The Teachings of Stavros
Komboloi: Ouroboros in Amber
The secrets in a circlet of beads
Natural World
I finished my swim in the clear waters of the sea. It was a perfect day with only a light breeze. For us Cretans, this is the only way to swim. We do not like to swim in choppy waves. Waves are for the storms of life. Swimming in the Mediterranean is a baptism. It requires waters that reflect the heavens. You leave feeling renewed.
I settled at a nearby kafenio with a view of the sea and an easy feel to it. I was in one of my favorite places in the world feeling content. I could hear the tsitsikia (cicadas) playing their song in the distance. I ordered a Greek coffee and meal from the owner.
I liked Stavros the first time I met him, maybe that is why I claimed his kafenio as my place in this village. We had exchanged smiles and pleasantries when I ordered, and this quickly became a ritual I would repeat two to three times a day. On the third day, he was sitting on my table when I looked up from my notebook watching me with a strange smile. He was passing beads through his komboloi (circlet of beads) in a meditative fashion. Each bead fell on the next in a rhythmic fashion. It seemed as if a private conversation was taking place between his fingers and the amber.
“Are you enjoying your travels,” he asked.
“I love Crete,” I replied, “My bones feel at home here, but my head and my bank account have become accustomed to a different place. Still, I visit when I can and my bones thank me.”
“Of course,” he replied, “but that is not what I meant. Every time you sit here, with your constant companion,” he points at my notebook with his eyes and chin, “you take on the aura of Odysseus.” After a pause and with a deep friendly smile he continued, “I always enjoy meeting a fellow seeker.”
From that moment on, and for reasons I did not completely understand, I began sharing openly with Stavros. I told him I had just shed my skin and was finding my path again. I had given up much of myself in the recent past and decided that I needed to start with grounding myself in my own history, from the lowest roots if you will. So, I came to the land of my forefathers.
As we were talking, I could not help but be mesmerized by the way he lovingly caressed and moved the beads of his komboloi. He did not twirl or play with it the way I had seen many manipulate them in kafenia while debating politics or gambling coffees on backgammon boards. Still, they danced and sang in his hands. The beads were like dewdrops of sunlight with subtle shades of golden yellow. In his hands, the komboloi was not some mere plaything but an attendant spirit, a familiar.
He noticed my gaze and began telling me about the komboloi. He said he learned much of this from a fellow seeker whose love affair with the komboloi sent him far and wide in search of its secrets. The rest he learned from his own communion with the beads.
“The first komboloi can be traced back to the Buddha. Buddhists use 108 beads to count their mantras. It is not well known why 108 but perhaps it is because 1 represents God or Unity, 0 represents emptiness, and 8 infinity. A holy trinity if you will. Then you have the 99 of the Islamic komboloi used for ritual prayers that focus on the attributes of Allah. This was followed by the Christian Rosary prayer beads and the Greek Orthodox monks’ use of the komboskini (knotted prayer cord), which are also used to count prayers.
These prayer komboloi serve not only as communication to the divine but also become imbued with the quality of the praying. Thus, in times of need, the prayer komboloi reflects the wisdom of the practice back to the user through mere touch and presence.”
“For the everyday Greek, however, the komboloi became something different, maybe even something more. You see, all the prayer komboloi keep the beads tight on the circlet of thread and are used ritually for counting prayers. For the Greek soul, perhaps because years of occupation and oppression, perhaps because of our rebellious nature, this was too constraining.
So, Greeks removed some beads from the Islamic prayer komboloi and allowed the beads to move freely. No longer confined, the beads began to dance and sing in our hands and to serve not simply as a ritual of devotion but a continual communion with the soul. They are a companion in which our life becomes spread across the beads and a friend that supports and bears witness to our journey. The beads are connected through a circlet of thread moving in an infinite circle like the alchemical ouroboros helping transmute the soul.”
“Here, allow your fingers to join your eyes and ears in the wisdom of my golden friend. When you choose one make sure that your eyes, ears, and fingers agree, then you know your soul has found a companion that will support you through your journeys.”
I cannot truly describe the feeling. The shaped amber beads were smooth and hard but also had a sense of softness to them if that is possible. They glided through my fingers and made a beautiful knocking sound that felt like a secret language that was just outside of my comprehension. They had a feeling of aliveness, like something eternal tucked away within something seemingly ordinary. I handed them back to Stavros with gratitude and began a contemplative journey back to my temporary home.
I had recently bought an amber komboloi from an old merchant in the village of Melidoni. I was there visiting its historic cave during one of my touristy sojourns when I came across this tiny shack that piqued my curiosity. He described the komboloi as amber faturan, which uses amber filings to reconstitute amber beads chemically, using a secret recipe. Because amber was becoming rare and expensive no amount of it is wasted when shaping beads. It was the story as much as the beauty of the beads that made the sale.
I dug my komboloi out of my knapsack and was pleased to notice that the sound and feel matched the beauty of the beads. I walked back to my residence and considered it with a new wonder. From that day on I never merely twirled my komboloi, I let it speak to me through the caress of my fingers and the music of its movement.
Dreamtime
I’m sitting on my terrace looking across the sea at the infinite horizon. I am drawn back to the shore. My breath synchronizes with the rise and fall of the waves as I am slowly dropping the beads of my komboloi. I hear its primordial heartbeat as each bead falls on another. I am transported to their origin in ancient trees sending life giving oxygen onto the world. Each oxygen molecule traveling the world throughout time and place touching all of life. The oxygen I am breathing now is the same oxygen that has moved through the lungs of my ancestors, indeed all of life.
Knock, knock, knock…
The beads call me back to the ancient trees. I see them digging their roots deep into the earth even as they reach for the sun in heights that soar beyond comprehension. The wisdom that life can soar more fully when it is rooted and nourished on solid ground arises in me. I relax into the sensation of solidness. I give myself into the ground. I feel my roots dig deep. Then, I feel my consciousness rising, up through the branches and leaves, up higher feeling lighter, energetic, up further, until I’m dissolving into pure energy, weightless.
I am a world tree. Legs, feet sinking into the earth, supported, nourished, embraced. Torso strong and solid. Higher again, arms, hands, fingers floating and weightless, like the leaves reaching higher to the sun, like the birds taking flight from the branches and the leaves into the sky. Higher still, floating into space, so light, just light, pure energy.
Feeling both at once, solid and energetic, roots and leaves. I am both. Solidness and weightlessness dissolving into each other. Energy and matter.
Knock, knock, knock…
I’m called back once more by the feeling of the beads on my fingers and their sound reverberating in my eardrums. I feel as much as know how their wisdom is crystallized in the resin fossilized and left as a gift for the future. I am following history now as the amber moves through the earth and soil to be discovered by people, transported, traded, shaped, and moved by so many hands until they found their way to a merchant in the tiny village of Melidoni and at last in my hands. There is this overwhelming sense of interdependence. My hands connected to so many other hands. I sense through these beads, through the water of the sea, through the oxygen I breathe, I am connected to everything across time and Earth. All is One.
A poem on understanding the Cretan Soul can be found here:
and a dive into Crete here:
Previous stories featuring Stavros can be found here:
A shout out to the Transcendentalist whose writing has inspired me to dig a little deeper. Peace to the wanderer.
I also want to acknowledge Aris Evangelinos and his great book The Komboloi and its History. My komboloi is the one on top of the book:
