- Syros Healing Waves Festival runs October 2–5, 2025, in Ermoupoli.
- Harvard psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk headlines talks on trauma and resilience.
- Program: yoga with an Aegean view, psychodrama, Afro Yoga, and healing workshops.
- Art highlights: Cavafy concert, exhibition, and world premiere by Zbigniew Preisner.
- Festival ends with a traditional glenti at Tarsanas.
- In-person and online participation; student and disability discounts.
From Trauma to Tarsanas
Clear your calendars: Syros is about to become the island where Freud meets Zorba. From October 2 to 5, Ermoupoli hosts the Healing Waves Festival, where therapy, art, and a little yoga-induced enlightenment come served with a side of Cycladic breeze.
Headliner Bessel van der Kolk—yes, the Harvard psychiatrist who wrote The Body Keeps the Score and accidentally made trauma a bestseller—arrives with Licia Sky and Benjamin Fry to talk resilience, scars that echo through generations, and why your nervous system deserves better.
And because talking about feelings is never enough, the program adds layers: yoga with sea views, psychodrama workshops (finally, drama that is good for you), Afro Yoga (exactly as fabulous as it sounds), and other sessions where the Aegean horizon doubles as your therapist’s couch.
Art, Because Healing Needs a Soundtrack
This is Syros—we cannot just heal, we must also perform. The arts program is just as ambitious:
- An industrial museum exhibition for your visual fix,
- A Cavafy music-and-poetry night at the Apollo Theater to prove poetry is therapy,
- And the pièce de résistance: the world premiere of “Healing Waves” by Zbigniew Preisner, because nothing says inner peace like a brand-new symphonic score.
Naturally, no Greek festival ends with a polite round of applause. Instead, everyone heads to Tarsanas shipyard for a good old-fashioned glenti—because sometimes dancing it out works better than years of journaling.
You can attend in person (lucky you), or online if your passport is hiding in a drawer. Students and people with disabilities get discounts, because healing waves should not come with luxury price tags.
So, come for the yoga, stay for the psychodrama, and leave Syros with your chakras aligned, your playlists refreshed, and maybe a little sea salt still in your hair.
