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Here's
a hit from Chapter Four
We slowly wandered into the weedy avenues of forsaken Delos. No one had lived there for a very long time, yet it felt like they would be coming back at any moment. Delos waited. Too much had happened here. Too many feet had run through the olive oil-lit night. Too much laughter and scheming. Too much desire and longing. Too many prayers to Apollo and Hermes and Artemis and even to the Egyptian goddess, Isis and the Jewish, Yahweh. It felt like Delos was ready to be re-built, re-emerge as its eminence required.
Anyone who had money in those long-ago years had made a stop here. It was tops - the Eiffel Tower, The Empire State, The Brandenburg Gate of antiquity, but more potent than those secular sights. Delos was numinous - like Lourdes or the Mayan pyramids or the great Angar Wat. I could still
feel Delos, through so much dissolution and time and goatherds, though tumbled and crumbly and buried, I felt that Delos retained her sacred poise and power.
We wandered from the museum to the sacred lake where Leto had bathed after the tribulations of birth, then crisscrossed the treasuries to the smaller sanctuary of Artemis. The complexity and density of architecture was staggering.
We climbed to the temple of Isis erected to honor the Syrians and looked over the stonescape of Delos. Drawing 5 - Delos
“I feel so bad for those gods,” I sighed. “Where are they now? Do they roam lonely and cold, neglected by human thought and prayer? Is Mt. Olympus in ruins? What’s happened to them?”
“They weren’t loving gods. They were vicious. Always tormenting someone. Look at poor Leto. Zeus knocks her up and where the hell is he while she wanders the earth carrying his progeny? All the while she’s being chased by death itself? They were cruel and selfish. Childish, really. Good riddance.”
“Think of how much the Greeks defined human nature and the psyche by the ragings and cavortings of the pantheon.”
“They were assholes. Neurotic. Grandiose. Unenlightened,” William continued.
“You’re right, but they exemplified the vast mis-creations of the ego. Where have they gone? Did the Greeks invent them or did they exist on their own? If the Greeks did invent them, did they become real in some way by virtue of thought, by the collective unconscious of the Greeks? If so, what’s happened to them? Have they become like hungry ghosts?”
“Hungry ghosts?”
“You know in Buddhism, the hungry ghosts? The ones who can’t be fed? Roaming and starving, insatiable. Ravenous creatures that can’t find food, or sometimes their mouths are too small and they can’t get the food in if they do find it. Have the gods of Antiquity become like that? Is Apollo circling now, longing for even the smallest token of respect? A little morsel of acknowledgement? Is Isis sitting, right there, right now, on that broken stone throne reaching towards us for a gentle word? Are they cold and lonely, searching for followers?”
“You’re tripping. You need to quit talking and eat something. Come on.”
William grabbed my hand and pulled me from the temple of Isis and up the path of Mt. Kynthos, which is really just an outcropping of rock, to a sheltered nook.
“I want an olive,” he smacked. He pulled the pack off my back and ripped into the contents: wine, olives, a young Goat cheese and spinach tarts.
“Where’s your knife?”
I pulled out a mesh pouch and fumbled for the knife with the antler handle and cork screw. I watched him as he gleefully tore open the paper around the tarts and stabbed the soft goat cheese with the knife. He scooped up a big glob and slathered it on one of the tarts. He put it between his teeth and took an enormous bite, piled another big wad of cheese on the remaining bit of tart and stuffed it in his mouth, which made his cheeks pooch out. He winked at me as he pulled the corkscrew out of the knife, squeaked it into the cork and crisply popped it from the bottle, from which he took a big slug. He sighed loudly and handed it to me.
I declined. I looked at him with utter disgust.
“What?”
I glared at him.
“What’s the matter?”
I turned away from him and looked at the sea. It was white.
“What? You don’t want to eat yet?”
I said nothing.
“Well, I’m eating. It’s delicious.”
“I don’t give a shit about that.”
“Well, what?”
“Goddam you.”
“What?”
“Why do you always have to stop a conversation?”
“What conversation?”
“What conversation? About the gods.”
“That wasn’t a conversation.”
“Not with you.”
“Not with anyone. That was a diatribe. A masturbatory rambling that looked far from climax.”
“Shut-up.”
“Look, you don’t have to listen to yourself. You just go on and on, and about what?”
“And you don’t?”
“Whatever I have to say is a direct channel from the divine.”
“I hate you.”
“Come on, that was a joke.”
“You always do this. You curtail me. You can’t let me have my thoughts.”
“Well, you have so many.”
“It’s controlling. Tyrannical.”
“Look, I know you’re excited. I know you’re happy and curious. I just wanted a little quiet and some wine. Here, you have some. You’ll feel better.”
“Drop dead.” I turned away, pouty.
“Come on,” he continued. “I love your mind, but isn’t it nice to just be quiet a little and look at the sea. Come on, have a little wine.”
“I really hate when you do that. Do you think everything you say is fascinating? I have to listen to a lot of crap that comes out of your hole. All the criticism and complaining.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I just hate it when you do that.”
“I know.” He held out the tart to me. “You should really taste this tart. It’s so good. Look, I’ll put a little goat cheese on it for you. Ummn, doesn’t that look good?”
I looked at it. I turned away, but not as far as before.
“Yum, this is so good. With the wine, it’s perfection.”
I looked at it again.
“If you don’t eat it, I will.”
“Don’t you dare.” I lunged at it. So deliciously tart and creamy and the crust melted into my mouth. I chugged some Retsina and it swirled with the goat cheese and dribbled down my chin.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Shut up.”
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