Geoglossa, Listening to Greece
by Mark Sargent
The Earth speaks many tongues, most of which are indecipherable, but there is a sound in this land on the planet where the meeting of sky and earth is clean and sharp. We recognize the sound, it is deeply familiar. We know the cadences in our blood, but more than that, there is an identification at the level of consciousness, right there where you make connections, where you forge your tools in the fires of culture. And the reason for this is: The Greek landscape speaks a human language.
There are several factors at work here. Dimension: there is an accessibility to the land, you can touch it with the eye's hand and feel its texture. It's not just size, for the here can be big. I am sitting in a village some 1,400 feet above sea level. Directly above the village and to the west is the Taygetos range that varies from 6,000 to 8,000 feet in elevation. When I say above I mean it is a very steep ascent; perhaps a mile away is an elevation of 7,000 feet. Across the valley to the east is the Parnonas mountain range which is nearly as high as the Taygetos. I can see all of this from the house as well as the Byzantine castle of Mystras which lies a couple of miles south; some claim that on certain clear days you can see the sea twenty-five miles to the south, but at that distance, who can tell from sea and sky. And so, although you never get the sense of immense size that the American West can give, you can still get big, panoramic; as opposed to a place such as England, for instance, which is heavily peopled and difficult to get a big view of.
But back to the eye's hand and how it (and what it) touches. It is difficult to speak with any originality about this country--it has been described so many thousands of times: when you see Greece you are indeed dipping into a collective intellectual memory, yet how it speaks can be startlingly fresh because it runs so deep. For some, the shock of recognition leaves them speechless and contemplating dramatic life changes: finally, I am where I belong. This has happened to many. Although I haven't been there, I get the impression from written accounts that Palestine can have the same effect. But here's one of the most interesting questions: would someone without a European heritage have this reaction? Would someone from Beijing or Tahiti or Madagascar be able to tap into the Greco-Judeo-Christian memory stream when they stepped upon this land? Or, conversely, what would the Arabian desert, what would Mecca say to us? And I don't mean a spiritual presence, really. Certainly many people, such as myself, have the pretension to believe that we are attuned to the spirit of holy or haunted places such as Ankor Wat or Mycenae, but this isn't what I mean.
Let me reiterate my thesis: The Greek landscape speaks a human language. The land has a tongue: Geoglossa, if you will. Is it the human history talking? But where doesn't this history exist? Even the top of Mount Everest now has a human tradition. And yet, this is where it springs from. Man is naked on this earth and nowhere more so than Greece. Mountains, rock and sea. And against this stark backdrop the echoes of man, be they written in stone or on the wind, stand in stark relief. Olives and wine. The ethereal light and the scent of thyme. When you look at the hills, when you walk them, when you listen, you hear the human years stretching back: a gush of tears and suffering broken by brief spasms of clarity and consciousness. Of poetry. Homer and Pindar still walk this earth and speak. Read Hesiod and then walk into the olive orchards shimmering in the light, the cicadas ascream, goat bells tinkling in the hard mountain air, and you will know his gods. The Peloponnesian War happened yesterday and Thucydides is holding forth beneath the plane tree in the platea. A human language that you can comprehend.
As always, you have to be ready to hear. And that brings me back to who can hear. Is a saturation from birth in European culture required? This is a mysterious thing. Maybe it's the olive trees whispering? They live for hundreds of years, even a thousand. They have heard everything and look to have suffered because of it: twisted, gnarled and writhing they cover the hills in every direction, their silver green leaves flickering the light. A shimmer through the afternoon haze... And what does the land say? It says: this is it. All of your sufferings and joys will be played out here on this hard tired earth in this sharp clear light. And then I will suck the flesh from your bones and that will be that. The only life after death is the song that throbs in your children. And when we are hypnotized by the Greek landscape it is that distant song passing through us that we are hearing.
I was born and raised in Olympia, Washington, and have spent many days on the waters of Puget Sound and in the mountains that surround it. In high school we would often hike into the Olympics for days with a minimum of gear: no tents or sleeping pads, just matches, coffee, fishing tackle, a couple cans of beans and a chunk of bacon. I have sailed everywhere on Puget Sound. And since leaving my hometown at nineteen I have been all over the American West. It is a vast and fantastic place. I love it and will always come back for another taste. I can feel its spirit and power; I can revel in its beauty and destructive force, but it does not speak to me in a language I can decipher. Perhaps it is too big. Or I am too small. One impression I do get is a sense of the vast interdependence of things and the impossibility of truly understanding the infinite nature of time, but it is all very vague and difficult to grasp.
I am willing to believe that it speaks to the native peoples in a language they understand. Many years ago, I spent some time at Crow Dog's Paradise in the Black Hills, and many of the Lakota Sioux and members of other tribes I met gave me the impression that they were attuned to a language I could only guess at. And this language was spoken not only by the land itself but by the creatures who lived upon that land. Interspecies communication on a spiritual level was an integral part of their tradition. When deciding whether to accept a Federal Government offer (this was during the Wounded Knee occupation), an elaborate ceremony was held, puppy stew being the main bill-o-fare, wherein different creatures spoke through Chief Foolscrow. When they spoke they made sounds they make in the wild, though channeled by the Chief, and it was up to the elders to interpret what they meant. Great attention was given to what particular animals spoke. In this instance an owl, a seemingly universal symbol of wisdom, spoke last and this was taken to mean that whatever decision the Chief made would be righteous indeed. The Wounded Knee confrontation had also awoken many young urban Indians and they had come to South Dakota to attempt to find their culture. They were having a very difficult time. The native path was as foreign to them as it was to me. They had had no preparation, and couldn't tell a crow from an eagle. For them to begin they had to listen to their blood. So perhaps it is a matter of the language of the land you are on, and whether you have been trained to hear it.
Here, in Greece, the history of the land, the last three thousand years anyway, has been written out for us. The language-obsessed West has given us a record that is easily accessible. In the canyon below our house the Spartan soldiers used to march double-time while hurrying over the mountains to Messina to put down revolts. Across the canyon is the village of Tripi (which means hole in Ancient Greek and still has the same meaning in Modern Greek-imagine, Sophocles used the same word, they are using many words that are at least 2,500 years old and have retained their meaning). In Tripi is a cleft in the rock where the Spartans used to leave unwanted infants. And on; everywhere you look the human drama has been played out, over and over. In this terrain we see ourselves, it is part of us, and it sings. A cycle completed, a music remembered. And once you hear it, you can't ever truly turn it off. And why would you? It has always been there.
Mark Sargent. Raven contributing editor. Born in Olympia. Moved with wife and son to the mountains of southern Greece in 1990, and still lives there. Books include Paint The Goat (Susan Howard, San Francisco, 1995), and The Body Prays (Alaina Lara, Portland, 1996). Currently completing a novel, "Trailing Clouds."