Taking the nightingales of Heraclitus(writing)

I have been in love with Giona since I first visited it 6 years ago. Of course there are dangers in visiting an old love.. maybe the magic will have gone? But I was determined to risk it. I decided to visit a different part of the mountain because .. well just because. We set off from Amphissa along the ferociously steep asphalt road to Lidoriki, before turning, as soon as we could, onto the track that goes into the mountain towards Karoutes. Well it wasn't a very nice track.. it was built for the lorries that go to the bauxite mines. Luckily there was a general strike so the mines weren't working so the number of lorries was small, though their size was large:they included a petrol tanker. It was pretty dusty, even though the road had been sprinkled with water to lay the dust. No rain for three months, they told me, though it had been a very wet and snowy winter. On the lower slopes the fir trees were in bad shape. At least a quarter were dying. Although I had had clear instructions about following specific tracks and about it being easy to get lost, suddenly I couldn`t stand the dust and the lorries and the dying trees any more. I took the first pleasant little track I could find and went along it…like a person trying to save their marriage before I fell out of love irrecoverably. The path wasn't on my map, and I didn`t care where it went, as long as it was beautiful. It was bound to go somewhere, wasn`t it.? Not necessarily. This is the dry side of the mountain, and so shepherds and stock keepers have always had to be careful with water in the summer. I passed a large trap for rainwater which led into a storage tank. It was empty and derelict. There was another deposito which collected all the water from a little creek. I couldn`t give George a drink or have one myself as it was locked. And worse, stolen from the mountain and its wildlife and being used to water a ---lawn… guys!!!! Surely not.. no really, at least 15 kilometres from anywhere someone has built a villa and well, a villa has, gotta have a lawn and non native trees and that stream and that water storage, well, they aren`t doing anything, so I`ll have them…fuck you shepherds, sod you roedeer, there`s too many foxes anyway… The dead trees, according to the forestry department, are caused by a disease, which spreads from one tree to another. This is certainly the case. But, as with the pines and the caterpillars on Mt Loutraki/Perahora ,so with the firs and this disease on almost every mountain in Greece. Where the trees are unstressed they can resist the disease much better. For example, now, when George and I went up and up this path that led nowhere, the trees got bigger and healthier. The higher we got the damper and cooler it was and right high up there were no sick trees at all. If it were just a case of a disease spreading and wiping out the forest throughout the mountains of Greece, then there would be the same incidence of the disease everywhere. Like AIDS in humans. But its not like that. Healthy trees can resist or survive much better than stressed trees. After a while I realised I had to go back to the horrid track I had left. By the time it was dark we reached Karoutes. We camped in the church. Interestingly it had a bell that worked by electricity. This meant George and I got a shock every half hour and deafened every hour on the hour. Only two people seem to live in Karoutes. Or maybe three. But they all know what time it is. They have no choice. The birdsong in Karoutes at dawn was fantastic. I just wondered how the birds could live there. From what I know, birds need to bath constantly to keep their feathers in good condition. They need to drink water too. But how could they? George and I travelled 8 hours without finding any open water at all. Well, one pond, which George couldn`t drink from and nor could I because of the mud around it. And its not as if the people in Karoutes put out birdbaths. Giona`s enchantment was fading fast.. quick.. do something! Everyone knows that you don`t just STAY in love.. you have to work at it. The next incident really didn't help. You remember that stuff I wrote about rams, and how they have strategies for avoiding all out war that we could learn from? On Giona I found out that they don`t always manage to avoid dangerous conflict situations. What I saw was, horrifyingly, that a ram had got another ram down, and was systematically killing him. Of course, I tried to intervene. And the dogs didn`t like it one bit (see photo) "These are adult rams, they should be left to make their own decisions on how to resolve their internal flock conflict situations" they said. At least I think that is what they were saying. At least I am sure they didn`t think outsiders should interfere. So, unlike Mr Bush and Mr Blair, I took the advice of these impartial observers. Nothing to do with their teeth. Then we went along the shores of Lake Morno. Very dry. No grazing at all for anyone. Shepherds reported the same problem. No rain for months. As we went along the road that flanks this reservoir, I photographed an interesting rubbish dump. It appeared that all the foulness that a rubbish dump normally encompasses would leech straight into the reservoir. A reassuring thought for Athenians who drink this water. Two days later I photographed this same dump from the other side of the lake. Unequivocal evidence that it does indeed leech into the lake. Shepherds had told me that there was grazing, and plenty of it on the Vardousia side of the Mornos river, so George and I crossed the river and set off to find this grazing. It happened to be the time when the cattle were coming home. And what kind of cattle? Well some of the local breed and…yikes.. some Limousin bulls. George and I were naturally very wary. The cowherd told us not to be so pathetic. "They don`t do anything, they`re really quiet" he said with a voice full of contempt for us townies that were scared of cattle. I told about the two incidents involving Limousin bulls that we had been involved in. "Mou kanei antiposei" said the farmer (I`m surprised) meaning that he thought I was making it up. But, seeing that we were genuinely nervous, he very kindly said he would walk us up the road where we wanted to go, and would make sure we came to no harm. I thanked him profusely. So we walked up the road and the cows and calves and bull that were coming down towards us scattered in confusion. "You see" said my friend "They`ll go off the road, and find their way home along the river" Just as he said that the bull, who was young (thank goodness) turned back on to the road. He began to exhibit threat behaviour. "Mou kanei antiposei" said my friend as he strode forward brandishing a stick and giving the bull a good telling off. The bull hesitated, and then backed off. "Mou kanei antiposei" said my friend again. 'He seems to think of the horse as an enemy' He told me to keep on going up the road. He would stand guard in case the bull came back. "Don`t stop" he said. I had no intention of doing so. We continued along the road until we were more or less parallel with Lefkaditi. There was a track down to the river, and we found grazing galore. It was a forest of planes which flank the, at that stage, free and tumultuous Mornos river. Flowers! Insects! Birds! Giona stern and magnificent above. Love filled my heart like a great big "YES" In the morning I woke to the sound of nightingales. Thousands of them all shouting their heads off. A quite stupendous chorus. I have, I hope, linked with a recoring of a nightingale.http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTkZRO-FYTM If you listen to this, and multiply it by about 500 then you will get an idea of the extraordinary magic of these birds. No wonder they are celebrated as metaphors for the great power of beauty. I realised that I hadn`t heard them singing like this for years, though I hadn`t really noticed the process of losing them. I mean there are still nightingales, just not as numerous as they used to be. I thought about this poem by William Johnson Cory, which is a celebrated translation of a epigram by Callimachus. (If any Greek or Classics scholar can provide the original ancient greek version, please post it in comments) blogger doesn`t seem to like written poetry, so I have posted a PHOTO of the poem above.. I hope you can read it.. And when I thought about this poem I thought about how the metaphor of the nightingales with their "pleasant voices" as emblems of everything beautiful only makes sense if Death cannot, in truth, take them. Callimachus could make that assumption. But that was then . Nowadays, Death can take them. Not only can but bloody has. "Thou wast not made for death, immortal bird" says Keats. But what did HE know? Its only when you hear them as they used to be that you realise how many have gone. How many nightingales development and habitat destruction have already taken.