#29 - Following My Call to Greece

This week in The Astro Study Room, Ember is telling you all about her spiritual retreat to Greece with Seeking Numina! She talks all about the magick, the history, and the communion with land she was blessed with on her trip!

Jordan will be back next time and we will see you back in the Study Room on July 21st where we will be continuing on with our year long deep dive into the zodiac with our next sign: Leo!!

Be sure to check out Elyse and her retreat offerings at https://www.elysewelles.com/

We highly recommend Ashley Brown for all your spiritual and pop culture travel! https://nerdventurestravel.com/about-me/

Transcript

Welcome And Solo Host Energy

Ember 0:18

Hey star students, welcome back to the Astro Study Room. I'm Ember Faye, your friendly neighborhood Fire Fairy Witch. And I'm Jordan, a university library bate, and no, Jordan's not with me today. It is just me. It is Ember here and live on her own. So I apologize ahead of time for any awkwardness of this episode. I have never actually recorded a podcast episode on my own, but here we are, all together in the Astro Study Room. Our goal for this podcast is to feel like a group of badass students of all levels gathering to explore, reflect, question, and just connect with the cosmos. So no matter where you're at in your spiritual or astrology journey, just remember that learning is a forever game, like me right now, recording this on my own. We are so happy you're here to wander around the universe with us. So if you'd like, grab your notes and pens, or just bring yourself and an open mind. And whether you identify as an astrologer, a witch, a wizard, a mystic, a spiritual seeker, or if you are just a curious human, you belong here. This is a study room for all of it. Every other Tuesday, we'll be exploring different astrology and spiritual topics, sometimes teaching, sometimes reflecting, and sometimes just chatting and wondering out loud together. So today I have an episode for you that will be all about just some chatting and wondering out loud about my recent trip, my spiritual retreat to Greece. And so if you are into this, we would love for you to subscribe, leave a review, and know that you can always come hang out with us in the study room. You can follow us on Instagram at the Astro Study Room on uh TikTok as well. And as a reminder, we are also live on YouTube. So if you're more of a visual person and you want to see me just like frantically waving my hands everywhere

Why Greece And Why Retreats

Ember 2:10

during this episode, you can check us out there. Know that Jordan has her incredible astrology readings available and I am on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube under Emberfade Magic. And you can sign up for my newsletter or take my free quiz on discovering your central shadow archetype. All of our info is linked in the show notes. So, like I already mentioned, I am going to be sharing my experience with spiritual travel, specifically going to Greece. I was there for 17 days and it was a life-changing trip. And I think this episode is really special and important because everybody keeps asking me, how was Greece? How was it? And I'm just like, oh my gosh, it was unimaginable. And I don't know how to tell you about this. So now I'm just gonna send them this episode. Jordan is usually with me. Um, she was unavailable to record today. She ran a 5k yesterday and had some stuff going on at home. So we will miss her, but we will be back in two weeks for our Leo deep dive episode. So buckle up star students. Class is officially out and the study room is in session. And you might ask, like, Ember, why did you go to Greece? And I will say, I have always wanted to go. I have always been interested in Greek mythology. The deities that many aspects of iWitchcraft have always included came from Greek mythology and Greek traditions. But there was something very special about being able to go to this place and connect with the land. And what made it the most special is that this trip was planned with Elise Wells from Seeking Numina, who we've had on this podcast. She hosts spiritual retreats. And I cannot say enough how incredible Elise's retreats are. I see retreats all the time on Instagram and TikTok, people advertising them. And I think one of the deep, the deepest things that are missing is like actual connection with the people of that land. And what was so special about this retreat is that it is literally led by a Greek priestess. Elise is Greek, she has family there, she has lived there, and just her ancestors are from there. And so that connection she's able to facilitate made this experience so incredibly magical. And I think set the stage for the rest of my trip because the actual retreat, I think, was four days, and I, like I mentioned, was there for 17 days. So I'm just gonna like set the scene, is that was my introduction to Greece. We ended up flying in to Athens, it was a great airport, super easy. And we stayed in a place called Vuliameni, which is about an hour south of Athens. Vuliameni is kind of halfway between Athens and the Temple of Poseidon. Um, it was a beautiful shore. We saw the sea, there was a lake there. It was really nice. And I say we because my partner had come with me as well. And so we kind of got to like sleep off any sort of jet lag and ended up getting picked up at the airport by Elise and her husband. So my partner came and actually ended up hanging out with Elise's husband, which was really beautiful. They know each other from our coven. It started

