drmarciapinheiro.files.wordpress.com file · web view‘it rests on my limb,’ tells me michael...

A bee is in search of someone’s back of hand.

Where does it rest?

‘It rests on my limb,’ tells me Michael Stavropoulos (MS), our friendly and welcoming building 10, ground floor, entry point, Sydney University of Technology (UTS) hairdresser.Michael is the man posing with two of his original paintings behind him:

He is also the man who claims to speak the language of the bees: ‘there is the language of people, and the language of the animals;

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every life form has its own language, so that, if you learn that language, you will feel better, you will communicate better.’ I (MRP) am sipping my Oz Style coffee, fully prepared by Michael’s hands and wisdom, from what I could only classify as a rustic mug, and he makes sure I know that the spoon that made water and powder become proper coffee is made of pure gold.Someone gave it to him… That is a constant in Michael’s life; that is what makes hairdressing be worth the run.MRP: ‘Michael, what is this? You have a Master’s?’ MS: ‘My son gave that to me.’MRP: ‘Your son?’

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MS: ‘It is Stavropoulos; not Stravropoullis.’ I now believe he has an honorary title of some sort, given to him by someone important.MS: ‘It is a joke!’MRP: ‘A joke? You don’t have a Master’s?’He forgets his client a little, a professor this time; turns his body entirely to me, raises both arms evenly, and flexes his legs. MS: ‘I don’t! You see what my hands are doing? They are trying to make a man look better.’ Michael’s hands also radiate energy and

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scream necessity: the man who is quick at showing gratitude to his wife for 11 years, the so missed Angela of all talents, not as Greek as himself, since she was born from Greeks but not in Greece, and Angela’s name brings him the honour of giving awards for academic excellence to secondary students still in 2018 in educational establishments of the level of the Greek Orthodox college Saint Spyridon, wants me to revere him somehow. Nicholas, one of his two sons, a motorcycle rider, already does that: he paid Michael’s trip as well as his stay at a Greek luxury hotel with crisp looks and inviting swimming pool recently (‘all I had to pay was coffee and food’).

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Michael’s Luxury HotelNichola’s brother was named after Michael’s brother to remind him of how much the two of them fought on the front line together in the eternal battle that life in this world is; no doubts about it. MS: ‘George, my other son, loves and respects me as well. I am very happy with the both of them. George also sponsors my holidays. As you must have inferred by now, the energy that I give comes back to me. More than that: whatever energy that comes out of me comes back many times bigger because our brain is both a transmitter and a receiver, so that if good energy goes out of

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you, good energy comes/ back to you. If you send bad energy, bad energy will come back, but, because energy is electromagnetic, the same energy sticks to the connector and comes back a lot bigger.’Michael mentored Nicholas, and that is why Nicholas is that kind with him.Perhaps that is why he, perfect match for our Spartan-Australian-born Angela, for also having all talents, painted stairs that can take us anywhere: do something that matters for Michael, and you may get the suggestion that will take you somewhere you dream of being.

The Stairs

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The staggering black and white painting makes glimpses of a similar image appear in my Inner Reality. Time for Meli, or to materialise its slogan: with love from Michael & the bees. Meli is Michael’s hand manufactured honey, personally collected by him from his back yard hives.MS: ‘160,000 bees; 2 hives; every frame has got 2000, and we have 40 frames. I copied it from a painting - yes, I do that sometimes - but I have also painted a few originals. The label, for the honey pots, who designed was my nice, Elene.’

’ The original swarm was spotted by Michael as he and his so missed life partner, who, as far as Michael is concerned, was attracted by his

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royal jelly factor to him, arrived from their first overseas leisure trip in 1977. From that year onward, the business only grew: Gavin Gibson invests in the art of advertising and selling Michael’s produce, so that Meli is now a first-prize winner (Royal Easter Show 2018, classes 13 and 16, first and second prizes, respectively).

It is just that, for some, such as this gaucho honey manufacturer who I once met, what really matters is the flowers from which the bees sip: monofloral streams give us better honey than varietal ones.

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Meli is weightless to the tongue, smooth when going down the throat, and free of crystals. Yet, it comes from a varietal system of production (orchids, passion fruit flowers, lemon tree flowers, mango tree flowers, roses, eucalyptus flowers, and even cactus flowers). Its aroma is not strong, but, for the connoisseur, aroma does matter: good honey gets the aroma of the flower the bees sip from, and that aroma is there for us to remember the delicate and romantic connection between flowers and bees. Saving nostrils is good as well, and strong aromas usually repel us a bit more each new day, just like cheap perfume. Honey is a health enhancer, and I went from sensation of pneumonia to sensation of almost clear lungs after one day on Meli (yum!). It is all due to its multiple-type inoculation system of production…

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Meli’s value is not only in Michael’s cinematographic story involving finding one swarm inside of the tree cup with his wife, also not only in finding a caring neighbour that accepts leaving his hives there, depending on Michael’s investment in labour, in exchange for taking half of his produce every year, also not only in displaying a beautiful label created by his niece, but also in his mother, Nikoleta Stavropoulos, who dedicated substantial part of her time, being herself a person of multiple talents, to seed the previously virgin or wasted land with her likely-to-be equally bulky hands. Nikoleta’s earthly home’s land and flowers, bought with Michael’s and George’s sweat, meant surviving a trip by ship in 1966 having a brother as only possible source of conversation, and two pounds in the pocket.The siblings’ first Australian property, in Carlton, New South Wales, cost them social (8K; loan), and labour efforts (three years of hard work and joint savings; 4K).

