to either climb up to the Stadium or visit the Theatre of Dionysus or meditate by the Castilian Springs. We will re group at the spectacular temple of Athena Pronoia where pilgrims climbing to the site would stop and offer a votive to the goddess Athena. Then we will continue on to the mountain village of Arahova to have a late lunch together in one of its quaint cafes.
DAY 13 Sunday, May 3 ATHENS
Today is our last day and to ritualise the closing we will visit the chthonic oracular site of Trophonius where the mythical rivers of Lethe (forgetting) and Mnemosyne (remembering) meet. Here in this peaceful place we will start to close our journey. Then we will continue to Athens where in the evening we will share our last meal together in the Plaka.
BRIAN CLARK is an astrological counsellor in private practice whose focus is on the mythological underpinning of astrology. He facilitates a four-year program in astrology, a distance learning program as well as a year course in mythology. He has also been awarded his Graduate, Post Graduate, Diploma and Masters in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Melbourne.
PETER O’CONNOR is a psychotherapist with a special interest and focus on dreams in his clinical work. For over 27 years Peter has also facilitated weekly ongoing dream groups. He was the popular columnist for the Good Weekend’s Inner Life and the author of the highly acclaimed Understanding the Mid Life Crisis, and numerous other books including Facing the Fifties, Beyond the Mist, The Inner Man, Dreams and the Search for Meaning, and Understanding Jung.
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