December 17, 2025 • 63 mins
Ancient Greece offers profound insights into the art of healing, particularly through the exploration of dreams, visions, and sacred spaces. In this episode, we delve into these timeless questions alongside Dr. Edward Tick, a preeminent transformational psychotherapist and expert in PTSD.
His extensive experience, encapsulated in his recent work "Passage to Poros: In the Sanctuary of the Sea God," illuminates the significance of the island of Poros as a sanctuary that has fostered healing and transformation for over three millennia. Dr. Tick’s revival of ancient practices, such as Asklepian dream incubation, reveals how these mystical traditions can provide essential tools for modern-day serenity and well-being. Through our discussion, we aim to uncover how the wisdom of ancient Greece can guide our contemporary lives and enhance our understanding of spiritual restoration.
Takeaways:
- Ancient Greece offers profound insights into healing, emphasizing the significance of dreams and visions.
- Dr. Edward Tick's work highlights the importance of sacred spaces as sanctuaries for spiritual restoration.
- Engaging with ancient practices can facilitate personal transformation and healing in contemporary life.
- The concept of crossing between worlds, both literal and metaphorical, is essential in the pursuit of sanctuary and solace.
- The Asclepian tradition of dream incubation illustrates how ancient methodologies can guide modern psychological practices.
- A sense of community and spirituality is vital for healing, particularly for those affected by trauma.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, one more thing before yougo. What can ancient Greece teach
us about healing today? How dodreams, visions in sacred places
restore the spirit? And whatdoes it mean to cross between worlds,
both literal and metaphorical,in search of sanctuary? We all want
sanctuary. Stay tuned, becausetoday we're exploring these timeless
(00:20):
questions along with Dr.Edward Tick, and uncover how ancient
wisdom can guide our modernlives and how you can benefit from
exploring these ancientpractices. I'm your host, Michael
Herst. Welcome to One morething before you go. In this episode,
(00:46):
we're joined by Edward Tick.He's a world renowned transformational
psychotherapist, PTSD expert,and author of Soul Medicine. His
latest book, Passage to Porosin the Sanctuary of the Sea God,
takes us on a journey tosacred island of Poros in a site
of sanctuary, transformationand divine presence for more than
3,000 years. We're going toget into that. With over four decades
(01:09):
of pilgrages and teachings,Dr. Tick has revived ancient practices
like aesculapian dreams, whichagain, we'll talk about incubation,
and explored how mysticaltraditions can offer tools for healing
and serenity todayWelcome toShow Ed
Thank you very much, Michael.Honored to be with you.
(01:29):
What an amazing journey thatyour life has been on.
Yes, thank you. I own thatwith humility, gratitude, and fear
and trembling.
I think that all of thatmixture makes you the person you
are today, and that's abrilliant person, who you are today.
(01:51):
I always like to start at thebeginning. Where'd you grow up?
I was born in the Bronx, NewYork City, and I was born in the
inner city of the Bronx to avery poor family. But it was just
Post World War II, soeverybody was poor and struggling
together. And so though it wasan afflicted community, it felt like
(02:15):
a village. And I haven't, uh.I lived in the Bronx until I was
six, when my family moved toQueens, so New York City. So I. My
entire childhood was in NewYork City. I want to share that.
I haven't felt that sense ofliving in a. In a vital, connected,
(02:38):
committed, devoted village inthe United States. I haven't had
that since my time in theBronx when everybody was poor and
struggling together andeverybody was sharing well the history
we had all had inherited fromthe World War II era. And so one
(03:01):
of the many reasons I travelabroad and the places I go, especially
Greece and Vietnam, is to gowhere community is intact, where
villages like the one I writeabout on Poros has been intact for
3,000 years. And I immersemyself and my travelers in what a
(03:22):
living village feels like,what presently many spiritual and
religious organizations arefond of saying we need to build a
beloved community. That'sreally true. We really lack it in
our culture. And it does existand intact in other ways, other places
(03:44):
around the globe. So I wasborn in the Bronx. It was a troubled
but beloved community. And itplanted in me the love for village
life, for communal experience,for everybody. Being in the. The
mitt, in the mesh, in thestew, together, struggling side by
(04:06):
side and helping and servingeach other as well as themselves.
That's a brilliant opportunityfor us to reflect upon how we as
a community, society andculture need to come together. We're
all human beings, we're all inthis together. And I think we all
need to be a little closerthan. Than we. Than we haven't been.
I grew up a very poor withinmyself. I grew up with a single mother.
(04:30):
And obviously in this, youdidn't have a checking account till
what, 1974, 75. And, you know,trying to provide a home, trying
to provide food, trying toprovide a, you know, a good job,
which back then was limited.So I can, I understand portions of
that. I also. It's interestingthat you bring up what you had brought
(04:53):
up with the community that youfind in other areas. Um, I follow
the blue zone theory wherethat's exactly what they do. The
community takes care of eachother and the community looks out
for each other and they, theykeep an eye on each other and they
feed each other and they. AndI love that aspect of it. So I think,
(05:16):
yes, what you're presenting isa reminder that we all should probably
look and strive to become thatway again.
We must. It's necessary.Before we got on for our audience
today, you and I shared a bitabout your history as a police officer
and my history of working withveterans with post traumatic stress
(05:39):
disorder and moral injury. Wecan leap right into that discussion,
at least in this way that Ihave a very, very simple three word
recipe for healing. Healingtakes spirituality in community,
spirituality in community. Weknow how much our veterans and our
(06:02):
first responders suffer fromnot being given adequate principles
and practices, philosophy andsupport for returning home. What
we don't realize is the degreeof trauma that results from the inadequate,
the poor, the neglectful.Homecoming people aren't coming home
(06:22):
to villages. They're notcoming home to communities that stop
everything, welcome them home,and give our warriors or responders
everything they need anddeserve for healing and homecoming.
So I work with traditionalcultures, Native American cultures
on our continent and othertraditional cultures around the world
(06:44):
that do the warrior returnportion of that life's journey very,
very differently and withutmost support and attention. So
not just feeding and caringfor the warriors, but taking care
of them fully for as long asthey need until they recover. But
(07:07):
more importantly, payingattention to the spiritual work they
need to do and taking the warout of them and putting spirit back
in. So of many, many exampleswe could discuss, I'll just share
that the term for what we callpost traumatic stress disorder among
the Lakota people, the Siouxwas, in their language, Naginapayapi,
(07:31):
which means the spirits left.The spirits left. They didn't have
complicated psychiatricdiagnoses like we do, and putting
the pathology on theindividual survivor. Instead, they
said, because of what thisperson has been exposed to, the extreme
dimensions of violence and thekiller, kill, be killed situation,
(07:54):
that drains the spirit out ofeverybody, anybody who is in it.
And spirit is drained off andneeds to be restored. So we can understand
PTSD as a disease ofadaptation to a mainstream culture
that doesn't understandwarriors, that doesn't get their
(08:16):
experience, that doesn't givethem everything they need for a return
journey to effectively takethe war out and restore spirit and
restore community belonging.So, yes, community is critical, and
spirituality is critical forall of us.
I have to thank you from apersonal perspective, because what
(08:39):
you said is at 100% whathappens in today's society, at least
here in America. And it is.You touch my heart with that statement
immensely. Because we leavethe job, whether it's a soldier,
(08:59):
whether it's a police officer,a firefighter, a paramedic, people
who have put their lives onthe line, people of service and community.
People have a passion for it.You know, it wasn't just given the
job as a police officer. Iworked for the job. It became me.
I am a. I am still a policeofficer deep down inside. I am still
(09:22):
a sergeant. I still feel thatdeep down in me. I can't let that
go. Yes. What an amazingdescription and analogy that you
presented for us to have abetter understanding of what warriors
go through from all aspects.And I sincerely am grateful for you
presenting that in such a waythat it's easier for the community
(09:43):
to understand becausesometimes we feel set aside, we feel
put away. We feel that wedon't belong any longer because we
were taken out of theenvironment, that we did belong into
the family that we did belongwith, and we're put back into a society
that doesn't look at us thatway any longer, and it can devastate
(10:06):
us all it does.
It does. Regarding this, sincewe are stuck with the acronym PTSD
now, everybody says that,everybody talks about it. Go to a
coffee shop and you hearpeople at the next table talking
about my ptsd. My ptsd. Well,there's several things going on.
(10:27):
One is it's been popularizedand made much more shallow than the
wound really is. It is reallya deep, devastating wound that causes,
that wrecks lives, thatcrushes our spirit. So that one matter
is we shouldn't be treating itin a casual way. And me surviving
(10:50):
a fender bender is not thesame as you confronting terrorists
on the streets. And peopleshould not equate that. So we need
to have much, much morerespect for real trauma and how life
transforming it is. That's onematter. A second matter is, thank
(11:11):
you for putting up the book.My books that are relevant to the
Greek experience, and you didalso for our audience. I have books
that are profoundly relevantand have been breakthrough books
for understanding the militaryand the veteran and the first responder
experience. So those books arecalled War and the Soul and Warriors
(11:34):
Return. And in both of thosebooks, I describe how since we're
stuck with this acronym, firstof all, we know of more than 80 names
this condition has been givensince ancient times. Oh, it's not
new and it's not a moderndiagnosis. We made it a psychological
diagnosis, and there's dangerin that because we're pathologizing
(11:56):
it rather than realizinganybody who's gone through such violent
experiences are going to havesoul wounds. So we need to not pathologize
it, and we need to elevate itto the honorific and noble level
that you and everybody whoserve deserves. So I call PTSD Post
(12:19):
Traumatic Soul Distress. It'snot just our bodies. It's not just
the central nervous system.Our symptoms are the ways our souls
scream for attention and tryto express themselves when we don't
have the words, when we don'tknow what's really bothering us.
Thus, the book the Body Keepsthe Score has become famous in recent
(12:43):
years. It's good and it'shelpful, but it doesn't go to this
level of how is the body? Howis the soul speaking through the
body? What are the symptomstrying to say? Rather than control
them and crush them, helppeople just function in a normative
way. Get back to your 9 to 5job and lifestyle. No, that doesn't
(13:05):
work.
Ed, as a world renownedtransformational psychotherapist,
especially with your PTSDexpertise, how did you discover the
healing practices and mysticaltraditions that made the island Of
Poros a sanctuary for like3,000 years. That's a lot of time.
(13:27):
It is, yes. Well, thank you.I'm going to go back to the Bronx
and start the story. Pleaselet me not talk too long about all
this, because our time. Butseriously, I began discovering or
being led to what we wouldcall mystical or transpersonal and
(13:52):
non normative experiences wayback when I was born and I was a
young child in the Bronx. Sowhen I was 4 years old in our tiny
Bronx tenement apartment, Iwas awakened in the middle of the
night because I knew somethingor somebody was in my room. And I
looked around. I know it wasfour because my baby brother was
(14:15):
sleeping in the crib next tome. I vividly remember the. The night,
the room, everything about it.Uh, so I woke up in the middle of
the night and I. And somethingwas in my room. I looked around and
I saw what looked like apsychedelic colored bejeweled butterfly
(14:35):
flying all around my room inthe dark. It was huge and it was
beautiful. And I called myparents telling me there's a butterfly
in the room. My father, theycame running in. My father just grunted
and went back to bed. Mymother told me, you cry and go back
to bed. I'm having nightmares.Okay? It wasn't a nightmare. It was.