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That property was exchanged for Meli’s hives’ home three years later.MRP: ‘Figures matter, isn’t it?’MS: ‘I had to give two pounds to customs to enter Australia with the two bottles of spirit I kept with me during the trip.’MRP: ‘Convenient figures!’MS: ‘The Greeks invented Maths together with everything that there is; scissors cut 90 degrees, this cuts 45; have a look at this; I copied; have a look.’ I look. That is a hand-drawn cube coloured in a way to portray a scrambled Rubik’s Cube where some volume is seen from a distance of about 2 meters from the piece contained in the A4 sheet. Michael copied the cube that contains several cubes because he liked it, and the amount of those he has is something between twenty and forty…

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MRP: ‘Have you invented this technique, Michael?’MS: ‘I copied it!’ That came only on the third time I asked…The Greek Orthodox Church, the Church that formally associated the name Michael Stavropoulos with the social alias/populace’s synecdoche Angela’s husband through a Christ’s Offer (take my body), a dissident of Catholicism just because their priests marry, and they like singing all the time, as for what I was told, but that has more to it than that, things like the eight-day crown, three-time table-circling, and plate breaking routines, would give him nightmares if he spent any longer sustaining the lie that made me frown.MRP: ‘Is this common where you were born?’MS: ‘I am Messenian; born in Mithoni; Mithoni is a place in Greece. See (points at the poster)? It is also a suburb in Melbourne; one of the Saturn’s moons (swap i for e); a very strategic area.’

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MRP: ‘So, was that about strategy?’Some of Michael’s paintings portray Mithoni…One of those reflects the mirror’s poster’s image.

(…)MRP: ‘Michael, you should sell your paintings.’MS: ‘I don’t sell them. I have them all at home; they stay with me.’Doctor Lea Maria, the inventor of the Flash Therapy, says just the same about hers, so that that must be acceptable thinking.They both fall in love with the same sights.MS: ‘This is Mithoni.’

The Inner Reality filters of Master Michael Stavropoulos, the bee whisperer, Greek

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Orthodox Church member, and post-mortem voice of the kindergarten, primary and secondary teacher, Angela Stavropoulos, and that is the person who envisaged the Australian K-12 system of education (historical precursor), give us these images.One of them (left) rests to the right side of those who sit in Michael’s chair, mirror’s end, and that is where UTS staff and students cut their hair at friendly prices from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm ($ 20/$ 15). The same bulky hands that cut the hair, hands that belong to the nice-looking smiley little Greek man who prefers referring to himself as The Barber, collect the varietal honey from Nikoleta’s gardens, and paint the beautiful places that most of the UTS community will never physically visit. The Barber’s paintings could be sold online, but he is not interested: some hundreds of dollars were given in exchange for a few when he started painting. He doesn’t sell them anymore. Those paintings are the same as

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pictures for him, and some portray pictures.Michael met Angela through them: ‘I arrived, and she was admiring my paintings with two other Greek ladies; all in my bedroom. George, my brother, did that.’ The similarity between the pictures and Michael’s paintings is puzzling.A black and white image (The Stairs), something surrealistic, and a second image, The Fun House, stand out: interesting art.

The Fun HouseThe Barber saw a photographic image in a magazine; it was an English cottage. MS: ‘I liked it, so that I got the spatula, and immediately produced an original painting; half an hour. It was an inspirational moment.’

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But not all is inspirational/spiritual: the customer’s hair is not white…MS: ‘It is silver, and that is because silver is more valuable than white.’ White makes us think of places where to start; a blank sheet of paper…MS: ‘If you start my profile, you must start from the beginning.’As we think of starting, he looks at the shape of my ears: they are stuck, since the lobe disappears into the neck.MS: ‘The wise men in the past said that people with the ears stuck are new souls in this world, and those put more energy into succeeding in life. People with long ear lobe have lots of wisdom from previous lives instead.’

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That does make us think of eternity, and eternity connects to marriage…Angela Stavropoulos failed at high school. MS: ‘Her teacher suggested that she sold burgers at her father’s shop. That was an offence.’

