# Looking at the caldera in Santorini

Ольга Слободкина

" And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. "

Corinthians 13:2


We are tiny.

The caldera off Santorini

was formed about 3600 years before the present era...

The huge Minoan eruption in the 17th century BC

may have inspired the legend of Atlan-

tis.

So looking at the landscape

from the top of Oia

one can only wonder

how our flesh and bones and blood

can last

for 50 something years and more,

which makes al-

most a cen-

tury...


And how amazing

is love chemist-

ry,

although

it does not last

as long as the caldera,

not even as long

as one's life.

Time.

This ener-

gy

is given to us

to go on with the human race.


And that's the thing - to be human!

All the rest is just strings...

You may paint and sing,

but is you mean to destroy and kill...


How extraor-

dinary

life can be

and how inexpli-

cably

the good and evil

are interwoven in you and me,

in all of us.


Fascists would burn other people

in o-

vens

and then went to listen to

Beatho-

ven.

The new Rus-

sians

go hun-

ting

and then -

to the Bolshoy

with their new chil-

dren

leaving the previous ones

by ex-wives

behind,

in their home

as if they just don't exist

anymore.


While on the island

of Spina-

longa,

here, off Crete

there was a leper colo-

ny...

And the leper people

lived there happi-

ly.

They didn't have to

hide

in the caves

and nobo-

dy

was throwing stones at them -

just nobo-

dy.


They were taken care of,

got married

and had child-

ren,

most of which

were normal healthy peo-

ple.


Leper is not an ancient disease,

(today there still are 11, 000,000

leper people in the world)

neither is it

contamina-

tious.


It comes like cancer,

out of nowhere,

nobody knows the rea-

sons or

has the answer...


But the thing is -

here, on Spinalonga,

those peo-

ple

were protec-

ted and loved.

They didn't want

to go back

to the big world life...


So, however tiny we are,

we are human

and then

no calde-

ras

or other earth forma-

tions

can match

us,

because

we can love.


We were born

with no claws or fangs,

therefore

we had to develop

our brains

to protect ourselves

from the wild life

in this treacherous world.


But then came

the Son of God

and said:

LOVE.


July 13-14,

Crete, Agius Nikolaos,

inspired by the conversations with Sofia Kalomenidou