Country estate NE of Marsala, Sicilia. Saturday, May 5

Country estate NE of Marsala, Sicilia. Saturday, May 5. 

Golden Aphrodite

Dear Trail Friends

It is 9:30am, a cool breezy morning between rainfalls, and I am savoring the sounds of birds and the view in photo 1. 

Breakfast here was the most elaborate we have had and, leaving my sugar sobriety in the ancient past, I sampled a pistachio tart, a chocolate croissant, a strawberry tart and another pistachio pastry of unknown name. 

Actually I’m feeling a little depressed this morning and am hoping the artificial sugar high will help. I think the high point of the day yesterday was overhearing the local guide speak of the settlement at Selinunde (when we toured the vast archeological park there) as being located between two rivers (and so accessible to ships from the sea) - I heard her say that a river can be counted on to find the lowest possible point in a given terrain. I had never thought of that as an accomplishment - but there you have it. I’d call that a virtuoso reframe. (When I repeated this, a group member spoke of how the river also brings life-giving water and nourishment to all the plants, animals and people around it - I pretty much blushed and ducked!)

We spent the morning touring Selinunde which I hope I am spelling right. Despite predictions of rain we were lucky. I have found that the electronic gizmos that amplify the voice of the guide don’t work for me. My particular form of hearing loss makes amplified sound frequently painful for me. Add to that the fact that I hate to stand still (much prefer to be either sitting or walking), easily feel overloaded, and have an inordinate need to go at my own pace and feel in control, and you will find me walking around the archeological park while most of the group clusters around the guide taking in all that she knows and can share about the the ruins. 

But solitary walking has it delights, as I have learned so well on the trail. The flowers, the sea, the fallen limestone fragments of columns and blocks, the temple ruins seem from changing angles and distances, the group in the distance, the company of my own shifting feelings and thoughts. The way my breath, heart, and thoughts all slow down and sertkw gently into an almost hammock-like slow swaying rhythmic state of peacefulness and ease. Funny I can feel it as I write about it. How powerful language is. Photo 2 is a collage meant to convey a little of the atmosphere of this beautiful site - the biggest archeological site in Europe, we were told. 

But in case it’s not enough here is photo 3. I especially liked the dog sleeping on the temple steps (above) and our youngest tour member Melody relaxing among the ruins (below). 

Our next stop was a lunch, the high point of which (for me) was a couple of accordion/playing musicians who mama aged to recruit Melody and Ben to join them playing tambourines. The entire group joined in clapping and laughing (photo 4). 

I remember when I was a young wannabe revolutionary and traveled with the radical group SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) to ‘Cuba Libra’- which I imagined to be a model revolutionary country in those days before I came to believe that the dark side of our human nature (greed, power needs, cruelty) will be our faithful companion on every journey of social reorganization despite our ideals of peace and justice. But I was young then and full of the illusion of fresh starts. I was so impressed by their campaign against analfabetismo (illiteracy) - young people junior high age spending a year in the countryside living with families and teaching the adults to read and write. We watched a documentary and all our guides (who had participated as young people) had tears in their eyes from the memory. I loved in Cuba the way touch and music were always present - people leaned on one another as they talked, they beat out rhythms and music with their knives and forks after meals. I loved the culture. This moment of musical connection reminded me of those hopes. 

And somehow this associates to Chris’s lecture on Aphrodite last night. Toward the end of the lecture she spoke of how Aphrodite punished Hippolytus for his disregard of her. He worshipped only Artemis, loved the hunt and the woods and the wild, wanted to maintain purity and turned away from erotic love. Chris said that unlike the God of the great monotheistic traditions the Greek gods never demanded that mortals worship only them. But there did demand that mortals include them in the pantheon of their worship. 

I think I approached “the Revolution” as a monotheist. I was expecting the “god” of that dream to be all-perfect and all-powerful. I was deeply disillusioned when I discovered limitation and fragility and competing truths and powers. Since that loss of faith I have mostly been aversive to and avoidant of politics and activism. But the joy of sharing music and rhythm, that sense of harmonious connection, reminds me that dream is still a kind of divine energy, though not the only one. 

We are by the way on the bus now so this project has to compete with the movement and bumps of the bus and the sound of Angela’s voice as she offers an informal lecture as we drive. My need for quiet goes unmet and I cannot wander away when riding the bus. I put in earplugs but they barely muffle her voice. I like her very much but find her bus lectures sing-song in their rhythms (odd that I use ‘sing-song’ as pejorative here after celebrating music and song just a paragraph or two before, but this is I find a very repetitive vocal melody that bores and irritates me and sabotages attending to and comprehending meaning). I wish I could tune her voice out. Oh well. 

It’s hard to cultivate the “blog writing trance” in the bus. It depends I’m afraid on quiet and solitude and the state - mental and physical - that they make possible. 

So let me simply accept that I can’t do any real reflection now. I still want to show you where we went on the early evening for cocktails and to watch the sun set behind windmills and a salt-drying plant. The stop was very touristic and I would have skipped it from our itinerary altogether (in my ideal tour that is of course perfect) except for the fact that one of Judy’s photos (and her drawing last night) were among my favorites from the trip so far. 

Photos 5 and 6 are Judy’s photo and drawing. 

I would not have missed it for the world. By the way, I also want to share Judy’s drawing based on a base design in the museum at Agrigento  photo 7. 

I wish I could give you a glimpse of Chris’s lecture on Aphrodite. She gave some historical background to the temple we will visit today at Segesta, related to Athens attempt to dominate the Ancient Greek world and the failure of those imperial efforts - I can’t accurately remember and recount it all, but it is a reminder of how the beauty of civilization intertwine with the urge to power and domination and the horrors of war. A reminder that this has been going on for thousands of years. 

I remember that Chris’s lecture included the birth of Aphrodite (she had us all visualizing the Botticelli painting), Homer’s portrayal of her in the Iliad, how she was Zeus’s older sister and in some ways a rival power and how Zeus once made her fall hopelessly in love with a mortal man, the way she so often made the male gods fall in love with mortal women. I am keenly aware that here on the bus I cannot recover the mood and feelings, much less the stories and content. It felt as if the Aphrodite energy were in the room with us as Chris “danced” (as she tends to do) her lecture, stomping a foot when she made an important point. It brought back memories of our courtship in the early 1980s, when we associated Chris with Aphrodite energy (beauty, pleasure, ergotism, orientation toward the I-thou encounter) and me with Artemis energy (wildness, nature, virginity or being one in one’s self, being apart from civilization and close to plants and animals and streams, rivers, woods, mountains). We courted in part by letters taped to my door ( Chris could drive by my apartment on her way to San Diego State University where Ashe taught) and often she would include a white rose in honor of Artemis for me and I might give her a yellow rose in honor of “golden Aphrodite.”

We can end with photo 8 - Ben and Kiki at breakfast (who say that they two are an Artemis/Aphrodite couple) with white and yellow roses at their table this morning. 

Let me end here - however imperfectly - (oops got interrupted because bus arrived at Segesta. On the walk up Judy was talking about how Chris ended her lecture. After telling a number of stories (including that of Hippolytus whose story ends tragically after he denies with disgust his young stepmother’s advances - Phaedra has been smitten by Aphrodite with love for her stepson - she leaves a suicide note accusing him of raping her), chris said ( to paraphrase), it doesn’t work to ignore Aphrodite. It didn’t work then, and it never does. 

And so, trail friends, let us give due respect to golden Aphrodite, and in her honor I wish you sogni d’ora (golden dreams).