Landing In Athens And Settling In

Ember 6:05

this experience where I did know one of the people who was with us. She's uh somebody in our coven. I love her dearly, so it was nice to have that little connection. I obviously know Elise very well, but then you're kind of thrust in with people that you don't know. And I did not know how I would react to that experience. I think that traveling with people you don't know can be really scary. I'll I'll actually get to it as we like go on this trip, on this journey. But essentially, I think really like the goal of this episode and what I want to get across is if you can just let yourself go to a place and connect with the people and the land and just be like held by this place, it is going to game change traveling for you. To kind of give you an overview of the actual trip, we were in Vuliameni, did the retreat for a few days, then flew, went back to Athens Airport, flew to Crete, stayed there for about five days. Um, where I had a close friend from veterinary school meet me with her husband, and we spent the rest of the trip with them. So we did a few days in Crete, a few days in Santorini, a few days in Athens, and then flew home. So that is kind of like the overview of our trip. So we jump into this car all together for this retreat, and we're driving around. Elise is driving, talking to us, we're all just kind of like let's get to know each other. And we are immediately taken to this like adorable town, and we have our first ritual. And in this experience, we are already kind of sharing some pretty vulnerable things right off the bat. Again, can be really scary, but there was something about just being in this container together that Elise had already created that made it feel so possible and safe. That was kind of like the vibe of the whole trip, where we would find different areas. So this treat particularly centered around sacred waters. And so that was where, you know, water is very emotional, it's very vulnerable. Water is connection and relationships. And so I think maybe that's why this container was already set the way it was, and why we were all kind of ready for it as well. And I have to say, like Greek waters, they're so beautiful. The springs and the sea, and you feel the spirits of those places immediately. So we spent the day, we like went to another spring. This is this spring is probably where I had one of the most like magical things happen. We were led through some movement, and I sat and connected with this space. It was an Aphrodite Spring. So this town had been in honor of the warrior aspect of Aphrodite. There were rose, these beautiful rose bushes everywhere, everywhere. It was gorgeous. Like the biggest rose bushes I've ever seen. And we found this spring, and you can literally like drink the water right from the spring. It was so clean. And as I'm sitting there, I started to notice all these little damselflies surrounding me and flying in and out of space and time, and I just lost myself in it. I, you know, we talk about this as a space of spirituality and astrology, and I truly felt as if I was connecting with the fairy realm in these instants. I had dragonflies come and just fly and hover in front of me. I had damselflies come and sit on my arm and just eat its little bugs on me. And I think that was the moment I stepped in and it was like

Sacred Waters And Group Rituals

Ember 9:55

it truly cracked something open for me. It was where I realized how important it is to ask the space you're in how it feels about you being there, and how really process how you feel being in this space as well and being in this country. So much land that, you know, especially in the United States we live on, is just land that was taken or decimated or just overrun by humans doing really shitty things, and to finally be in a space where you are feeling accepted by the space you're in, even though it's not necessarily like yours, it's not your country or it's not your city. There's such a beautiful connection in that. And I think it only happens when you pause and really take a moment to be there. And that was what the retreat let us do. We I didn't feel rushed, at least didn't make us like run around from one place to another. We really got to like sit in silence and dance and music, whatever we in conversation with the other uh people in the group if we wanted to. And in that moment, I just chose to be on my own in space with these beautiful little fairy insects that I think just reinvigorated my love of magic. And I think that's what travel can truly do. I think it can reinvigorate the things that we love, especially when you go and you're traveling around and you notice, like, oh, I really love museums or I really love art or I love tasting food, and you get to spend a lot of intentional time that way. Yeah, there's something really magical and special about that. And so we went to these different areas. I could, I could talk like all day about how amazing it was to have somebody that actually spoke the language, and so we were able to meet people and connect with them and like little cafe owners. Um, and the food was phenomenal. Oh my god, I could go on about the food. You know, it really is what makes you a difference between like a tourist or almost like doing this sacred pilgrimage, right? Like going to these spaces with intent felt real. When we ended up going to Delphi on our last day, we really we stopped and truly appreciated where we were going. We closed our container as a group since it was our last day. And Elise led us through a really beautiful ritual. I actually um played the drum while she led us through this like meditation, and it was so powerful. And then we walked through Delphi and we were going through, we were going through the site, and it was so hot, so hot. And it did feel it wasn't like enjoyable hot. It was hot, hot. And we ended up walking through and we ended up going to this cave. And in this cave, we were able to really just sit and connect. There was a few of us who went here, not everyone went to this space. We left offerings at the cave. We were completely ignored by anybody who walked by. I think uh Elise had super glamoured that space to like ignore anybody with good intent or doing anything witchy over there. We sat by the spring and I noticed the damselflies and insects again, and we just connected with the space. We went to these hot springs. So we went to a little island called Evia. In Evia, there are hot springs, like natural hot springs that go into the sea. I had never been in a space like that before, where it was just, you know, locals hanging out at these springs. Um, you could tell it was a bunch of probably retired people that were just enjoying their day. And we went out into the water and we played mermaid, and like literally, I was like, let's play mermaids, and we went and I was like, come on, mermaids, because who doesn't love playing mermaids? And I just what was really funny is I had kept talking about caves, and we ended up finding the most beautiful, incredible sea cave that was another just life-changing moment for me where we were in this cave. There were waterfalls in the cave, and we sang together like the little freaking sirens we were, and felt what it felt like, or what our ancestors had done for thousands of years