(14:57):
I was four years old and I hada vision. I didn't know what it was.
I didn't know what a visionwas. I didn't have the language that
you and I are sharing today,but I knew I had seen something that
was more real than real. Superreal. And my parents taught me, be
really careful who you talk toabout this because most people aren't
going to understand it orthey're going to say it's not true.
(15:22):
So I kept that vision tomyself until I became an adult. I
learned as an adult in myadult studies that the word for butterfly
in ancient Greek is psyche,the same word used in psychology,
but it doesn't mean mind.We've been taught that psychology
(15:44):
is the study of the mind.Ain't what it means in Greek. It's
psyche, logos. Psyche is thesoul and logos is the order and meaning.
So when we're looking atpsychology, we're studying the order
and meaning of the soul, notjust the study of the mind. And since
I was 4 years old, somethingin me knew that and wanted to follow
(16:08):
the soul path, right? Jumpingforward to that from that. When I
was two years later, mygrandmother died. So I was just six.
She died within a couple ofweeks of my birthday. And I had,
after her death what Jungwould call. Carl Jung would call
(16:28):
a big dream. A big dream isnot the everyday, ordinary dream
about what's going on in ourdaily lives or just. Or in our unconscious.
A big dream is something thatseems transpersonal or supernatural
and mystical, that connects usto the universe in a profound way
and is life changing. Justafter my grandmother died, I had
(16:53):
a dream where my family and Iwere sitting outside our apartment
building. We lived on thefifth floor. I told my mother somebody
was ringing our doorbell. Shesaid, that's impossible. We're on
the ground. We're in thesidewalk. You can't hear it from
here. I say, yes, somebody'sthere. I ran around to the front
(17:14):
of the apartment building. Ilooked up five stories, and I saw
my grandmother's spirit flyingout the window, saying goodbye to
everyone. And she was young.She was renewed. She looked like
she might have looked when shefirst came as a Eastern European
refugee decades before. There,too, a dream was sent me where I
(17:37):
saw my grandmother's soulleaving. And my family and everybody
around me said, it'simpossible. This doesn't happen.
You're nuts. So those twoexperiences taught me there is a
spiritual world. There is aninvisible world. We can access it
through dreams and visions andunusual synchronistic events, as
(18:01):
my book Soul Medicineconcentrates on. What are those events?
How can we facilitate them?How are they guiding our souls? But
I learned that early that theinvisible is real and we have access
to it. And it will come visitus sometimes, even when we're not
looking for it, but when weneed it. And so I've been following
(18:21):
that my whole life, really.And because of that, I. I've never
fit in or even wanted to fitinto a conventional job, conventional
way of life. Many people havesaid to me, oh, why don't you just
be a professor? You'll gettenure, you'll get sabbaticals, you'll
get a pension. It's mucheasier. And you're a good teacher.
(18:41):
You know, all this stuff. Idon't want to do that. I want to
stay out here with you,Michael, and with people. How? And
the way we're living our livesand. And help restore meaning, spirituality,
a mythic sensibility to oureveryday lives. So all that said,
how did I get to the island ofPovs? This is part from childhood
(19:07):
also. When I was 10 years old,New York City. When we turned 10,
we could get our. Our adultlibrary card. So right after school
on my 10th birthday, Igalloped to the library. I got My
card. I was in the adultstacks, which were floor to ceiling,
and I had no idea what book amI going to take home? My first adult
(19:30):
book, what is it going to be?And I swear this is also an event.
I didn't do it. Something orsomeone or some power pushed a book
off a higher shelf over myhead and it fell into my hands and
scous honor. It was Homer'sIliad. The Iliad, the story of the
(19:51):
Trojan War. And I said, Idon't know who you are or what you're
about or how you fell into myarms, but we're going home together.
So at 10 years old, I read theIliad and I fell in love with it.
And so I was introduced to theGreek tradition, Vacyon, and not
through any blood ties orrelations, but through books, through
(20:12):
the imagination. And so I'vebeen studying it and following it
my whole life, ever since.
And what an opportunity.Obviously, that was presented to
you, if with a. With a what astory, Tall stack of books and. Yeah,
or shelving of books and whatdo you get? You get that one.
I get that one.
(20:32):
That's profound. I think theuniverse was talking to you, really.
And we can say about any ofthese mystical events that we experience
or others do we can. We alwayssay, well, what are the chances?
And my wife is very logicaland grounded and she'll say, well,
there might be one in abillion chances that that just happened
(20:54):
because of a stray wind in theroom. We don't know. She says that,
and I say, yes, that'spossible, and I'll allow for that
a possibility, but is much,much more likely than something else
we don't understand causedthis event. And the more important
thing is it was life guidancefor me, and I accepted it, I embraced
(21:17):
it and I followed it, and ithelped set me on my life's path.
You know, we don't always getthat opportunity to be presented
to us like that. I think thatwhat a profound, again, the universe
talking to you from whatevermodality it presented itself and
you took it and ran with it,which is brilliant. I mean, we don't
all get that opportunity to dothat. I felt that way when I was
(21:38):
a cop, when I became a cop. Itreally put me on the path I felt
that was supposed to be on.And obviously I redefined my purpose
along the way. But it, youknow, it was. It was presented to
me and as an opportunity, notin the same way as yours, but it's
like, yeah, this is what Iwant to do. And I pursued It. And
(21:58):
I was. I was grateful for it.I'll be grateful for it. Even getting
injured and having to retire.I hesitate on there, but getting
injured and having to retire.It presented new opportunity for
me. And it took me a while tounderstand it and to realize it.
But I wish I would have had alittle angel up there push the book
(22:20):
out a little sooner. Butthat's fantastic. What prompted you
to write Passage to Poros?Tell me about Porosity.
Let me tell you about Portos.And actually, books got me to Poros.
Also.
Connect that story too. Ifound a book of poetry in a used
(22:40):
bookstore in Massachusetts onthe Cape, when I was on vacation
with the family. It was thepoems of George Seferis. That's S
E F E R I S. He's hardly knownin this country, but he won the Nobel
Prize for literature in 1963.First Greek who did. Well, I fell
in love with his poetry,really in love. It was perfect poetry
(23:02):
for me at that life stage.Wandering in exile, lost, lonely,
trying to find where his soulreally fits. Okay, so. And I was
into my mid-30s and I wascertainly feeling that I began translating
some of Satiris's poetry. So Iread his biographies. He studied
(23:25):
all of his writings. And Ionly learned about the little island
of Poros from him because itwas his sanctuary during the Greek
Civil War. He retreated fromthe war after surviving World War
II. And he lived on Poros fortwo years during the Greek Civil
War. And he wrote some of hismost important work there. I wanted
(23:47):
to go to the island where hehad composed the work I was trying
to translate and reallyexperience the environment that he
was in. Drench myself in thebeauty, the spirituality, the ancient
stories that he was writingabout. So it was a dead poet and
his poetry. Well, that got meon the Greek journey. That's Homer
(24:10):
and then a dead modern poetand his poetry, George Sas. That
got me to the island of Poros.Well, that was in 1987. And I have
had such extraordinaryexperiences and opportunities. Life
experiences on Poros that havebeen life changing for me. Profoundly
(24:33):
so. And beginning in 1995, Iwas experienced enough with Greece
and the Greek tradition that Ibegan leading pilgrimages to Greece
and included Poros in thepilgrimages because of some of the
breakthrough experiences thatI had there. And because of, as we
(24:54):
were saying earlier, what anintact, loving village and community
it is. And it has been formillennia. And so I keep going back
and I bring travelers there.And it's a healing island. My. I
had my granddaughters There.My five year old granddaughter says
(25:16):
it's a magic island. She'slabeled it the magic island. And
now people on Toros call ittheir magic island too. Artists and
writers have been retreatingthere for hundreds of years and discovering
it. So I'm not the only one.I'm just, as some of my friends say,
they're. Eddie, you're justthe most recent American writer who
(25:42):
came to Poros and fell in lovewith it and wants to tell our story.
So now it's your turn to bepart of the story. Tell the story
and carry it through, carry itforward. So I even feel so much gratitude
and belonging to that islandthat I also felt a sacred charge
(26:02):
that I know this island, Iknow it intimately. And the people
on the island have said to me,well, tell our story, help preserve
and protect it as a sacredsanctuary. And so I do.
Well, I find it interesting ina passage to Porus, you discussed
the Greek tradition ofsanctuary and this whole aspect of
(26:26):
sanctuary. How old is thistradition and how is it practice?
You said you take peoplethere, you, you bring people with
you and you help themunderstand. Did they have that? I
get like, this is a multilevel question. Do they have the
introduction to sanctuarybefore they get there or do. Are
(26:49):
they introduced to it oncethey get there?
Oh, I, I always spend a lot oftime with my travelers, preparing
them before we travel. So inmany ways, okay, of course there's
reading and I ask people toread my books and also to read the
key books that we will bestudying and using as we travel.
(27:10):
Beyond that. This is reallyimportant. I encourage what we would
call mythic identification.Well, why are you taking this journey?
What are the deepest soulquestions you have at this life stage?
Think about your own lifehistory, your story, and what gods
(27:34):
and goddesses, whatmythological figures, what stories
from mythology or from thetragedies do you see in your own
story? Because we're allliving mythic lives, only we tend
not to be aware of it. We tendto. In our kind of society, we think
of our lives in everydaysecular terms. But in fact, you know,
(27:56):
as was shared for you, buddyMichael, you are a warrior. You're
living a warrior's journey. Asyou said about being a police officer,
you are forever. One of thebig mistakes our, our society makes
is to think that we can turnour warriors and first responders
back into civilians. Themarines say once a warrior or once
(28:18):
a marine, always a warrior.That's true for our military people
and our spurt firstresponders. Also our identities have
been so Transformed ourreactions, our responses. Our value
system has been sotransformed. We're warriors for life.
We need to embrace that.Greece and other cultures, Native
(28:40):
American cultures, had thewarrior path through the entire life
cycle, not just while one isin service. And then you go back
to being a civilian. Itdoesn't, and it can't work that way.
You have found meaning,meaningful service after the police
force that is continuing tohelp you, help all of us and protect
(29:02):
all of us by bringing wisdomto us. That is incredibly important,
preservative and protectivework. And those are the essential
warrior values to preserve andprotect, not to harm and destroy.
And so in the Greek work, Ibring lots of warriors, veterans
(29:24):
and first responders toGreece. Not exclusively, but sometimes
I've only done warriorjourneys to Greece. And we use the
Greek warrior tradition, war.We go to the warrior sites, we go
to Marathon, to Thermopylae.We study the history. We study, most
importantly, the warriorarchetype. And what does it mean
(29:47):
in the Greek tradition? We canremember, Our audience probably knows
they had two deities of war.One was Aries, the God of war, and
one was Athena, the goddess ofwar. Well, in our American tradition,
we teach people to be servantsof Aries, how to kill, how to kill.
