Katerina Panagiotopoulou
I am a sun worshiper and a nature lover. In Lesvos, my treatment room is under the trees, and Sofia the cat is my assistant. In Oslo, I walk the river each day, learning from the trees and their seasons. I am blessed to work and walk with the 5 elements—protectors and creators in every tradition I’ve studied, from the I Ching to shamanism. I believe in the simplicity of love: to make someone happy. Imagine if we all did.
I was born in Thessaloniki, Hellas, in 1959: the year of the pink Cadillac, and Tibet's occupation by China. My mother was a pink cadillac woman, and my father a saint. They met during the war, in hospital. She a nurse, and he, a lawyer that lost one eye. She became his eye.You could not tell by looking at my father, so you would not know why she was driving the car, and making more money than he. She went to the top of her profession and lived to be 97! I did not notice that anything was different about my family. At school, they asked: What does your father do? No one asked about my mother! I realized much later how much work these small and great people had done for me. I want to pass so much love that I was given on to all beings coming after me.
The war they fought was not talked about. It was the elephant in the room, the thing we were grateful we did not have.
With mother at work, I was raised by her mother, a small person dressed in black. She smelled of oranges and cooked delicious food. She told me about being thrown out of their home in Turkey, how the Turkish people helped them get in a crowded boat in the middle of the night, and how women were treated in her world.
I was left alone, in the good and bad sense of aloneness. I had a great love and ease with the natural world, and spend my summers on 2 huge fig trees, who taught me kindness and generosity. The rest of the time I was with the sea, who taught me playfulness, trusting, ease, how to live in a non verbal and timeless world. I
By the time the junta was overthrown and flower power hit Ellas, in 1974, I was 15 years old. Thessaloniki was a grey city, people still in shock by war. The holocaust took 70.000 people, more than half the city, is still not talked about today. I remember it as a thickness in the air we were breathing. Invisible, yet pressing on our hearts.
We lived on the 7th floor, and had a big balcony looking down to a street with a youth hostel. And there, came the magic bus! In came the colors, the smells, the music! In my uniform world, came all possibilities of shapes, forms, hair styles, lifestyles! I was so impressed, I used to follow these people around town. As soon as I could, I got into the bus to India. Overland. I travelled with my friend Philip, in 1978, before we lost Afganistan and Persia, just on time to take a glance at these very old cultures, the beauty of art and architecture, the diversity.
I was searching for earth traditions. I needed to learn about the solar system, and the universe. I was searching for my place on earth, to be accepted and cherished by the earth, to be as wise and beautifull, special and real, as everything else.
So I got lost. I was lost. I could not find a place to be and something meaningful to do. In 1979, being back in Thessaloniki, I started studying the classics, anything I could find about earth traditions, Tao, shamanism. Many of my friends were getting into heroin, loosing their honesty, their beauty, sometimes their life. My parents were silently co suffering with me. They said go! Go wherever you like and study whatever you like! I knew some women musicians in London, and stayed with them, studying art...... until in the summer of 1981, during a very rainy camping trip in Scotland with my friend Sally, I was called by acupuncture!
We were camping in the island of Sky, a very silly thing to do, even when you are 20. The word acupuncture was coming from the Sky. Bells were ringing. I hag finally arrived home! I had a place to go, and something to do!
5 element acupuncture is practical spirituality. You are present and inquiring, sensing, touching, being being......at work. Emerging, exploring the holographic field of life. I went on to study classical acupuncture and NLP, Shen Dao acupressure, Feng Shui, Chinese herbs. My first meeting with geomancy was in Sedona, in New Mexico, which then highlighted the sacred sites in England. I was an assistant in Feng Shui Network international between 1996 and the year 200, andtought Feng Shu in Ayhens between 1998 and 2005. Geomancy opened my eyes to the sacred sites of Hellas. Olympos, the Holy mountain, Pilion, places where we are coming into color, that make us more human.
All this led to Living with the seasons: I bought land in Lesvos where I aquired my roots. Being with 25 olive and oak trees, my sisters. The motions of the moon, ebb and flow of all life is deeply healing. Living with the Seasons, is coming from mother earth, nourishes, guides, protects. Whenever I can, I take other people with me, I love to show them the treasures I discovered.
If you feel drawn to walk with the elements, to receive their gifts, or simply to reconnect to what’s real—welcome.
Imagine if we all did.