Aphrodite Spring And Fairy Signs

Ember 14:35

to just sit with nature and respect it and honor it so beautifully. And I think that's what was so special about Greece is there wasn't like a lot going on or a lot to do where we were, but there was so much to see. The land itself, it was just like you'd be driving, there'd be groves and groves of olive trees, or the mountains, or you'd just see runes on the side of the road, and just it would be like archaeological site right there. And you I think it feels real, you know, like there's so much of it. I I don't know how else to describe it by besides that. Like it feels real. If you could get yourself on one of these retreats, I cannot recommend them with Seeky Numena enough. Like it was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. But it didn't end there. I was really lucky that I also got to go to Crete. I got to see um some beautiful areas, Spinalonga, which was a town that was actually like a like a military base, and then became a place where they would actually house people with leprosy, and they would like put them on this island, and now it's just ruins, and you can like walk around, and it was really powerful. I went to this cave that had really a really tragic backstory and just spent some time in the cave meditating. And when you're in these spaces, being able to just breathe and and learn about the history, oh, history, the museums. Oh my gosh. Um, the museums were absolutely incredible. I seeing this artwork, so you know, there were pieces there going back to 3000 BC, right? Like 3000, that's like five over 5,000 years ago. You're walking through the museum, so like way before a lot of the stories we know about Greek mythology, right? Which take place in like 300 BC. We're talking thousands of years before that. And to see these ruins, to see this artwork, to see the pottery and the figurines that just are the same symbols we use now in our witchcraft and in our spirituality was unreal. It was honestly shocking and breathtaking. And I had never been so invested in reading every single little plaque. We went to like three museums, and I easily spent over two and a half hours at every museum just learning about the history and what I love to study and understand. And I think I understand myself and my craft on such a deeper level now. I think if you're going to travel, something really important to keep in mind is who you're traveling with. I luckily am somebody that does not feel like I need to mask around the people that I have in my life. I'm so, so lucky in that way. And the people who I was on the trip with, even after the retreat, she knows that I'm a witch. She knows that I am a wild, magical, feral being. And she was all about it. She let me do my thing, no judgment. And that felt really important to me. Like I didn't have to explain why I wanted to do the things I wanted to do. And so I would highly recommend making sure that if you're going on one of these sacred pilgrimages or you are signing up for a retreat, to make sure that you are aware of who you're going with and not just bringing somebody for the sake of like having somebody with you. Because sometimes it's just as powerful and maybe even more important to have the experience on your own. I mentioned we finished up in Santorini. I really love that. I think everything I had learned throughout the trip, I was really able to put into practice in Santorini. Because when I got to Santorini, I was immediately like, oh my gods, where are we? I hate this because it felt fake. Like, I don't know how, like, it felt like this like Instagrammable place that just was like, why

Delphi Closure Ritual And Offerings

Ember 18:45

does everybody love this place so much? Especially after all the beautiful things we had seen. And sorry if you disagree with me about this, but but but but I think that one of the things I was able to do very well, that something that I've always done, but something it I think it was very heightened during this trip. And and I was very in tune with my own spirituality that I was really able to sit. I found this like volcanic rock. While all these people are like walking by, and I don't know, they were all like, there's a this walk that you can do from where we were staying to eah. So people were walking by, and I'm like sitting on this rock, and I just connected with this volcano. Santorini is a volcano, and so you really were able to just sit and connect, and I was able to block out everything around me and really take a look at the plants, take a look at nature, close my eyes, and feel this uh fire, this history of Santorini that I don't think I would have been able to do if I didn't just shut myself off and listen to what the land had to say. And that land was really beautiful. When you look past a lot of like the ads and all these Instagram girlies taking their photos and like trying to fight over who's gonna see the blue domes, it was like this place was really, really gorgeous. It had the most beautiful sunsets I ever saw. It was like, oh, this is what it was like to be here. Greece was incredible. The people were wonderful. The amount of Instagram friends I made, just like talking to people and hanging out. And I don't know, I'm I am a talker, so I would like walk into a store, talk to the person, and my dogs are barking. I hope you can't hear them. I'm so sorry if you can. But I would make friends with somebody in the store, and then we'd be like Instagram buddies, and then I still talk to some of them, and it's just traveling with intention and traveling somewhere new is so much more fun when you make it, I think, a connected spiritual journey. Like, why? Think about when you're traveling and you're picking somewhere. Think about why you're going to that place, what is drawing you