(30:13):
And some people even want theexperience of killing. Some people
even like it. That's not beinga warrior. That's what Jungian and
death therapists would callbeing the shadow warrior trapped
in the shadow. Ares was theGod. Homer called him the God who
delights in slaughter. He justwants to be in the fight. Athena
(30:37):
was a protector goddess. Shepreserved and protected. She used
diplomacy and persuasion. Shedid everything she could to not have
to fight. And she only foughtwhen it was absolutely necessary,
when it was truly the lastresort. And there was all that we
had to preserve and protectthe people. So one Iraq veteran that
(31:01):
I worked with who went to Iraqoriginally gung ho for the war, he
came back saying, I'm apacifist now, and I will be a pacifist
forever until someone tries tobreak into my house and harm my wife
and my children. Then I'll bea warrior again. And that's right.
(31:25):
He's aligned. I know how to bea warrior. I can be a warrior, but
I will only exclusively use itfor preservation and protection of
the most important people andvalues in my life. That's just a
mini version of helpingveterans transition from ptsd, which
(31:45):
means they're still in theAries archetype to the Athena archetype
to be a servant ofcivilization. Preserving and protecting
the best of it. I lead. Inaddition to the journeys I lead to
Greece, I've led 19 healingand reconciliation journeys to Vietnam.
(32:08):
And this is relevant therealso in profound ways. Vietnam. Vietnam
is a communal culture, and.And it is intact. And believe it
or not, it's still happy andhealthy, even since the American
War and the French war and theChinese occupation from 1400 years.
(32:29):
And there's almost no wartimePTSD in Vietnam. They don't have
it. We would expect it to beepidemic there because of the amount
of death and destruction, butit's not. They're loving, they're
forgiving. They welcomeAmericans. They say, we know how
much you suffer. We're sorryyou can't heal at home. We're glad
(32:50):
you came to Vietnam so we canhelp heal you with our love and our
respect. They get the welcomein Vietnam that our veterans deserved
here.
Yeah, that's brilliant.
Yeah. And we meet with formerfoes, and everybody enters into an
identity of brotherhood andsisterhood because we survived the
(33:14):
same trauma together. So ourvets will say, how can you be welcoming
to me? And a Viet Cong veteranwill say, well, we're brothers and
sisters because we survivedthe same hell, and we need to be
telling the world the same story.
That's amazing. That'sprofound. Like you said, it's profound.
Absolutely profound. You know,it's interesting because we watch
(33:37):
kind of a weird connection. Wewatched this show called Somebody
Feed Phil, and it's onNetflix. It's a great program. He
goes all over the world. Henot only talks about food, but he
talks about culture as well.And he did a segment on Vietnam,
and when he did, he said hewas astounded. And he showed it within
(33:59):
the program, that particularepisode of that community that was
there. He thought that becausehe was American, that he was going
to be shunned then it might bedifficult. And he said. And you saw
it. Everybody welcomed him. Hesaid he saw no remnant of war, no
indication of the Vietnam War,no animosities towards them or the
(34:24):
crew or anybody else. Heacknowledged that and said that it
was amazing that. That it wasjust a very loving community oriented
by validating what you'resaying in regard to that part. It
was. I was able to see it fromhis eyes. It was pretty. Actually
pretty amazing. And I did notgo to the Vietnam War as well, but
(34:47):
I have my. I have high schoolfriends that did, and some returned,
some did not. I had two unclesthat were there. They both came back
with PTSD from. From Vietnam.One uncle Worked a naval ship that
picked up the survivors andthe bodies and had to nurture them
(35:10):
and take care of them untilthey got brought back home sort of
thing. So obviously there weremany, many things that they had to
go through. My other uncle wasa nurse in the military as well in
Vietnam, and he had to gothrough what he had to go through
with tending to everybody thatwas wounded and 18, 19 year old,
(35:31):
20 year olds that lost limbsand died and everything. He never
had the. Neither one of themever had the inclination to ever
go back to Vietnam until a fewyears before my uncle, he died of
cancer. Both of them died ofcancer actually. But Uncle Nick went
(35:52):
back to Vietnam afterwards,before he died, and he said it was
a changed place. He said hecouldn't believe the beauty was back,
the community, the humanitywas back, the compassion was back.
So just to kind of step onwhat, you know, a little bit on what
(36:12):
you said to say, I watched itmyself through their eyes.
Yes. Thank you for theconfirmation. I won't say more than
that about now because of ourlimited time, but I've been there
19 times, so I've spent, Idon't know, a year and a half or
two years in country and yeah,and I've taken so 19, I don't know,
(36:37):
between 10 and 20 people on ajourney. I've taken several hundred
veterans. At least half ofthem are, are, are vets. I just want
to invite our audience todayto imagine the reception that, the
impact of a reception likethat to any war survivor from any
(36:58):
conflict. Imagine the peopleyou fought against welcoming you
with love, with forgiveness,with acceptance, with honor, looking
at you as an honorablewarrior. But you're in my country
and you are killing my people.No, I see an honorable warrior who
did what, what warriors areasked to do for their country. And
(37:20):
you're not responsible forbeing used in the wrong way. You're
responsible for being a goodwarrior. And you were. And we, your
friends, now your former foes,see and honor you when our, you know,
you've experienced it. But ourveterans and first responders don't
(37:41):
get that reflection from theAmericans that you served.
No. Or do you take lessons?
Anybody who might have been onthe other side, but to get that from
the other side is miraculousand life changing. And if a former
enemy can look at me withlove, honor, respect, compassion,
well, then maybe I can lookat, learn to look at myself that
(38:02):
way.
We as humanity need to takelessons from that, lessons from that,
and even the Greek side fromwhat you have presented. But back
on Track Just a little bit.
Yes.
In the book you invoke thehymn to Poseidon by Homer around
800 or so BCE. Can you explainthe importance of Poros in the ancient
(38:25):
times as a sanctuary of Poseidon?
Oh, yes, thank you for thatquestion. People know about the Acropolis
in Athens, in the Parthenon,which was the main sanctuary for
Athena. People also know aboutDelphi, Delphi, the sanctuary of
Apollo, where people traveledto receive life's life guiding oracles.
(38:49):
And if they got there once intheir life, that was a miraculous
experience and they got amessage from the divine for how to
guide their lives. What peopledon't know, and it's not even in
the guidebooks, is that Poroswas just that large and extensive
and important a sanctuary. Inancient times it was the main sanctuary
(39:15):
of the God of the sea,Poseidon. In archaic and classical
times. It existed from atleast 800 BC for several, well, until
the classical tradition wasdestroyed. So it existed for about
800 years as the principalsanctuary of the God of the sea.
(39:37):
We have to realize howimportant the sea was in the ancient
world, the Mediterranean WorldSea was the highway for everybody.
That's how goods were trade,that's how people traveled, that's
how armies traveled. That'show travelers went from one place
to another. The sea was thelifeblood and the highway and the
(39:59):
source of life andspirituality itself. And Poseidon
is a very, very old God.There's some belief that he was the
king of the gods before Zeusand earlier in the Bronze era. And
he was a life giving God aswell as. Most of the stories we've
inherited about Poseidon arethat he was a fierce, angry God of
(40:21):
the sea who sent storms andearthquakes and was raging. Well,
those stories are in Homer, inthe Iliad, but those are only a few
of the stories. He alsobrought water. He also brought fertility.
His name, Poseidon comes frommuch, much more archaic language
form. It comes from Posidawhich meant da was the name of Gaia
(40:46):
Ga, the earth mother goddess.And posi meant the consort or the
husband of. So Poseidonoriginally was the consort of the
earth mother and he's thesource of fertility. The sea is all
earth came from. All life camefrom the sea. The sea is the womb
(41:07):
of life. And Poseidon was themale fertilizing principle where
that brought all that lifeinto existence. As things evolved,
he became, as the hymn says,he became the savior of ships. He
didn't only cause storms thatwrecked them, he also saved sailors
who were, who were marooned orwho were caught in storms. I know
(41:33):
stories of modern Greekfishermen who were saved by miracles
at sea. See by the spiritualarchetype that would have been called
Poseidon. Poseidon became St.Nicholas to the Orthodox Church.
St. Nicholas is the protectorof sailors and he's still prayed
(41:55):
to. And all ships in Greecehave an icon, a small chapel to St.
Nicholas. Well, Poseidon, theGod of the sea, became St. Nicholas
the saint and the spiritualguardian of sailors. So it's the
same archetype, but in a lateriteration of culture. But seriously,
(42:17):
I know people who were inserious storms and sea hazards, who
had given themselves up aslost and perhaps drowned, and who
prayed to St Nicholas or toPoseidon and had miraculous healing
and rescue experiences. Sopeople still believe in the archetype.
(42:41):
There is a na. There's a navaltraining academy on the island of
Portos. They have a Church ofSt Nicholas at the academy, but they
don't teach their recruitsthat they're on becoming officers,
chief petty officers on theisland of Poseidon, the God of the
(43:02):
sea. So I've sometimes had theexperience of meeting with the recruits
and teaching them aboutPoseidon and that you're becoming
an officer in the Greek navyon Poseidon's island. You are continuous
with a history that isthousands and thousands of years
old and you are taking yourhonorable place in the next generation
(43:24):
of that history. And boy, theylove learning that they go up to
the sanctuary in a new way.Oh, we thought it was just a cool
place to have a picnic and seethese beautiful views of islands
in the distance. Oh, now weknow we're in Poseidon's principal
sanctuary and we should takevows here and be as connected from
(43:47):
our soul as we can be andpledge our allegiance to the powers
of the sea that we're going tobe serving for our entire careers.
That's brilliant. That'sbrilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
How does. I touched on thisearlier and I put it in my notes
and I may mispronounce this,so forgive me if I do. Asclepian
(44:09):
dream incubation. How doesthat incorporate within, or does
it incorporate within thesanctuary arena of porosity?
It does, and thank you forreferencing that. I will backtrack
a little bit as well. Again,back in 1987 and that life changing
(44:31):
trip I mentioned in my firsttrip to Portos, I actually went on
that trip because by that timeI had been working with Vietnam veterans
as a psychotherapist for abouta decade. And I realized that the
wounds of war are far toodeep, far too cutting Far too crushing
(44:55):
to our soul to be healed byjust ordinary psychotherapy. And
so I went to Greece on ajourney, my own pilgrimage, to study
the ancient Greek warriortradition. Not only to translate
Sefera's poetry. As I said,that was one reason. The other reason
was I was studying the ancientGreek warrior tradition, and I wanted
(45:17):
to learn how, since there wasso much warfare in ancient Greece,
how did they heal theirwarriors, how did their warriors
come home and successfullyadapt and become very productive
and contributing citizens? So,as it turns out, there's another
(45:38):
sanctuary called. Well, it'sspelled Epidaurus in English. It
looks like Epidaurus. It'spronounced a P. Divorce. And that
was the principal healingsanctuary of ancient Greece. And
it was Asclepius, the God ofhealing, who was the primary deity
at that sanctuary. I happenedto arrive the opening night of the
(46:01):
summer theater festival. Theplay in performance was Euripides
Play the Trojan Women. Thatplay may be the greatest anti war
play ever written, and Ihighly recommend it. It's on Netflix
with Katharine Hepburnstarring as the Queen of Troy. I
(46:22):
recommend it to everybody, butput your seatbelt on and have lots
of tissues. Glen Syd reallydemonstrates all of the horrific
pain and suffering that comesfrom war to everybody, the women,
the children, the widows, thecity itself, the surviving warriors.
