{"id":7516,"date":"2015-10-14T21:07:22","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T03:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7516"},"modified":"2015-10-14T21:07:22","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T03:07:22","slug":"on-not-finding-what-you-were-looking-for-in-foreign-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7516","title":{"rendered":"On Not Finding What You Were Looking For in Foreign Places"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Take

Take the door to the Dutch Consulate, but go up four flights.<\/p><\/div>\n

If you are the kind of traveler looking for history, you do not always find the history that you were looking for.<\/p>\n

I learned that lesson years ago when M. and I went on a month-long honeymoon in Ireland. Newly Celtophile, I was all excited about seeing Neolithic monuments and Celtic Ogham stones and all that sort of thing \u2014 and we did \u2014 but I was smacked unexpectedly by the late 18th century.<\/p>\n

It was such a powerful emotional experience \u2014 maybe reincarnational, I can’t say \u2014 with synchronicities that continued months later, that I can still feel it in my bones today.<\/p>\n

Spending part of September in a little apartment in the old town of Corfu, an island on the west of Greece,<\/a> I knew that I was visiting a place with a resiliant culture that has, thanks to its geographic location, experienced a lot of conflict. For instance, during World War II, the town was bombed by the Italians, the Germans, and <\/em>the Allies at different times. Yet today the streets are full of German and British tourists. And there are great Italian restaurants.<\/p>\n

Of course, I went looking for the Classical Pagan stuff, which is there but not emphasized nor extensive. And the Unexpected happened too: not a “reincarnational” whammy experience as in Ireland, but I found myself continually drawn to an era and events that were not really on my mind when I set out on the journey. Once or twice the ground shifted a little under my feet.<\/p>\n

As the famous Mississippi novelist William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past<\/a>.” Except that it would take a platoon of William Faulkners to do justice to Corfu.<\/p>\n

More to come on this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are the kind of traveler looking for history, you do not always find the history that you were looking for. I learned that lesson years ago when M. and I went on a month-long honeymoon in Ireland. Newly Celtophile, I was all excited about seeing Neolithic monuments and Celtic Ogham stones and all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,33,13],"class_list":["post-7516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-greece","tag-travel"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Xe","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1214,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1214","url_meta":{"origin":7516,"position":0},"title":"Did a ‘Pagan’ Bury the Staffordshire Hoard?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Staffordshire Hoard\" is a cache of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon sword jewels and other items recently found in England (and a great boost for metal-detector sales, no doubt).The caption on one slide of the golden hoard suggests that because a gold cross was folded in on itself before burial, the person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11887,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11887","url_meta":{"origin":7516,"position":1},"title":"Why Is the Hippo Goddess Holding a Bull by a Chain in the Northern Sky?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This carving comes from a Greco-Roman-era Egyptian temple in Esna,where decorated walls are being carefully cleaned and original colors seen again. As workers in Egypt remove soot and dirt from the temple, sometimes with a mixture of alcohol and distilled water, the original painted carvings and hieroglyphics beneath are so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5867,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5867","url_meta":{"origin":7516,"position":2},"title":"Tarot Cards \u2014\u00a0They Are for Catholics Too","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Thomas L. McDonald, Patheos' \"Technology | Culture | Catholicism\" blogger has a five-part series on the history of the Tarot cards. It starts here. The real history of the Tarot, however, begins in the early 15th century in Italy, and their story is an important part of gaming and cultural\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"history\"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=403","url_meta":{"origin":7516,"position":3},"title":"Job prospects for Pagan scholarsI\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Job prospects for Pagan scholarsI am speaking only of religious studies here, and I wish only to point out that a PhD (or terminal master's degree) with an emphasis on Pagan Studies is a poor bet in the academic job market at the present time.Every year, following the annual meeting,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6402,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6402","url_meta":{"origin":7516,"position":4},"title":"A New History of the Craft in America","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"When I wrote Her Hidden Children, I definitely was not trying to tell the history of different groups, except in broad strokes and as that history helped the discussion of the larger questions that interested me, chiefly, \"What do we mean by the term 'nature religion'?\" Thanks to his earlier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=389","url_meta":{"origin":7516,"position":5},"title":"YVWH's WifeThis is not news\u2026","author":"Chas S. 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