A joyous, rolicking testimony of the power of wine to turn men into gods, or at least make them feel that way. Zorba’s exuberance and vivid experience of even the commonplace makes him a world class nuannaarpoqian.

May you occasionally feel as if you will live a thousand years.

“We clinked glasses and tasted the wine, an exquisite Cretan wine, a rich red colour, like hare’s blood. When you drank it, you felt as if you were in communion with the blood of the earth itself and you became a sort of ogre. Your veins overflowed with strength, your heart with goodness!  If you were a lamb you turned into a lion. You forgot the pettiness of life, constraints all fell away. United to man, beast and God, you felt that you were one with the universe.”  “Everything’s fine,” he said.  “We shall live a thousand years, boss; we’ve hearts of steel.”

Source: Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis, trans. Carl Wildman, Faber & Faber, p. 311

Photo credit: Kelsey Knight at unsplash.com