It's really, really intensive.Well, I saw it in this healing sanctuary
(46:45):
in 1987, and that changed mylife also. I went into that sanctuary
thinking I'm here to learnwhat I can as a therapist for Vietnam
veterans. I learned that nightwith a very intense, cathartic response
to the play. Lots of tears ofmy own, lots of recognition of the
(47:10):
world of pain that I was in,that I was saying, yes, I am willing
to be in this world of painwith our veterans and walk through
it with everything it takes.And what I learned is I'm not just
a therapist for Vietnamveterans. I've been called to, to
a lifelong mission, destiny,as a healer of the invisible wounds
(47:34):
of war, that all wars of alltimes and places are the same. War
is an archetype. It's arecurring historical, spiritual images,
cultural value, pattern thatrecurs again and again and again
throughout history. The timesand the places and the uniforms and
(47:56):
the historical reasons aredifferent. But in its core, all of
the archetypal dimensions ofwar and warfare and being warriors
are the same and areuniversal. And I left that theater
performance realizing this iswhat I was called to do, this is
what I want to study, this iswhat I'm going to learn to practice
(48:16):
and I can use these practices.So then I asked, well, why did I
see this as a healingsanctuary? And who was Asclepius
anyway? Why was the theater athis sanctuary? It turns out that
I was in and I didn't knowuntil I got there and was initiated.
(48:37):
Asclepius was the God ofhealing. And his practices in ancient
times were the origin of, ofpsychology and medicine in the, in
the western world, fromancient Greece. Escapius. The records
we have go back to at least1400 BCE. So we have records that
(48:59):
are 3500 years old and thissanctuary and many others. There
were over 300 such sanctuariesaround the Mediterranean world. They
were the most complete,perfect holistic healing sanctuaries.
They put to shame the holisticsanctuaries we have today because
(49:22):
they had everything. They hadacupuncture, acupressure and massage
and nutrition and gymnasticsand drama and the tragedies and psychotherapy
and dream interpretation andon and on and on. They were a completely
holistic sanctuary. Everybodywas welcome. Perfect sliding scale.
(49:46):
You didn't pay anything to goin there, and you only gave gifts
of what you could afford whenyou left. So slaves could go and
they could give an apple fortheir healing. Emperors would go
and they would give a wholenew building. The key of healing
was not in the holisticpractices. The key was in what they
called dream incubation. Afterlong exposure to the holistic practices
(50:12):
and after signs and dreams orvisions or other synchronistic events
that told people it was timeto incubate, people went on a dream
quest, which is similar toNative American vision questing that's
done in the wilderness, in thedesert, on a mountaintop. The dream
questing was originally donein the wilds in caves, but later
(50:37):
evolved so that thesesanctuaries were built and people
did the dream questing in thesanctuaries. But the ultimate step
in the healing process, afterreceiving all the holistic modalities
and being strong enough, wasto seek an encounter with divine
powers through dreams orvisions. And so people would go into
(51:00):
a temple that was reserved fornothing else but encountering the
divine powers. And they wouldhave fasted and prayed and been in
long term preparation. Andthen they would sleep on a couch
that was called a clinikos.And our word clay and clinic comes
from here. And what they woulddo is just lay there and pray and
(51:23):
meditate and ask for help andsleep and watch their dreams and
watch their visions until theyhad some kind of divine visit through
dreams or visions or otherstrange events. We have records of
over a thousand of theseexperiences. And they brought extraordinary
(51:44):
dimensions of holistic healinglike we could never imagine. People
were sometimes healed in thedream, including warriors who had
inoperable wounds, who in adream saw Asclepius, the God of healing,
or another mythic figurecoming to them in the dream and taking
(52:05):
out an arrowhead that was sodeeply embedded in their chest that
physicians didn't know how totake it out. But they had a dream
surgery with where a divinefigure came and extracted it, and
they woke up in the morningand it had popped out. That's one
example. Commonly, people hadpsychos, what we call psychosomatic
(52:29):
conditions. And people weregiven either a dream healing in the
dream or the recipe, theprotocol for what they had to do
to heal themselves. So Ilearned this, I read this, I studied
this. Oh, the theaters are inthis place of dream questing and
(52:50):
holistic sanctuaries. And theGreek tragedies were written all
by warriors for a mass socialritual of catharsis for everyone
to cleanse from war pain,because everybody was exposed to
it. And all this happened inthe sanctuaries. And it was all preparation
(53:13):
to meet the God of healing andtry to get a dream or a vision that
puts us back in balance anddirects us to our destinies. So I
studied it, I practiced it,and I eventually learned how to do
it, and I do it. And so, yes,when I guide pilgrimages to Poros
and other places in Greece, wedo during the incubation, I begin
(53:38):
preparing people long before Iinvent, invite that mythic identification.
In Greece, I work with actorsand actresses in the Greek tradition
who use the tragedies forhealing. And we go to Poros and we
immerse in the tradition. Westudy our own dreams, we work with
(53:59):
each other's myths. Who didyou choose and why did you choose
that character and tell usabout your identification with that
person? And eventually, as thepenultimate experience, we do dream
incubation. And people reallydo have extraordinary dreams, what
Jung would call big dreamsthat give life changing guidance
(54:24):
for healing and transformationand for finding our destinies.
That's amazing. I see why youkeep going back and why you utilize
it so much. Because it is, Imean, you talk to my soul. That whole
conversation, it was somethingthat you kind of have to really sit
back and think thepossibility. I believe in holistic
(54:46):
and naturopathic modalitiesand healing. Anyway, so just the
idea that there's a place thatyou can go to, a sanctuary that you
can go to that you canliterally embrace that to such a
point that there is nojudgment. There is. There is nothing
but healing. There's healing.And that you can walk away from there
(55:09):
with healing, whether it bementally or physically, or in such
a way that you can now moveyour life forward in a positive way
is just profound. What anamazing. It just. What an amazing
opportunity. We could talk fora whole other hour and. Easy, easy.
(55:30):
Well, maybe we'll do thatsometime in.
The future, like, sofascinating. You have to come back,
you know, I know that. As youwrote, we can call the ancient personifications
known as gods and goddesses,the God powers, their embodiments,
the images, the versions ofthe archetypes that are eternal in
the personal, in the culturaland collective unconscious. You also
(55:53):
say that we can invoke them toachieve experiences akin to the ancients.
As Plato and Carl Jung bothindicated, the forms of the archetypes
are living forces. What canmodern psychology learn from Poros
and those ancient practices?Because what you just presented to
me is to me much morebeneficial, much more in depth, much
(56:16):
more soul reaching thansitting in an office or laying on
a couch in an office andtalking things out.
If and when we talk thingsout, which isn't a bad thing, let's
do soul talk. I did have onPoros one time when I was questioning
(56:41):
myself about using thesepractices. I had a dream in which
the dream said to me, soultalk is your medicine. Soul talk
is not the same as ordinaryeveryday talk and it's not the same
as problem solving. So onematter is, yeah, learn to do soul
(57:01):
talk. Talk about the deepestand most, the ultimate dimensions
of life. Yes, let's talk aboutour destinies less. Let's talk about,
well, trauma in its originalmeaning. What so penetrated you that
your soul was affected andafflicted and the entire universe
(57:24):
changed for you at that momentor cumulatively over time from a
lot of traumatic experiences.Let's find our mythic identifications
not reduce ourselves tosecular individuals who have a psychological
disorder, but rather liftourselves, ennoble ourselves, spiritualize
(57:47):
our. Our challenges andconflicts so that we do see that
we're on a mythic or a psychospiritual journey through life and
that whatever we'reencountering is part of that. People
should read the. Read, read,read the myths and the stories. And
(58:07):
no offense to my psychologicalcommunity, but the humanities tells
us the stories far better thanthe psychologists. So yeah, read
literature, read mythology,see good movies, find your story
and identify with your storyand realize your living a mythic
(58:29):
journey and Take big risks.Find your way to a Native American
reservation and dance withthem. Come to Greece with me. Go
on your own pilgrimage. Don'tbe satisfied with the conventional
answers because theconventional answers just try to
adapt us to a veryunsatisfying conventional reality.
(58:52):
Freud, that's all Freud wasdoing. He said reality is inherent
or civilization and itsdiscontents. Civilization is inherently
dissatisfying. You will bediscontent. And all I'm trying to
do is help you adapt again tounhappy, unfulfilling conditions
(59:15):
of love and work. Don't besatisfied with that. Be whatever
it is. Find your spiritualpath, including if you're an atheist.
If you're an atheist, you havethe higher, most difficult spiritual
path because, oh, bless you,brother or sister. It's all up to
you to create meaning in ouruniverse you believe is empty. But
(59:37):
we must, we must, we must beon some form of spiritual journey
and tracking our lives andelevating and ennobling our journeys
that way rather than allowingthem to sink down into diagnosis
and pathology and takingmedications just so we can get up
tomorrow morning.
(59:58):
Brilliant words of wisdom, Ed.Brilliant words of wisdom. I, I,
I, I, I applaud you for, forthose words. And I think we should
all embrace them very much so.How can they find you and your books?
Yeah, well, my books areavailable at good bookstores and
on Amazon and from thepublisher. The three books you have
(01:00:21):
up. Thank you. Are the threebooks that I've written on the Greek
healing tradition. So dreamhealing came first and that's my
discovery and beginningpractice of the Asclepian tradition.
Then Soul Medicine and nowPassage to Paris was just published
last month. A few people arereally interested. They could read
them in that order anddiscover as I discovered, because
(01:00:44):
I do write my books to bejourneys, not just entertainment
or education. And my books onwarrior war and warfare and warrior
healing are War and the Souland Warrior's Return. They're also
both readily available atbookstores and on Amazon and from
(01:01:04):
publishers. Publishers. Mywebsite is up there just edwardtick.com
my email address is simpledredtickmail.com it's doc d r e D
T I C K. And my son loves tomake a joke and say that says dread
tick. People aren't gonna usethat. But he's the next generation,
(01:01:26):
so it's okay. It makes sense.
Ed, thank you very much forbeing part of one with him. Before
you go, I really sincerelyappreciate sharing your journey and
your experience and wisdomwith us. One more thing before you
go. Before we go, though. Ialways ask this kind of sort of differently.
(01:01:47):
I think you kind of mostlyanswered it. But how do you hope
your work will influence theway we think about spirit healing
and connection to the divine?
Oh, thank you. I hope it willhelp restore those connections. That's
all I want to do. If I can diewith a smile because I helped some
(01:02:08):
people reawaken and reconnectto their soul and live a soulful
life, I'll die in peace.
Well, you connected my soultoday in the brief introduction that
we had spoken prior to ourconversation and throughout this
conversation. So I'm gratefulthat we have met and I will continue
(01:02:28):
to push that forward. Thank you.
Good. Michael, thank you verymuch. And again, thank you for your
sacrifice and service and forbeing so open to the invisible dimensions.
Thank you. Thank you. I'mgrateful. From the sanctuaries of
ancient Greece to thechallenges of modern life, Dr. Edward
(01:02:49):
Tick reminds us that healingis both timeless and transformative.
