(from Andrew Horton’s book "Bones in the sea – Time apart on a greek island")

August 15^th is the Feast Day of the Panayea, the Virgin Mary. It is one of the biggest celebrations throughout Greece, and on the islands and in villages, it is the most important. Part of the Orthodox church calendar of feast days, this celebration-or paneyeri-is, of course, simply Christianity’s absorption of a much more ancient summer harvest festival that dates back to prehistory and the worship of Mother Earth, the provider of food.

Kea is no exception.

Every year, on this day, the island is packed. Keans living in Athens have returned, as usual, along with many distant relatives.

All day long there is the sense of "something special" in the air. People stroll aroung in their Sunday best. The shops, especially the butchers, work overtime. Pickup trucks bring vegetables and other goods are coming and going to the platea constantly. Bells ring out from chapels thoughout the village.

Throughout Hora there are individualized celebrations in progress. On one small patio a table is set up and a group of family and friends are sipping ouzo and eating mezedakia-hors d’oeuvres. Later they will join everyone else in the platea, but they are beginning the feast at home. Or, further along, another family is spread out over several steps of the street in front of their house, and yet another family has, since the sun has ceased to be a threat, taken up their gathering on their flat rooftop with a view of village and sea.

Teenagers gather, wearing the latest fashions from Athens and the movies, which means they look exactly like teenagers in New Orleans or New York or London. And on the stereo they play a mixture of the latest Greek and international pop music.

By early evening tables and chairs fill every square foot of the platea, and the unamplified sounds of the musicians hired for the feast pleasantly carry throughout the village as they practise in the office of the Cultural Club of Kea. And later you can hear the high-pitched, plaintive whine of the violin, a characteristic of island music. The musicians play very well and a local fellow sings the alternatingly plaintive and joyous island tunes. Everybody, young or old dances and sings along with the musicians till the next morning.

And there is so much kefi.

"Kefi" has no direct equivalent in English. In concept, it means something like "feeling very good in a group situation" or a kind of spontaneous joy reached with good friends involved in the same activity. That is an important word, and that there doesn’t appear to be a need to express such an experience in English does, of course, speak eloquently to yet another difference between cultures.

You feel then how closely the great comic poet Aristophanes was to the pulse beat of such simple, country celebrations in his plays. There more clearly than anywhere else we find paneyeris joyfully carried out. In his earliest comedy that has survived, The Acharnians, Dikaiopolis, a small farmer/charcoal seller from near Athens, leads a one-man crusade for peace while Athens and its diplomats are busy fighting Sparta in the disastrous Peloponnesian War. Aristophanes’ vision of what peace is like sounds just like any countryside paneyeri :

O Phales, enter in to us,

And join us in our songs !

Come share our drink and spread our joy !

Stay up to hail the dawn.

It may seem a far distance from Aristophanes’ phallic festivities in honor of Dionysios --god of grape and drama-- to the Orthodox Feast of the Virgin Mary. But the connection is a strong and clear one. Simply told, the Virgin is just the latest in a long line of Vegetation Goddesses.

Whether for Dionysios or the Virgin, these feasts concern fertility, harvest, regeneration and thus continuation. As Jane Harrison so convincingly points out in her study of Greek religion and customs, Themis, religions focus on primary needs, and one of the most basic is food. Thus it is no wonder that the earliest cultures in Greece, most especially in Crete, were worshippers of Earth Mothers in various forms, for it is the earth that feeds us.

This agricultural basis of religious custom is also clear in the ancient organization of the "year". We divide up our years according to the sun: thus four seasons and a new year in winter. But the ancients were originally followers of an earth orientation, and so had two seasons, summer and winter, divided according to the planting and harvesting of crops and tending of animals. Summer began in March, a fact reflected in the Dionysian festivals in Athens at that time during which plays were performed: as god of the grape (as well as other vegetation – especially ivy – and animals), Dionysios was directly concerned with fertility and rebirth.

Drama itself, therefore, began as part of the celebration of such a "new year" coming into existence. And winter began after the summer harvest, around August 15! I had long wondered why after the 15th Greeks wished each other "kalo heimona" ("happy winter") as they headed back to Athens from vacation. This bi-seasonal calendar is the answer. Winter always has begun in August for Greeks who saw it that way, long before they switched first to a lunar calendar with three seasons, and then to a sun-determined division of the year. By the end of August many café-bars, restaurants etc. close, and a message in Greek and English wishes everyone a "happy winter" from the owner.

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