Our Ithaka

Ithaka, a poem oft-paraphrased and quoted in Greece, is over 100 years old now. It's language brings us back not just one century, but over 1,000 years, to the Homeric writings of the Odyssey. The poem, though, is of timeless essense relating to life and expectations, to goals and hopes, to the distinction between where one thinks he/she is going and to how, in the end it is the journey that perhaps matters more than the destination.

"Our Ithaka" is simply our story of our travels, our lives, and our adventures. We hope that this is the first of many such postings, some long, some shorter. It will be of this and that, of little things or big. For what it's worth, here is the beginning of our journey to Our Ithaka...

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind- as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

By C.P. Cavafy