His journey to Purah shows howdreams, visions, and sacred places
can restore the spirit andreconnect us to eternal forces. So
once again, Dr. Dick, thankyou very much for sharing your wisdom
and your experiences with ustoday for our listeners. His new
book, Passage to In theSanctuary of the Sea God is available
(01:03:11):
now from Park Street Press,Amazon, and I'll have links to it
and his website on the shownotes so that you can easily click
it and follow through with it.Explore all the opportunities that
we have there for you. That'sit for today's journey. If something
sparked your curiosity ormoved to share it, subscribe and
stay connected and head overto YouTube to catch the full version
(01:03:33):
of this video. Remember,you're not just listening, you're
part of this story. So untilnext time, keep seeking, keep growing,
and never stop asking. Onemore thing before you go.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing before
you Go. Check out ourwebsite@beforeyougopodcast.com you
can find us as well assubscribe to the program and rate
(01:03:55):
us on your favorite podcastlistening platform.
Hey, one more thing before yougo. What can ancient Greece teach
us about healing today? How dodreams, visions in sacred places
restore the spirit? And whatdoes it mean to cross between worlds,
both literal and metaphorical,in search of sanctuary? We all want
sanctuary. Stay tuned, becausetoday we're exploring these timeless
(00:20):
questions along with Dr.Edward Tick, and uncover how ancient
wisdom can guide our modernlives and how you can benefit from
exploring these ancientpractices. I'm your host, Michael
Herst. Welcome to One morething before you go. In this episode,
(00:46):
we're joined by Edward Tick.He's a world renowned transformational
psychotherapist, PTSD expert,and author of Soul Medicine. His
latest book, Passage to Porosin the Sanctuary of the Sea God,
takes us on a journey tosacred island of Poros in a site
of sanctuary, transformationand divine presence for more than
3,000 years. We're going toget into that. With over four decades
(01:09):
of pilgrages and teachings,Dr. Tick has revived ancient practices
like aesculapian dreams, whichagain, we'll talk about incubation,
and explored how mysticaltraditions can offer tools for healing
and serenity todayWelcome toShow Ed
Thank you very much, Michael.Honored to be with you.
(01:29):
What an amazing journey thatyour life has been on.
Yes, thank you. I own thatwith humility, gratitude, and fear
and trembling.
I think that all of thatmixture makes you the person you
are today, and that's abrilliant person, who you are today.
(01:51):
I always like to start at thebeginning. Where'd you grow up?
I was born in the Bronx, NewYork City, and I was born in the
inner city of the Bronx to avery poor family. But it was just
Post World War II, soeverybody was poor and struggling
together. And so though it wasan afflicted community, it felt like
(02:15):
a village. And I haven't, uh.I lived in the Bronx until I was
six, when my family moved toQueens, so New York City. So I. My
entire childhood was in NewYork City. I want to share that.
I haven't felt that sense ofliving in a. In a vital, connected,
(02:38):
committed, devoted village inthe United States. I haven't had
that since my time in theBronx when everybody was poor and
struggling together andeverybody was sharing well the history
we had all had inherited fromthe World War II era. And so one
(03:01):
of the many reasons I travelabroad and the places I go, especially
Greece and Vietnam, is to gowhere community is intact, where
villages like the one I writeabout on Poros has been intact for
3,000 years. And I immersemyself and my travelers in what a
(03:22):
living village feels like,what presently many spiritual and
religious organizations arefond of saying we need to build a
beloved community. That'sreally true. We really lack it in
our culture. And it does existand intact in other ways, other places
(03:44):
around the globe. So I wasborn in the Bronx. It was a troubled
but beloved community. And itplanted in me the love for village
life, for communal experience,for everybody. Being in the. The
mitt, in the mesh, in thestew, together, struggling side by
(04:06):
side and helping and servingeach other as well as themselves.
That's a brilliant opportunityfor us to reflect upon how we as
a community, society andculture need to come together. We're
all human beings, we're all inthis together. And I think we all
need to be a little closerthan. Than we. Than we haven't been.
I grew up a very poor withinmyself. I grew up with a single mother.
(04:30):
And obviously in this, youdidn't have a checking account till
what, 1974, 75. And, you know,trying to provide a home, trying
to provide food, trying toprovide a, you know, a good job,
which back then was limited.So I can, I understand portions of
that. I also. It's interestingthat you bring up what you had brought
(04:53):
up with the community that youfind in other areas. Um, I follow
the blue zone theory wherethat's exactly what they do. The
community takes care of eachother and the community looks out
for each other and they, theykeep an eye on each other and they
feed each other and they. AndI love that aspect of it. So I think,
(05:16):
yes, what you're presenting isa reminder that we all should probably
look and strive to become thatway again.
We must. It's necessary.Before we got on for our audience
today, you and I shared a bitabout your history as a police officer
and my history of working withveterans with post traumatic stress
(05:39):
disorder and moral injury. Wecan leap right into that discussion,
at least in this way that Ihave a very, very simple three word
recipe for healing. Healingtakes spirituality in community,
spirituality in community. Weknow how much our veterans and our
(06:02):
first responders suffer fromnot being given adequate principles
and practices, philosophy andsupport for returning home. What
we don't realize is the degreeof trauma that results from the inadequate,
the poor, the neglectful.Homecoming people aren't coming home
(06:22):
to villages. They're notcoming home to communities that stop
everything, welcome them home,and give our warriors or responders
everything they need anddeserve for healing and homecoming.
So I work with traditionalcultures, Native American cultures
on our continent and othertraditional cultures around the world
(06:44):
that do the warrior returnportion of that life's journey very,
very differently and withutmost support and attention. So
not just feeding and caringfor the warriors, but taking care
of them fully for as long asthey need until they recover. But
(07:07):
more importantly, payingattention to the spiritual work they
need to do and taking the warout of them and putting spirit back
in. So of many, many exampleswe could discuss, I'll just share
that the term for what we callpost traumatic stress disorder among
the Lakota people, the Siouxwas, in their language, Naginapayapi,
(07:31):
which means the spirits left.The spirits left. They didn't have
complicated psychiatricdiagnoses like we do, and putting
the pathology on theindividual survivor. Instead, they
said, because of what thisperson has been exposed to, the extreme
dimensions of violence and thekiller, kill, be killed situation,
(07:54):
that drains the spirit out ofeverybody, anybody who is in it.
And spirit is drained off andneeds to be restored. So we can understand
PTSD as a disease ofadaptation to a mainstream culture
that doesn't understandwarriors, that doesn't get their
(08:16):
experience, that doesn't givethem everything they need for a return
journey to effectively takethe war out and restore spirit and
restore community belonging.So, yes, community is critical, and
spirituality is critical forall of us.
I have to thank you from apersonal perspective, because what
(08:39):
you said is at 100% whathappens in today's society, at least
here in America. And it is.You touch my heart with that statement
immensely. Because we leavethe job, whether it's a soldier,
(08:59):
whether it's a police officer,a firefighter, a paramedic, people
who have put their lives onthe line, people of service and community.
People have a passion for it.You know, it wasn't just given the
job as a police officer. Iworked for the job. It became me.
I am a. I am still a policeofficer deep down inside. I am still
(09:22):
a sergeant. I still feel thatdeep down in me. I can't let that
go. Yes. What an amazingdescription and analogy that you
presented for us to have abetter understanding of what warriors
go through from all aspects.And I sincerely am grateful for you
presenting that in such a waythat it's easier for the community
(09:43):
to understand becausesometimes we feel set aside, we feel
put away. We feel that wedon't belong any longer because we
were taken out of theenvironment, that we did belong into
the family that we did belongwith, and we're put back into a society
that doesn't look at us thatway any longer, and it can devastate
(10:06):
us all it does.
It does. Regarding this, sincewe are stuck with the acronym PTSD
now, everybody says that,everybody talks about it. Go to a
coffee shop and you hearpeople at the next table talking
about my ptsd. My ptsd. Well,there's several things going on.
(10:27):
One is it's been popularizedand made much more shallow than the
wound really is. It is reallya deep, devastating wound that causes,
that wrecks lives, thatcrushes our spirit. So that one matter
is we shouldn't be treating itin a casual way. And me surviving
(10:50):
a fender bender is not thesame as you confronting terrorists
on the streets. And peopleshould not equate that. So we need
to have much, much morerespect for real trauma and how life
transforming it is. That's onematter. A second matter is, thank
(11:11):
you for putting up the book.My books that are relevant to the
Greek experience, and you didalso for our audience. I have books
that are profoundly relevantand have been breakthrough books
for understanding the militaryand the veteran and the first responder
experience. So those books arecalled War and the Soul and Warriors
(11:34):
Return. And in both of thosebooks, I describe how since we're
stuck with this acronym, firstof all, we know of more than 80 names
this condition has been givensince ancient times. Oh, it's not
new and it's not a moderndiagnosis. We made it a psychological
diagnosis, and there's dangerin that because we're pathologizing
(11:56):
it rather than realizinganybody who's gone through such violent
experiences are going to havesoul wounds. So we need to not pathologize
it, and we need to elevate itto the honorific and noble level
that you and everybody whoserve deserves. So I call PTSD Post
(12:19):
Traumatic Soul Distress. It'snot just our bodies. It's not just
the central nervous system.Our symptoms are the ways our souls
scream for attention and tryto express themselves when we don't
have the words, when we don'tknow what's really bothering us.
Thus, the book the Body Keepsthe Score has become famous in recent
(12:43):
years. It's good and it'shelpful, but it doesn't go to this
level of how is the body? Howis the soul speaking through the
body? What are the symptomstrying to say? Rather than control
them and crush them, helppeople just function in a normative
way. Get back to your 9 to 5job and lifestyle. No, that doesn't
(13:05):
work.
Ed, as a world renownedtransformational psychotherapist,
especially with your PTSDexpertise, how did you discover the
healing practices and mysticaltraditions that made the island Of
Poros a sanctuary for like3,000 years. That's a lot of time.
(13:27):
It is, yes. Well, thank you.I'm going to go back to the Bronx
and start the story. Pleaselet me not talk too long about all
this, because our time. Butseriously, I began discovering or
being led to what we wouldcall mystical or transpersonal and
(13:52):
non normative experiences wayback when I was born and I was a
young child in the Bronx. Sowhen I was 4 years old in our tiny
Bronx tenement apartment, Iwas awakened in the middle of the
night because I knew somethingor somebody was in my room. And I
looked around. I know it wasfour because my baby brother was
(14:15):
sleeping in the crib next tome. I vividly remember the. The night,
the room, everything about it.Uh, so I woke up in the middle of
the night and I. And somethingwas in my room. I looked around and
I saw what looked like apsychedelic colored bejeweled butterfly
(14:35):
flying all around my room inthe dark. It was huge and it was
beautiful. And I called myparents telling me there's a butterfly
in the room. My father, theycame running in. My father just grunted
and went back to bed. Mymother told me, you cry and go back
to bed. I'm having nightmares.Okay? It wasn't a nightmare. It was.
(14:57):
I was four years old and I hada vision. I didn't know what it was.
I didn't know what a visionwas. I didn't have the language that
you and I are sharing today,but I knew I had seen something that
was more real than real. Superreal. And my parents taught me, be
really careful who you talk toabout this because most people aren't
going to understand it orthey're going to say it's not true.
(15:22):
So I kept that vision tomyself until I became an adult. I
learned as an adult in myadult studies that the word for butterfly
in ancient Greek is psyche,the same word used in psychology,
but it doesn't mean mind.We've been taught that psychology
(15:44):
is the study of the mind.Ain't what it means in Greek. It's
psyche, logos. Psyche is thesoul and logos is the order and meaning.