Hot Springs Sea Caves And Play

Ember 21:05

to that space because I don't think it's about like the actual destination. Like it's not like oh, I saw this place, like it looks cute, let's go here. I mean, if you can really like let in the history, let in the experience and what you're going to see, I think it would make your trip and your experience so much more nourishing and powerful and so incredibly special. I think if you are planning a retreat or you're planning your next trip, do some research. I actually used an incredible travel agent, Nerd Ventures, Ashley Brown is her name. I will link all of this in the show notes. Ashley was amazing for our hotels. Our hotels, I didn't even talk about that, but they were freaking phenomenal. The place we stayed with, Elise. Was called The Views, and it was it was so peaceful and beautiful and well maintained. The hotels we all see in that Ashley found for us were absolutely gorgeous. And so I would definitely recommend a travel agent. I think that they can be really helpful. They don't charge anything usually. I think if a travel agent's charging you, that sounds pretty sketch. You know, they can help you connect with reviews and experiences and tours. If you're into that, that would be helpful for planning. It was very helpful for me. I don't think I would have found the hotels or had the info that we would have if it wasn't for her. So Ashley was amazing. And just really think about what are you hoping this space, this place, the nature, the environment brings into your life after this trip? What are you hoping it reminds you of? What are you hoping it brings back to you? Because traveling isn't just like a thing you do. I think travel is a journey. It's a truly like can be such a truly spiritual and powerful experience if you just let it in. And so yeah, if this is something that's new to you, connecting with the land is like not something that you've ever heard of before. I highly recommend just going to sit in some grass and noticing how you feel. Go sit under a tree and notice the insects around you. There is so much more to it. Um, Elise does

Crete History Museums And Meaning

Ember 23:35

have a book called The Sacred Wild that I would highly recommend reading if this interests you at all. There's so much incredible information in that book, a lot of exercises to get you connecting. Because I think if you're gonna do that on a trip, start with where you live, start at home because that is where you should feel most connected, right? Like that should be the easiest place to connect, is the place that you're in every single day. And so start there because when you can take that with you, I promise it is so beautiful. There's a million more things I could say. Like, even just off the top of my head, Oracleon was awesome. We ate so much good food there. We went to um, of course, we did the Acropolis. I loved the Acropolis Museum. Doing Sunset Temple of Poseidon was incredible. Sunset uh catamaran tour of Santorini was beautiful, so much fun. The staff was amazing. We found this bar and so in Crete, we stayed in Agios Nikolaus that it was such a cute little beach town, and we were able to like drive to the mountains. We did olive oil farm. We went to this incredible Minoan theater that I would recommend times 10,000, where it was just this very, very old tree they were honoring, and they did it was literally like they um replicated this like Minoan ritual to the tree. Ooh, oh I'm like getting chills thinking about it, and I can just keep going on and on. So I will stop for now. Um, and I am happy to answer any questions you have. I'm gonna link everything, all the people that I mentioned in the show notes here. And I think that's everything. Is that you don't always have to go far from home to connect with your spirituality and to connect with yourself, but sometimes you

Santorini Volcano Focus And Travel Tips

Ember 25:55

do and you should, and it can bring back a part of you that felt hidden or lost, and that's totally okay. Sometimes we need to disconnect from our everyday reality to like ascend to the next level. So if you're hesitating, this is your freaking sign to go to that place that came into your mind when I just said that. So whether you're beginning your journey with spirituality or astrology, starting to utilize these things as tools in your craft, or you're just curious about the universe, we are so happy you're here to join us. I know Jordan is sad to have missed this episode, but we'll be back to talk all about Leo with us. We are getting into Leo season, so crazy. Um, and we're excited to talk about it with you. If you have any comments or questions, know that we truly do love hearing from you. It is a joy when we get a message or an email. So don't ever hesitate. We are loving this process of building a community and we hope you enjoy it as well. So we always sign off. I'm gonna say Jordan. So this is Jordan's practice of asking big questions, uncovering the hidden truths, and creating an accessible space for others

Final Reflections And Community Invite

Ember 27:10

to do the same. And I am just so grateful to be learning alongside Jordan and all of you, sharing our resources and diving into what it means to connect with the cosmos. And thank you so much for being part of this. And we will see you back in the study room every other Tuesday.