(…)MS: ‘As it is a Greek tradition, Angela was already doing that in her spare time, so that she asked her father to let her do year 12 again instead, and he did allow…’Thanks to Angela’s outstanding achievement during Year 12, the Wollongong University offered her an undergraduate scholarship, and she then became a kindergarten/primary

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teacher, and, later on, a secondary teacher. MS: ‘Angela’s name is on the steps of the New South Wales University: she was one of the three pupils that got Distinction amongst 350 students.’Angela Stavropoulos was a libertarian…MS: ‘Because of Angela, women gained permission to wear pants in Australia. Up to that date, women would feel embarrassed when attempting to play in a playground.’

(…)MS: ‘Angela also created science and technology programs for all Australian schools.’Michael, now sounding like the Archangel he referred to when talking about his name (‘Michael, the archangel; Michael means the light from the sun. That is why the number eight is the infinity movement of the sun in the sky. Double eclipse of the sun, 2017’), reveres Angela: ‘better writing about her in the profile; she has more value.’

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Considering Michael’s long-term connection with energy, he and Angela must remain together on some level, but Michael still appears in books on his own…MS: ‘Marcia, this is me; look at this book here; this is me.’ The Bee Whisperer shows me a picture from David Frith’s book, page 18. That is William Midwinter; ‘the only man to play for Australia against England and vice versa,’ we read from the book.The resemblance is undeniable, but, if one of his clients gave that to him, an academic, perhaps they meant that Michael plays for the Greeks against the Australians and for the Australians against the Greeks, I theorise. MRP: ‘Michael, don’t you think that they could have meant something else? Are we under war with the Greeks or something? What about the Midwinter thing?’

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MS: ‘Sugar is the gift of life, and it makes you sweet as well; it makes you smile, and, if you give your body what it likes, you never go to the doctors; just like myself.’ Our UTS barber reckons that sweet things improve life, and it is funny that Doctor Lea Maria, the greatest psychologist ever alive, also thinks that life is already too bitter, so that sugar is essential. Doctor Lea Maria does acknowledge the harms involving the white machine of clotting and production of unwanted body materials...Is it possible that our whisperer holds lower-than-average rationality levels?

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Shouldn’t he have chosen painting instead of hairdressing? Painting can return millions of dollars… MS: ‘I was finishing high school. Because all my brothers and sisters were in Australia, and I couldn’t go to the university, my father said to me, “whatever you know in life will help you,” and, three months before I left Greece, I was learning how to be a barber in a barber shop. When I came to Australia, I worked in different positions in its factories, and then a friend from my local Greek town had a barber shop in Sydney, so that we went there to work, and slowly I got my own licence. I bought the shop after that, but not this one, no; this one was in 1974. I had people working for me back then, and I liked what I was doing.’Michael also enjoys whispering to his customer’s ears.Michael reckons that whatever he mumbles, since his voice sometimes struggles to

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become corporeal, usually comes to life as intended.MS: ‘My customers go from highest to lowest level, Marcia; even the person who created cyber technology sat here. The ex-public prosecutor is my customer, and so is the marginal number two of Australia; if I tell them something, and they implement, who is responsible? If I tell the vice chancellor an idea, what happens after that? If I catch somebody here, and he has power…’The Barber knows that he is more than a companion, and more than a hairdresser.MS: ‘I had this idea with Angela; we both did. I like education; it is important.’It is important probably because education also means eternity… Reincarnation means eternity…Michael did refer to reincarnations, so that I bothered asking about Spiritism and the alike. Michael completely rejects the idea, so that it

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is perhaps knowledge, information; and it may all come from passion for the space and Mathematics.On the other hand, Master Stavropoulos talks about the little honey makers being attracted to his energy, and customers being reenergised through the interaction with his persona plus the care of his hands: a bit of anti-Science…Michael plays both ways, just like Midwinter, so that perhaps he is a paraconsistent entity.The Greek barber makes paintings that mean hundreds of thousands in an auction to me, but he is not interested in selling any.The Bee Whisperer makes honey that wins first prize, but he is not interested in trading it.Michael has been giving away the good of the gods for over 30 years; this producing about 200 Kg per year from hives that nobody, apart from him, touches.MS: ‘That is the best hobby I have ever had.’

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Perhaps Michael is paying a debt. Perhaps he is only mourning his wife. Perhaps, and this is what he says, he is after our friendship. The cuts are not free…MS: ‘All bees died with Angela. I thought: what is the use of it? Time to stop. If I get the swarm in the tree cup again, then I will do it. Time passed, and Gavin came around someday asking if I could keep his bees in my lands. The bees were very persistent.’Buzzing bees are energy. Buzzing Michael? The human energiser gives us energy that is scientific, but, at the same time, his energy attracts bees and customers to him, and we almost see spirits as he refers to that.The book of the Australia x England matches that go from 1877 onward will be closed, and it will then hide Michael’s worldly known image, which, for some, looks like William Midwinter’s.I will give Michael’s pot of heaven’s honey to my landlord, who is pressing me for more

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money this month, and detach.Michael Stavropoulos claims the rest of my life in biographical labour! Nobody sponsored me to write Michael’s life history; this is only a test match. Perhaps after they approve the deal where those who put his swarm in the tree live…

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