So when we're looking atpsychology, we're studying the order
and meaning of the soul, notjust the study of the mind. And since
I was 4 years old, somethingin me knew that and wanted to follow
(16:08):
the soul path, right? Jumpingforward to that from that. When I
was two years later, mygrandmother died. So I was just six.
She died within a couple ofweeks of my birthday. And I had,
after her death what Jungwould call. Carl Jung would call
(16:28):
a big dream. A big dream isnot the everyday, ordinary dream
about what's going on in ourdaily lives or just. Or in our unconscious.
A big dream is something thatseems transpersonal or supernatural
and mystical, that connects usto the universe in a profound way
and is life changing. Justafter my grandmother died, I had
(16:53):
a dream where my family and Iwere sitting outside our apartment
building. We lived on thefifth floor. I told my mother somebody
was ringing our doorbell. Shesaid, that's impossible. We're on
the ground. We're in thesidewalk. You can't hear it from
here. I say, yes, somebody'sthere. I ran around to the front
(17:14):
of the apartment building. Ilooked up five stories, and I saw
my grandmother's spirit flyingout the window, saying goodbye to
everyone. And she was young.She was renewed. She looked like
she might have looked when shefirst came as a Eastern European
refugee decades before. There,too, a dream was sent me where I
(17:37):
saw my grandmother's soulleaving. And my family and everybody
around me said, it'simpossible. This doesn't happen.
You're nuts. So those twoexperiences taught me there is a
spiritual world. There is aninvisible world. We can access it
through dreams and visions andunusual synchronistic events, as
(18:01):
my book Soul Medicineconcentrates on. What are those events?
How can we facilitate them?How are they guiding our souls? But
I learned that early that theinvisible is real and we have access
to it. And it will come visitus sometimes, even when we're not
looking for it, but when weneed it. And so I've been following
(18:21):
that my whole life, really.And because of that, I. I've never
fit in or even wanted to fitinto a conventional job, conventional
way of life. Many people havesaid to me, oh, why don't you just
be a professor? You'll gettenure, you'll get sabbaticals, you'll
get a pension. It's mucheasier. And you're a good teacher.
(18:41):
You know, all this stuff. Idon't want to do that. I want to
stay out here with you,Michael, and with people. How? And
the way we're living our livesand. And help restore meaning, spirituality,
a mythic sensibility to oureveryday lives. So all that said,
how did I get to the island ofPovs? This is part from childhood
(19:07):
also. When I was 10 years old,New York City. When we turned 10,
we could get our. Our adultlibrary card. So right after school
on my 10th birthday, Igalloped to the library. I got My
card. I was in the adultstacks, which were floor to ceiling,
and I had no idea what book amI going to take home? My first adult
(19:30):
book, what is it going to be?And I swear this is also an event.
I didn't do it. Something orsomeone or some power pushed a book
off a higher shelf over myhead and it fell into my hands and
scous honor. It was Homer'sIliad. The Iliad, the story of the
(19:51):
Trojan War. And I said, Idon't know who you are or what you're
about or how you fell into myarms, but we're going home together.
So at 10 years old, I read theIliad and I fell in love with it.
And so I was introduced to theGreek tradition, Vacyon, and not
through any blood ties orrelations, but through books, through
(20:12):
the imagination. And so I'vebeen studying it and following it
my whole life, ever since.
And what an opportunity.Obviously, that was presented to
you, if with a. With a what astory, Tall stack of books and. Yeah,
or shelving of books and whatdo you get? You get that one.
I get that one.
(20:32):
That's profound. I think theuniverse was talking to you, really.
And we can say about any ofthese mystical events that we experience
or others do we can. We alwayssay, well, what are the chances?
And my wife is very logicaland grounded and she'll say, well,
there might be one in abillion chances that that just happened
(20:54):
because of a stray wind in theroom. We don't know. She says that,
and I say, yes, that'spossible, and I'll allow for that
a possibility, but is much,much more likely than something else
we don't understand causedthis event. And the more important
thing is it was life guidancefor me, and I accepted it, I embraced
(21:17):
it and I followed it, and ithelped set me on my life's path.
You know, we don't always getthat opportunity to be presented
to us like that. I think thatwhat a profound, again, the universe
talking to you from whatevermodality it presented itself and
you took it and ran with it,which is brilliant. I mean, we don't
all get that opportunity to dothat. I felt that way when I was
(21:38):
a cop, when I became a cop. Itreally put me on the path I felt
that was supposed to be on.And obviously I redefined my purpose
along the way. But it, youknow, it was. It was presented to
me and as an opportunity, notin the same way as yours, but it's
like, yeah, this is what Iwant to do. And I pursued It. And
(21:58):
I was. I was grateful for it.I'll be grateful for it. Even getting
injured and having to retire.I hesitate on there, but getting
injured and having to retire.It presented new opportunity for
me. And it took me a while tounderstand it and to realize it.
But I wish I would have had alittle angel up there push the book
(22:20):
out a little sooner. Butthat's fantastic. What prompted you
to write Passage to Poros?Tell me about Porosity.
Let me tell you about Portos.And actually, books got me to Poros.
Also.
Connect that story too. Ifound a book of poetry in a used
(22:40):
bookstore in Massachusetts onthe Cape, when I was on vacation
with the family. It was thepoems of George Seferis. That's S
E F E R I S. He's hardly knownin this country, but he won the Nobel
Prize for literature in 1963.First Greek who did. Well, I fell
in love with his poetry,really in love. It was perfect poetry
(23:02):
for me at that life stage.Wandering in exile, lost, lonely,
trying to find where his soulreally fits. Okay, so. And I was
into my mid-30s and I wascertainly feeling that I began translating
some of Satiris's poetry. So Iread his biographies. He studied
(23:25):
all of his writings. And Ionly learned about the little island
of Poros from him because itwas his sanctuary during the Greek
Civil War. He retreated fromthe war after surviving World War
II. And he lived on Poros fortwo years during the Greek Civil
War. And he wrote some of hismost important work there. I wanted
(23:47):
to go to the island where hehad composed the work I was trying
to translate and reallyexperience the environment that he
was in. Drench myself in thebeauty, the spirituality, the ancient
stories that he was writingabout. So it was a dead poet and
his poetry. Well, that got meon the Greek journey. That's Homer
(24:10):
and then a dead modern poetand his poetry, George Sas. That
got me to the island of Poros.Well, that was in 1987. And I have
had such extraordinaryexperiences and opportunities. Life
experiences on Poros that havebeen life changing for me. Profoundly
(24:33):
so. And beginning in 1995, Iwas experienced enough with Greece
and the Greek tradition that Ibegan leading pilgrimages to Greece
and included Poros in thepilgrimages because of some of the
breakthrough experiences thatI had there. And because of, as we
(24:54):
were saying earlier, what anintact, loving village and community
it is. And it has been formillennia. And so I keep going back
and I bring travelers there.And it's a healing island. My. I
had my granddaughters There.My five year old granddaughter says
(25:16):
it's a magic island. She'slabeled it the magic island. And
now people on Toros call ittheir magic island too. Artists and
writers have been retreatingthere for hundreds of years and discovering
it. So I'm not the only one.I'm just, as some of my friends say,
they're. Eddie, you're justthe most recent American writer who
(25:42):
came to Poros and fell in lovewith it and wants to tell our story.
So now it's your turn to bepart of the story. Tell the story
and carry it through, carry itforward. So I even feel so much gratitude
and belonging to that islandthat I also felt a sacred charge
(26:02):
that I know this island, Iknow it intimately. And the people
on the island have said to me,well, tell our story, help preserve
and protect it as a sacredsanctuary. And so I do.
Well, I find it interesting ina passage to Porus, you discussed
the Greek tradition ofsanctuary and this whole aspect of
(26:26):
sanctuary. How old is thistradition and how is it practice?
You said you take peoplethere, you, you bring people with
you and you help themunderstand. Did they have that? I
get like, this is a multilevel question. Do they have the
introduction to sanctuarybefore they get there or do. Are
(26:49):
they introduced to it oncethey get there?
Oh, I, I always spend a lot oftime with my travelers, preparing
them before we travel. So inmany ways, okay, of course there's
reading and I ask people toread my books and also to read the
key books that we will bestudying and using as we travel.
(27:10):
Beyond that. This is reallyimportant. I encourage what we would
call mythic identification.Well, why are you taking this journey?
What are the deepest soulquestions you have at this life stage?
Think about your own lifehistory, your story, and what gods
(27:34):
and goddesses, whatmythological figures, what stories
from mythology or from thetragedies do you see in your own
story? Because we're allliving mythic lives, only we tend
not to be aware of it. We tendto. In our kind of society, we think
of our lives in everydaysecular terms. But in fact, you know,
(27:56):
as was shared for you, buddyMichael, you are a warrior. You're
living a warrior's journey. Asyou said about being a police officer,
you are forever. One of thebig mistakes our, our society makes
is to think that we can turnour warriors and first responders
back into civilians. Themarines say once a warrior or once
(28:18):
a marine, always a warrior.That's true for our military people
and our spurt firstresponders. Also our identities have
been so Transformed ourreactions, our responses. Our value
system has been sotransformed. We're warriors for life.
We need to embrace that.Greece and other cultures, Native
(28:40):
American cultures, had thewarrior path through the entire life
cycle, not just while one isin service. And then you go back
to being a civilian. Itdoesn't, and it can't work that way.
You have found meaning,meaningful service after the police
force that is continuing tohelp you, help all of us and protect
(29:02):
all of us by bringing wisdomto us. That is incredibly important,
preservative and protectivework. And those are the essential
warrior values to preserve andprotect, not to harm and destroy.
And so in the Greek work, Ibring lots of warriors, veterans
(29:24):
and first responders toGreece. Not exclusively, but sometimes
I've only done warriorjourneys to Greece. And we use the
Greek warrior tradition, war.We go to the warrior sites, we go
to Marathon, to Thermopylae.We study the history. We study, most
importantly, the warriorarchetype. And what does it mean
(29:47):
in the Greek tradition? We canremember, Our audience probably knows
they had two deities of war.One was Aries, the God of war, and
one was Athena, the goddess ofwar. Well, in our American tradition,
we teach people to be servantsof Aries, how to kill, how to kill.
(30:13):
And some people even want theexperience of killing. Some people
even like it. That's not beinga warrior. That's what Jungian and
death therapists would callbeing the shadow warrior trapped
in the shadow. Ares was theGod. Homer called him the God who
delights in slaughter. He justwants to be in the fight. Athena
(30:37):
was a protector goddess. Shepreserved and protected. She used
diplomacy and persuasion. Shedid everything she could to not have
to fight. And she only foughtwhen it was absolutely necessary,
when it was truly the lastresort. And there was all that we
had to preserve and protectthe people. So one Iraq veteran that
(31:01):
I worked with who went to Iraqoriginally gung ho for the war, he
came back saying, I'm apacifist now, and I will be a pacifist
forever until someone tries tobreak into my house and harm my wife
and my children. Then I'll bea warrior again. And that's right.
