When I was a kid, I knew when my father was getting
ready to fly away from the daily routine: he would clean his favorite briar
pipe, fill it with Capstan tobacco,
get a book of poems from his library and sit on the balcony. The aroma of that
tobacco signaled that no one should disturb him for a while.
… Perhaps I have inherited that ritual from him, at
least in part. My favorite escape is also through poetry. So, right after
sunrise and my cup of coffee, I picked I decided to leaf through Khalil Gibran’s
poems.
This morning, a few lines I have read many times before,
suddenly revealed a new feeling. I read:
I would not exchange the sorrows
of my heart
For the joys of the multitude.
And I would not have the tears that
sadness makes
To flow from my every part turn into
laughter.
…I would that my life remains a tear
and a smile.
This poem, entitled “A Tear and a Smile”
made me think about many a legend I have read about or heard when traveling
around the globe. Somehow, the link to tears has always been in those legends.
Mostly tears of sorrow and pain. And these tears have given rise, and have
given way, to the birth of rivers, lakes, or flowers. Somehow the tiny drops of
tears have united to form identities of people who reflected their past upon the
run of a river, the waves of a lake, or the blossom of a flower in the scorched
lands and deserts.
The
Legend of Aghtamar, Armenia. The first legend about tears I read was as a
child. It was the Armenian legend of Aghtamar. It was the story of an Armenian
princess who lived on an island in Lake Van. A commoner stole her heart and the
story goes that, each night, she would light a candle and he would swim to the
island. When her father found about this, he blew the candle off one night, and
the boy lost his way. While drowning, his dying cries were “Akh Tamar” (Oh,
Tamar!” which can be heard every night, even today. The island of Akhtamar was
thus born.
Lake Van is now in Turkey, and I am not
a boy anymore. Yet, the legend of Akhtamar and the commoner boy drowing in the
dark crying her name has stayed with me.
The
Legend of Mount Tomor, Albania.
I once was on Lake Balaton, in Hungary. An Albanian friend raised his
glass to celebrate a stunning sunset. Then he asked “have you heard of our
famous legend about Baba Tomor?”
“Mount Tomor is the highest and sacred
mountain in Albania,” he started. “It is named after Baba Tomor, the legendary
figure described as an old man with a long white beard, guarded by four female
eagles. Baba Tomor fell in love with Earthly Beauty and spent his days with
her. The old man’s favorite city was Berat, not in the valley of Mount Tomor. One
day, when Baba Tomor was in the arms of Earthly Beauty, his opponent, Shpirag,
decided to invade Berat. The four eagles woke Baba Tomor up and a titanic fight
started between Baba Tomor and Shpirag. Both fighters died after inflicting
deep wounds in each other. Shpirag's deep cuts can be seen on Mount Shpirag as furrows.
Berat was saved, but Earthly Beauty cried so hard that she drowned in her own
tears.”
“Why are you telling me this story now?”
I asked.
“Because no tears go in vain, my friend,”
he said in a soft voice. “From those tears the Osum River was born.”
The
Paiute Legend of Pyramid Lake, Nevada. It is said that thousands of years
ago, the Great Father of all indigenous people of now Nevada, California, Idaho
and Oregon came to Nevada. His wisdom and knowledge attracted a married woman
from Nevada who fell in love with the Great Father. One day, she killed her
husband and began her search for the wise man. She found him; they fell in love,
and had many children. Unfortunately the children continuously fought among
themselves and the Great Father decided to send them away. Thus in various
parts of the four states his children created three native American tribes were
thus created by his children, namely the Pit River Tribe in the west; the Bannock
Tribe in the east; and the Paiute tribe in the north and south. But the Great
Father was hurt that he had sent his children away, so he left the earth and
went to his home in the sky.
Two of the male siblings returned to
Nevada with their warriors. And they started a new fight for dominance. Their
mother was very upset; as she sat atop the mountain and watched her sons kill
each other. She cried so hard that her tears formed a lake in the valley. And
she turned to stone. She is still there,
all stone, looking over Pyramid Lake, Nevada.
… There are many legends about the
formation of lakes from tears. I was thinking about this when kayaking on
Watson Lake in Prescott, Arizona. The reason is this rock formation – it is
called “The Indian Woman”.
And this is a corner of Watson Lake.
There is no legend about tears and the creation of this lake, or maybe I have
not heard it yet.
The
Legend of the Cherokee Rose. When gold was discovered on land belonging to the
Cherokee Tribe in North Carolina, the new immigrant groups decided to move the land’s
natives, the Cherokee, from their land to mine for gold. So started the
thousands of miles journey of the Cherokee across America. Eventually the
Cherokee nation was resettled in Oklahoma. The walk across America is called
the Trail of Tears, because of the hardship of the Cherokee on that infamous
trail. And the legend goes that the mothers cried throughout the long journey.
The Cherokee men then asked the Great One to find a way to help the women. So
the Great One blossomed a new flower, the Cherokee Rose, for every tear drop
along the trail. The Cherokee Rose has white blossoms with petals, one for each
Cherokee tribe that walked the Trail of Tears. It also has a golden center
connoting the greed of the white man for gold and fortune.
…I took this photo while on a short walk
in the Moroccan desert. The scorched land makes even a pleasant hike
depressing. I can only imagine how much hope The Cherokee Rose brought to all
on the Trail of Tears.
According to Anton Chekhov “people do not notice if it is winter or
summer when they are happy”. Perhaps. But the tears in every legend tell us
that people know when they are hurt, unwanted, or taken away from where they
belong.
October 16, 2016
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2016
