Nature is quiet. You realize that the entire Plateau has always been an object of admiration, not only thanks to its special aesthetic value and unique beauty, but also because of the many caves scattered throughout the nature of the Lassithi land. The civilization that developed over the centuries left important references. The conscious relationship that characterized life on the Lassithi Plateau and its inhabitants may have gradually suffered various blows, however, it is comforting to know that in the end they did not bring about significant changes in the relationship between man and his way of life and the place. You continue to admire and enjoy the naturalness of the landscape and the place today. Just one reason is enough to feel its value. It is because the authentic, stable natural characteristics are not absent. In Lassithi, cultural and natural heritage, as key features of the landscape, manage to be preserved over time as a unity with perhaps few exceptions, such as the loss of many windmills.
Days, nights, life are spent... Only the light remains unspent and continues its journey to eternity, and you, with your tattered child's dress, seek refuge in your own innocent past, in an elusive dream, there you believe you will turn the big key, and the territory of the soul will be filled with white Chian jasmine so that the lost moons may rise...
From Skafidia you will ascend the old path, just like when you were a child. This was the most common route full of daffodils, atsoumalia and oregano. Passing through the holly trees in Gonia and the almond trees of Piperokostandis to the furrows in Kavousi, until you reach Boyos Lakkos, all the past moments come back to the kaleidoscope of memory. As you climb, you gasp. The landscape promises another language, this forgotten one, of sincerity and nostalgia. You do not speak, you only think. Through the silence and memories, love blooms again.
It is often said that the philosopher tries to understand the world and the poet creates his own. From afar, Angelos Petroulakis insists: "you are a poet, Zoe Diktaou is a poet", and you admit that you are in your own world, a world that is not like others, you are capable of walking with steady steps above the clouds and stumbling in the clear on the great path. In the power of unpretentious beauty the soul is the one that constantly gains in content and momentum, the soul...
It blows up here. A light and always pleasant breeze is what brings many scents from the surrounding slopes. The leaves of the heart open to the old longing. You shrug your shoulders. In front of you, the chapel of Afentis Stavros dominates the east of the once fertile Plateau of Nisimos, which had nourished a large part of the inhabitants in times gone by, with agriculture and livestock. The chapel is built in a rough and barren landscape with low, mainly shrubby vegetation. There are many sharp grooves that, sculpted by the snow, strong storms and the wind, create a special landscape. Innumerable stones, small and large, are scattered everywhere.
The old path that hundreds of people used to walk up and down when you were a child no longer winds through the rooted rocks, yet this path should have remained open and unobstructed, outside the makeshift barbed wire fences that have now been put in place. Its traces for most of the route have almost been lost, but you know the way to the summit even if you have to walk a few extra kilometers.
From this position, the view in front of us unfolds spectacularly! The beauty of the mountainous nature dispels melancholy. The chapel owes its existence not to the skills of the shepherds who built it in this wilderness, but to their need to ask for forgiveness, as in order to build the chapel, a basic material used in its construction was, instead of water, milk!
Life of Diktao
Behind its creation, a painful story is lost in the passing of time since no one remembers dates and names. But everyone in the area knows how it happened, and your father, Aristeidaki, will tell it best of all, as he remembers it from his grandfather, Grynogiorgis:
Aristideaki
"Before my grandfather it was built with stones that were carried from round to round and it was built like a castle, as my late grandfather began the story, as I tell you and my words. Shepherds built it. In Kourparolithos, further from here, the White Barns, they had a house, a father with his four sons - and the four were all liars! Only one of them, the little one, was still a tsumaros and was afraid of the dark at night.
Once the sun was shining, they had to have a little bit of rain, so they ordered the little coward to do something he wanted, or to bring more water from the Zaroma, maybe to collect some of the lame sheep that were still out in the fields. The rest brought some sheep and sat down to milk first some goats since they already had a lot of milk, and then some sheep to make cheese from the tahini.
A long time passed, they were walking and their brother had not yet returned. They whistled but he did not come. From there they looked down towards the island but they did not see anything, they looked up and then straight ahead, and there was a light, oh my! However, it had started to get dark and the darkness was already gathering. Since all three of them were scoundrels and peasants, they thought of going outside to fan him so that they could make him look like a ghost. They put on whatever cloth or rag they could find in the forest to make them look like outlaws, and they tied two forked branches of adramithiia to their heads, to make it look like they had horns. They were shouting and marching in front of the army of the Ozo and they were shouting and
Nikolis Verigos, shepherd of Selena, son of Grynogiorgis
Further from the hut, they fanned him who was muttering whatever legacy the poor man held because they were afraid. They stood behind a linden tree and made a row, and when he was very close, the three of them together went out and fell on him, and they put him in a cage and did as I wanted to slaughter him. He did not understand that they were his brothers, he did not even fan him, I saw that I did not want to act like a fool, since the bad time had put him in and he did it.
From there they were arguing and he thought with his mind that they were demonic, as if they were afraid he grabbed a club, or a jagged stone, and it hit one of them on the top of the skull, and he didn't even have time to say "be"! The other two, when they realized what had happened, came out and appeared to him and pulled his hair and beard and hit the bet so that he would cry and cry, but no one ever managed to bring a soul from the court of Haros, with all the tears running down their eyes.
They all heard their father's story, they were thinking to themselves that it would be better if the earth opened a hole on the spot and swallowed them along with their brother, but even the earth doesn't listen in such cases and doesn't do anything to please them.
This became the reason and they decided, so that they would never see oil again so that they could live, to bury them in a place where the soul of all Lasithi would see them and to build a chapel on top of the monarch's grave so that they would have mercy in the other world.
They said that the first stones they gathered seemed very heavy, unable to bear the weight of sin, which is worse than brother killing brother, my God, be deceived! Why did they build the first eight rows of all these bands, they began to fall and become as light as if they were smuggled wood, and from where they buried it, the dry soil - mysterious things -, it shone as if a little star were lying there...
They also said that they brought the milk from the milking shed, to soften the mud, and they washed all the cows from behind. And when the milk was finished and they were wondering how they wanted to fulfill the vow, the cows would go one by one and stand in the silence, and they would call out to themselves that this was how they were called to milk them again, and they had more milk the second time than the first, although such a thing is not usual in these villages...
When dawn broke and the birds began to chirp, they were exhausted and could not believe that they had managed it alone. Then, Christ himself descended and took the soul of the unjustly murdered man, and a pitcher of cold water was left for them to drink and a basil branch, and from there the pioneers fled, one step at a time, and went on, and the land was burning... the land was burning! My Master, my Cross, and this is why all the villagers must come to you to worship you and plant a little tree in your grace.
You look him in the eyes, your father, little Aristide. He is handsome even now that he is over eighty, cheerful and witty. Aristide is his name, but everyone calls him Aristide and they say it with kindness, with love, he is very popular and he usually does what he promises. He belongs to the category of those who may travel as strangers among strangers, but at the end of the journey they will have made new friends, those who manage to win everyone over with the first good morning, the first conversation, the first smile… The imaginary waves that the gaze emits, beautifully covered his own complaint before you had time to ask.
Calliope Siganou
But you know, Calliope, the one who left, your mother, she is his sunless complaint. For her sake and memory, he supplemented the story with elements from his own version, so that he would not be left with the complaint and her eyes welling up in the other world. He takes care of his vows and invokes the name of Christ with extreme reverence. He remembers names and incidents and many old stories! What other mouth could tell them so that they are so true, so that they are not forgotten…
From the book "Lasithi, a Great Place", Fildisi Publications
Tomorrow, in the name of love
Life of Diktao
Corfu, May 2020