(31:25):
He's aligned. I know how to bea warrior. I can be a warrior, but
I will only exclusively use itfor preservation and protection of
the most important people andvalues in my life. That's just a
mini version of helpingveterans transition from ptsd, which
(31:45):
means they're still in theAries archetype to the Athena archetype
to be a servant ofcivilization. Preserving and protecting
the best of it. I lead. Inaddition to the journeys I lead to
Greece, I've led 19 healingand reconciliation journeys to Vietnam.
(32:08):
And this is relevant therealso in profound ways. Vietnam. Vietnam
is a communal culture, and.And it is intact. And believe it
or not, it's still happy andhealthy, even since the American
War and the French war and theChinese occupation from 1400 years.
(32:29):
And there's almost no wartimePTSD in Vietnam. They don't have
it. We would expect it to beepidemic there because of the amount
of death and destruction, butit's not. They're loving, they're
forgiving. They welcomeAmericans. They say, we know how
much you suffer. We're sorryyou can't heal at home. We're glad
(32:50):
you came to Vietnam so we canhelp heal you with our love and our
respect. They get the welcomein Vietnam that our veterans deserved
here.
Yeah, that's brilliant.
Yeah. And we meet with formerfoes, and everybody enters into an
identity of brotherhood andsisterhood because we survived the
(33:14):
same trauma together. So ourvets will say, how can you be welcoming
to me? And a Viet Cong veteranwill say, well, we're brothers and
sisters because we survivedthe same hell, and we need to be
telling the world the same story.
That's amazing. That'sprofound. Like you said, it's profound.
Absolutely profound. You know,it's interesting because we watch
(33:37):
kind of a weird connection. Wewatched this show called Somebody
Feed Phil, and it's onNetflix. It's a great program. He
goes all over the world. Henot only talks about food, but he
talks about culture as well.And he did a segment on Vietnam,
and when he did, he said hewas astounded. And he showed it within
(33:59):
the program, that particularepisode of that community that was
there. He thought that becausehe was American, that he was going
to be shunned then it might bedifficult. And he said. And you saw
it. Everybody welcomed him. Hesaid he saw no remnant of war, no
indication of the Vietnam War,no animosities towards them or the
(34:24):
crew or anybody else. Heacknowledged that and said that it
was amazing that. That it wasjust a very loving community oriented
by validating what you'resaying in regard to that part. It
was. I was able to see it fromhis eyes. It was pretty. Actually
pretty amazing. And I did notgo to the Vietnam War as well, but
(34:47):
I have my. I have high schoolfriends that did, and some returned,
some did not. I had two unclesthat were there. They both came back
with PTSD from. From Vietnam.One uncle Worked a naval ship that
picked up the survivors andthe bodies and had to nurture them
(35:10):
and take care of them untilthey got brought back home sort of
thing. So obviously there weremany, many things that they had to
go through. My other uncle wasa nurse in the military as well in
Vietnam, and he had to gothrough what he had to go through
with tending to everybody thatwas wounded and 18, 19 year old,
(35:31):
20 year olds that lost limbsand died and everything. He never
had the. Neither one of themever had the inclination to ever
go back to Vietnam until a fewyears before my uncle, he died of
cancer. Both of them died ofcancer actually. But Uncle Nick went
(35:52):
back to Vietnam afterwards,before he died, and he said it was
a changed place. He said hecouldn't believe the beauty was back,
the community, the humanitywas back, the compassion was back.
So just to kind of step onwhat, you know, a little bit on what
(36:12):
you said to say, I watched itmyself through their eyes.
Yes. Thank you for theconfirmation. I won't say more than
that about now because of ourlimited time, but I've been there
19 times, so I've spent, Idon't know, a year and a half or
two years in country and yeah,and I've taken so 19, I don't know,
(36:37):
between 10 and 20 people on ajourney. I've taken several hundred
veterans. At least half ofthem are, are, are vets. I just want
to invite our audience todayto imagine the reception that, the
impact of a reception likethat to any war survivor from any
(36:58):
conflict. Imagine the peopleyou fought against welcoming you
with love, with forgiveness,with acceptance, with honor, looking
at you as an honorablewarrior. But you're in my country
and you are killing my people.No, I see an honorable warrior who
did what, what warriors areasked to do for their country. And
(37:20):
you're not responsible forbeing used in the wrong way. You're
responsible for being a goodwarrior. And you were. And we, your
friends, now your former foes,see and honor you when our, you know,
you've experienced it. But ourveterans and first responders don't
(37:41):
get that reflection from theAmericans that you served.
No. Or do you take lessons?
Anybody who might have been onthe other side, but to get that from
the other side is miraculousand life changing. And if a former
enemy can look at me withlove, honor, respect, compassion,
well, then maybe I can lookat, learn to look at myself that
(38:02):
way.
We as humanity need to takelessons from that, lessons from that,
and even the Greek side fromwhat you have presented. But back
on Track Just a little bit.
Yes.
In the book you invoke thehymn to Poseidon by Homer around
800 or so BCE. Can you explainthe importance of Poros in the ancient
(38:25):
times as a sanctuary of Poseidon?
Oh, yes, thank you for thatquestion. People know about the Acropolis
in Athens, in the Parthenon,which was the main sanctuary for
Athena. People also know aboutDelphi, Delphi, the sanctuary of
Apollo, where people traveledto receive life's life guiding oracles.
(38:49):
And if they got there once intheir life, that was a miraculous
experience and they got amessage from the divine for how to
guide their lives. What peopledon't know, and it's not even in
the guidebooks, is that Poroswas just that large and extensive
and important a sanctuary. Inancient times it was the main sanctuary
(39:15):
of the God of the sea,Poseidon. In archaic and classical
times. It existed from atleast 800 BC for several, well, until
the classical tradition wasdestroyed. So it existed for about
800 years as the principalsanctuary of the God of the sea.
(39:37):
We have to realize howimportant the sea was in the ancient
world, the Mediterranean WorldSea was the highway for everybody.
That's how goods were trade,that's how people traveled, that's
how armies traveled. That'show travelers went from one place
to another. The sea was thelifeblood and the highway and the
(39:59):
source of life andspirituality itself. And Poseidon
is a very, very old God.There's some belief that he was the
king of the gods before Zeusand earlier in the Bronze era. And
he was a life giving God aswell as. Most of the stories we've
inherited about Poseidon arethat he was a fierce, angry God of
(40:21):
the sea who sent storms andearthquakes and was raging. Well,
those stories are in Homer, inthe Iliad, but those are only a few
of the stories. He alsobrought water. He also brought fertility.
His name, Poseidon comes frommuch, much more archaic language
form. It comes from Posidawhich meant da was the name of Gaia
(40:46):
Ga, the earth mother goddess.And posi meant the consort or the
husband of. So Poseidonoriginally was the consort of the
earth mother and he's thesource of fertility. The sea is all
earth came from. All life camefrom the sea. The sea is the womb
(41:07):
of life. And Poseidon was themale fertilizing principle where
that brought all that lifeinto existence. As things evolved,
he became, as the hymn says,he became the savior of ships. He
didn't only cause storms thatwrecked them, he also saved sailors
who were, who were marooned orwho were caught in storms. I know
(41:33):
stories of modern Greekfishermen who were saved by miracles
at sea. See by the spiritualarchetype that would have been called
Poseidon. Poseidon became St.Nicholas to the Orthodox Church.
St. Nicholas is the protectorof sailors and he's still prayed
(41:55):
to. And all ships in Greecehave an icon, a small chapel to St.
Nicholas. Well, Poseidon, theGod of the sea, became St. Nicholas
the saint and the spiritualguardian of sailors. So it's the
same archetype, but in a lateriteration of culture. But seriously,
(42:17):
I know people who were inserious storms and sea hazards, who
had given themselves up aslost and perhaps drowned, and who
prayed to St Nicholas or toPoseidon and had miraculous healing
and rescue experiences. Sopeople still believe in the archetype.
(42:41):
There is a na. There's a navaltraining academy on the island of
Portos. They have a Church ofSt Nicholas at the academy, but they
don't teach their recruitsthat they're on becoming officers,
chief petty officers on theisland of Poseidon, the God of the
(43:02):
sea. So I've sometimes had theexperience of meeting with the recruits
and teaching them aboutPoseidon and that you're becoming
an officer in the Greek navyon Poseidon's island. You are continuous
with a history that isthousands and thousands of years
old and you are taking yourhonorable place in the next generation
(43:24):
of that history. And boy, theylove learning that they go up to
the sanctuary in a new way.Oh, we thought it was just a cool
place to have a picnic and seethese beautiful views of islands
in the distance. Oh, now weknow we're in Poseidon's principal
sanctuary and we should takevows here and be as connected from
(43:47):
our soul as we can be andpledge our allegiance to the powers
of the sea that we're going tobe serving for our entire careers.
That's brilliant. That'sbrilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
How does. I touched on thisearlier and I put it in my notes
and I may mispronounce this,so forgive me if I do. Asclepian
(44:09):
dream incubation. How doesthat incorporate within, or does
it incorporate within thesanctuary arena of porosity?
It does, and thank you forreferencing that. I will backtrack
a little bit as well. Again,back in 1987 and that life changing
(44:31):
trip I mentioned in my firsttrip to Portos, I actually went on
that trip because by that timeI had been working with Vietnam veterans
as a psychotherapist for abouta decade. And I realized that the
wounds of war are far toodeep, far too cutting Far too crushing
(44:55):
to our soul to be healed byjust ordinary psychotherapy. And
so I went to Greece on ajourney, my own pilgrimage, to study
the ancient Greek warriortradition. Not only to translate
Sefera's poetry. As I said,that was one reason. The other reason
was I was studying the ancientGreek warrior tradition, and I wanted
(45:17):
to learn how, since there wasso much warfare in ancient Greece,
how did they heal theirwarriors, how did their warriors
come home and successfullyadapt and become very productive
and contributing citizens? So,as it turns out, there's another
(45:38):
sanctuary called. Well, it'sspelled Epidaurus in English. It
looks like Epidaurus. It'spronounced a P. Divorce. And that
was the principal healingsanctuary of ancient Greece. And
it was Asclepius, the God ofhealing, who was the primary deity
at that sanctuary. I happenedto arrive the opening night of the
(46:01):
summer theater festival. Theplay in performance was Euripides
Play the Trojan Women. Thatplay may be the greatest anti war
play ever written, and Ihighly recommend it. It's on Netflix
with Katharine Hepburnstarring as the Queen of Troy. I
(46:22):
recommend it to everybody, butput your seatbelt on and have lots
of tissues. Glen Syd reallydemonstrates all of the horrific
pain and suffering that comesfrom war to everybody, the women,
the children, the widows, thecity itself, the surviving warriors.
It's really, really intensive.Well, I saw it in this healing sanctuary
(46:45):
in 1987, and that changed mylife also. I went into that sanctuary
thinking I'm here to learnwhat I can as a therapist for Vietnam
veterans. I learned that nightwith a very intense, cathartic response
to the play. Lots of tears ofmy own, lots of recognition of the
(47:10):
world of pain that I was in,that I was saying, yes, I am willing
to be in this world of painwith our veterans and walk through
it with everything it takes.And what I learned is I'm not just
a therapist for Vietnamveterans. I've been called to, to
a lifelong mission, destiny,as a healer of the invisible wounds
(47:34):
of war, that all wars of alltimes and places are the same. War
is an archetype. It's arecurring historical, spiritual images,
cultural value, pattern thatrecurs again and again and again
throughout history. The timesand the places and the uniforms and
(47:56):
the historical reasons aredifferent. But in its core, all of
the archetypal dimensions ofwar and warfare and being warriors
are the same and areuniversal. And I left that theater
performance realizing this iswhat I was called to do, this is
what I want to study, this iswhat I'm going to learn to practice
(48:16):
and I can use these practices.So then I asked, well, why did I
see this as a healingsanctuary? And who was Asclepius
anyway? Why was the theater athis sanctuary? It turns out that
I was in and I didn't knowuntil I got there and was initiated.
(48:37):
Asclepius was the God ofhealing. And his practices in ancient
times were the origin of, ofpsychology and medicine in the, in
the western world, fromancient Greece. Escapius. The records
we have go back to at least1400 BCE. So we have records that
(48:59):
are 3500 years old and thissanctuary and many others. There
were over 300 such sanctuariesaround the Mediterranean world. They
were the most complete,perfect holistic healing sanctuaries.
They put to shame the holisticsanctuaries we have today because
(49:22):
they had everything. They hadacupuncture, acupressure and massage
and nutrition and gymnasticsand drama and the tragedies and psychotherapy
and dream interpretation andon and on and on. They were a completely
holistic sanctuary. Everybodywas welcome. Perfect sliding scale.
(49:46):
You didn't pay anything to goin there, and you only gave gifts
of what you could afford whenyou left. So slaves could go and
they could give an apple fortheir healing. Emperors would go
and they would give a wholenew building. The key of healing
was not in the holisticpractices. The key was in what they
called dream incubation. Afterlong exposure to the holistic practices
(50:12):
and after signs and dreams orvisions or other synchronistic events
that told people it was timeto incubate, people went on a dream
quest, which is similar toNative American vision questing that's
done in the wilderness, in thedesert, on a mountaintop. The dream
questing was originally donein the wilds in caves, but later
(50:37):
evolved so that thesesanctuaries were built and people
did the dream questing in thesanctuaries. But the ultimate step
in the healing process, afterreceiving all the holistic modalities
and being strong enough, wasto seek an encounter with divine
powers through dreams orvisions. And so people would go into
(51:00):
a temple that was reserved fornothing else but encountering the
divine powers. And they wouldhave fasted and prayed and been in
long term preparation. Andthen they would sleep on a couch
that was called a clinikos.And our word clay and clinic comes
from here. And what they woulddo is just lay there and pray and
(51:23):
meditate and ask for help andsleep and watch their dreams and
watch their visions until theyhad some kind of divine visit through
dreams or visions or otherstrange events. We have records of
over a thousand of theseexperiences. And they brought extraordinary
(51:44):
dimensions of holistic healinglike we could never imagine. People
were sometimes healed in thedream, including warriors who had
inoperable wounds, who in adream saw Asclepius, the God of healing,
or another mythic figurecoming to them in the dream and taking
(52:05):
out an arrowhead that was sodeeply embedded in their chest that
physicians didn't know how totake it out. But they had a dream
surgery with where a divinefigure came and extracted it, and
they woke up in the morningand it had popped out. That's one
example. Commonly, people hadpsychos, what we call psychosomatic
(52:29):
conditions. And people weregiven either a dream healing in the
dream or the recipe, theprotocol for what they had to do
to heal themselves. So Ilearned this, I read this, I studied
this. Oh, the theaters are inthis place of dream questing and
(52:50):
holistic sanctuaries. And theGreek tragedies were written all
by warriors for a mass socialritual of catharsis for everyone
to cleanse from war pain,because everybody was exposed to
it. And all this happened inthe sanctuaries. And it was all preparation
(53:13):
to meet the God of healing andtry to get a dream or a vision that
puts us back in balance anddirects us to our destinies. So I
studied it, I practiced it,and I eventually learned how to do
it, and I do it. And so, yes,when I guide pilgrimages to Poros
and other places in Greece, wedo during the incubation, I begin
(53:38):
preparing people long before Iinvent, invite that mythic identification.
In Greece, I work with actorsand actresses in the Greek tradition
who use the tragedies forhealing. And we go to Poros and we
immerse in the tradition. Westudy our own dreams, we work with
(53:59):
each other's myths. Who didyou choose and why did you choose
that character and tell usabout your identification with that
person? And eventually, as thepenultimate experience, we do dream
incubation. And people reallydo have extraordinary dreams, what
Jung would call big dreamsthat give life changing guidance
(54:24):
for healing and transformationand for finding our destinies.
That's amazing. I see why youkeep going back and why you utilize
it so much. Because it is, Imean, you talk to my soul. That whole
conversation, it was somethingthat you kind of have to really sit
back and think thepossibility. I believe in holistic
(54:46):
and naturopathic modalitiesand healing. Anyway, so just the
idea that there's a place thatyou can go to, a sanctuary that you
can go to that you canliterally embrace that to such a
point that there is nojudgment. There is. There is nothing
but healing. There's healing.And that you can walk away from there
(55:09):
with healing, whether it bementally or physically, or in such
a way that you can now moveyour life forward in a positive way
is just profound. What anamazing. It just. What an amazing
opportunity. We could talk fora whole other hour and. Easy, easy.
(55:30):
Well, maybe we'll do thatsometime in.
The future, like, sofascinating. You have to come back,
you know, I know that. As youwrote, we can call the ancient personifications
known as gods and goddesses,the God powers, their embodiments,
the images, the versions ofthe archetypes that are eternal in
the personal, in the culturaland collective unconscious. You also
(55:53):
say that we can invoke them toachieve experiences akin to the ancients.
As Plato and Carl Jung bothindicated, the forms of the archetypes
are living forces. What canmodern psychology learn from Poros
and those ancient practices?Because what you just presented to
me is to me much morebeneficial, much more in depth, much
(56:16):
more soul reaching thansitting in an office or laying on
a couch in an office andtalking things out.
If and when we talk thingsout, which isn't a bad thing, let's
do soul talk. I did have onPoros one time when I was questioning
(56:41):
myself about using thesepractices. I had a dream in which
the dream said to me, soultalk is your medicine. Soul talk
is not the same as ordinaryeveryday talk and it's not the same
as problem solving. So onematter is, yeah, learn to do soul
(57:01):
talk. Talk about the deepestand most, the ultimate dimensions
of life. Yes, let's talk aboutour destinies less. Let's talk about,
well, trauma in its originalmeaning. What so penetrated you that
your soul was affected andafflicted and the entire universe
(57:24):
changed for you at that momentor cumulatively over time from a
lot of traumatic experiences.Let's find our mythic identifications
not reduce ourselves tosecular individuals who have a psychological
disorder, but rather liftourselves, ennoble ourselves, spiritualize
(57:47):
our. Our challenges andconflicts so that we do see that
we're on a mythic or a psychospiritual journey through life and
that whatever we'reencountering is part of that. People
should read the. Read, read,read the myths and the stories. And
(58:07):
no offense to my psychologicalcommunity, but the humanities tells
us the stories far better thanthe psychologists. So yeah, read
literature, read mythology,see good movies, find your story
and identify with your storyand realize your living a mythic
(58:29):
journey and Take big risks.Find your way to a Native American
reservation and dance withthem. Come to Greece with me. Go
on your own pilgrimage. Don'tbe satisfied with the conventional
answers because theconventional answers just try to
adapt us to a veryunsatisfying conventional reality.
(58:52):
Freud, that's all Freud wasdoing. He said reality is inherent
or civilization and itsdiscontents. Civilization is inherently
dissatisfying. You will bediscontent. And all I'm trying to
do is help you adapt again tounhappy, unfulfilling conditions
(59:15):
of love and work. Don't besatisfied with that. Be whatever
it is. Find your spiritualpath, including if you're an atheist.
If you're an atheist, you havethe higher, most difficult spiritual
path because, oh, bless you,brother or sister. It's all up to
you to create meaning in ouruniverse you believe is empty. But
(59:37):
we must, we must, we must beon some form of spiritual journey
and tracking our lives andelevating and ennobling our journeys
that way rather than allowingthem to sink down into diagnosis
and pathology and takingmedications just so we can get up
tomorrow morning.
(59:58):
Brilliant words of wisdom, Ed.Brilliant words of wisdom. I, I,
I, I, I applaud you for, forthose words. And I think we should
all embrace them very much so.How can they find you and your books?
Yeah, well, my books areavailable at good bookstores and
on Amazon and from thepublisher. The three books you have
(01:00:21):
up. Thank you. Are the threebooks that I've written on the Greek
healing tradition. So dreamhealing came first and that's my
discovery and beginningpractice of the Asclepian tradition.
Then Soul Medicine and nowPassage to Paris was just published
last month. A few people arereally interested. They could read
them in that order anddiscover as I discovered, because
(01:00:44):
I do write my books to bejourneys, not just entertainment
or education. And my books onwarrior war and warfare and warrior
healing are War and the Souland Warrior's Return. They're also
both readily available atbookstores and on Amazon and from
(01:01:04):
publishers. Publishers. Mywebsite is up there just edwardtick.com
my email address is simpledredtickmail.com it's doc d r e D
T I C K. And my son loves tomake a joke and say that says dread
tick. People aren't gonna usethat. But he's the next generation,
(01:01:26):
so it's okay. It makes sense.
Ed, thank you very much forbeing part of one with him. Before
you go, I really sincerelyappreciate sharing your journey and
your experience and wisdomwith us. One more thing before you
go. Before we go, though. Ialways ask this kind of sort of differently.
(01:01:47):
I think you kind of mostlyanswered it. But how do you hope
your work will influence theway we think about spirit healing
and connection to the divine?
Oh, thank you. I hope it willhelp restore those connections. That's
all I want to do. If I can diewith a smile because I helped some
(01:02:08):
people reawaken and reconnectto their soul and live a soulful
life, I'll die in peace.
Well, you connected my soultoday in the brief introduction that
we had spoken prior to ourconversation and throughout this
conversation. So I'm gratefulthat we have met and I will continue
(01:02:28):
to push that forward. Thank you.
Good. Michael, thank you verymuch. And again, thank you for your
sacrifice and service and forbeing so open to the invisible dimensions.
Thank you. Thank you. I'mgrateful. From the sanctuaries of
ancient Greece to thechallenges of modern life, Dr. Edward
(01:02:49):
Tick reminds us that healingis both timeless and transformative.
His journey to Purah shows howdreams, visions, and sacred places
can restore the spirit andreconnect us to eternal forces. So
once again, Dr. Dick, thankyou very much for sharing your wisdom
and your experiences with ustoday for our listeners. His new
book, Passage to In theSanctuary of the Sea God is available
(01:03:11):
now from Park Street Press,Amazon, and I'll have links to it
and his website on the shownotes so that you can easily click
it and follow through with it.Explore all the opportunities that
we have there for you. That'sit for today's journey. If something
sparked your curiosity ormoved to share it, subscribe and
stay connected and head overto YouTube to catch the full version
(01:03:33):
of this video. Remember,you're not just listening, you're
part of this story. So untilnext time, keep seeking, keep growing,
and never stop asking. Onemore thing before you go.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing before
you Go. Check out ourwebsite@beforeyougopodcast.com you
can find us as well assubscribe to the program and rate
(01:03:55):
us on your favorite podcastlistening platform.
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