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THE RAPE OF THE LAKE by Marguerite Rigoglioso
There is a lake, of waters clear and deep, Writing in the first century A.D., Ovid in his Metamorphosis thus immortalized Lake Pergusa, a body of water that can still be found in the very center of Sicily today. Once the jewel of this Italian Mediterranean island, now Pergusa's waters are neither clear nor deep; its swans are few in number; its forest receded; and its flowers all but replaced by an auto racetrack that encircles its entire three-mile perimeter like an asphalt noose. Lake Pergusa, which Italian scholar Enrico Sinicopri as recently as 1958 called "an enchanted place where dream is easily confused with reality," is slowly dying, the victim of man's assault and neglect.
In addition to being a marvel of nature, Lake Pergusa is also a cultural treasure; Ovid named it as the place where the goddess Persephone was separated from her mother, the grain goddess Demeter, and was abducted into the underworld by her lecherous Uncle Hades. It is here that the earth opened up as the maiden picked flowers, swallowing her in a stunning instant. In the spring of 1996, I came to Sicily on a pilgrimage of sorts to explore my ancestral heritage. In particular, I was fascinated by the religion focusing on Persephone and her mother, Demeter, the goddess of the grain. It was a religion that was widespread on the island beginning with the arrival of the Greek colonizers in the eighth century B.C. During my trip, I explored many of the sites where the remains of the temples and altars to these goddesses can still be found. I studied their statues and related artifacts housed in Sicilian museums. Now, in 1997, I return to Sicily to make a pilgrimage to Lake Pergusa.
The bus leaves me along the main road that runs through the little town of Pergusa all the way up to the mountaintop town of Enna, where the high overhang called La Rocca Cerrere, Demeter's rock, once held a temple to the grain deity. It is from this rock, says Ovid, that Demeter looked out to Lake Pergusa, and, no longer seeing Persephone playing by the banks, began her agonized search for her beloved daughter, turning the fields barren until at last she persuaded Zeus, Hades's brother, to bring the maiden back nine months out of the year.
Here in Pergusa, a young woman directs me toward the lake. The approach is startling: a wasteland of corrugated steel walls, a paved roadway some 30 meters wide, an empty grandstand. This is Pergusa's autodrome, the racetrack that is used for high-level Formula 3000 races, when the shrill peals of motors make the birds nesting in the lake's thick reeds scatter in flight. I find a small opening in the racetrack wall and approach the banks of the lake. But it is not a lake anymore. It is more like a swamp. I walk and walk along the racetrack, looking for a better point of entry, a place perhaps to perch, meditate, commune with nature. But none appears. The banks of the lake have been closed off to admirers by the mechanical tangle of the autodrome, the lake's glassy surface visible only from the hillsides above. Finally I find a break in the steel wall of the autodrome and I approach the water. Immediately I realize that the lake is no longer a lake; it has become a swamp. Yvonne Kohler, a Welsh writer and artist who has lived in Sicily for 25 years and who has helped in the campaign to save the lake, has explained to me that the building of the autodrome in the late 1950s and early 1960s violated national and regional laws prohibiting construction so close to a public body of water. Money from the races has always gone into the pockets of a very few, and despite the efforts of a handful of enlightened citizens to peel off the steel and concrete and let the lake breathe, economic interests have continued to win out.
As I contemplate the environmental travesty before me, the realization hits me: Lake Pergusa is still a place where the Feminine is being raped. Like Persephone, who was violated by Hades here on these banks, the lake is now being violated by the owners of the racetrack. It seems that this place must possess a strange and mysterious power to cause such a strong reaction in people. I take a bus back to Yvonne's farm, where I am staying for a few days. She tells me about Maria Cimino, another practicing Buddhist who is tirelessly working to save Lake Pergusa through her efforts with the World Wildlife Fund. Since creating a local chapter of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in October 1980, Maria has led the crusade to restore the lake and its wildlife, and to remove the racetrack from its banks. Now 57, Maria has persisted in her work, despite resistance, sometimes violent, on the part of the supporters of the racetrack. She has even received anonymous death threats. Moreover, various public projects that she has proposed, including a bird observatory, a program to create jobs for youth, and an ecotourist enterprise, have been blocked. "Maria loves this place," Yvonne tells me. "She grew up here and played by the lake as a child. She really believes it's a sacred spot." A few days later, when I meet Maria, I ask her about the lake. She launches into a passionate and well-informed discourse about its natural and cultural history. The only large natural lake in the center of Sicily, says Maria, Pergusa was formed thousands of years ago, most likely by a sudden sinking of the rock layers that left a huge basin in the earth. Rain water and tricklings from the rock strata filled the cavity and are still today its only sources of water. The lake's geo-chemical properties, including its salinated water, make it a microcosm of the ocean, and therefore a fascinating place for scientific study. Renowned even up until the last century for its incredible diversity of flora and fauna, the lake remains an important bird nesting spot and a key point along the European migratory routes of many species of water birds. Perhaps most remarkable of all is the lake's periodic reddening. At unpredictable intervals, the lake turns a deep red color; for this reason, professor A. Forti, who studied the phenomenon in 1932, dubbed Lake Pergusa "the lake of blood." As Maria speaks, I have a sudden intuition: when Ovid identified Lake Pergusa with the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, he was probably expressing a cultural memory of an indigneous, pre-Greek religion that centered around the lake. The reddening has been documented only since the beginning of the 1900s, but perhaps it has been happening for millennia. Such a phenomenon without a doubt would have been extremely significant to the ancient peoples, who venerated the color red in nature as a representation of the woman's reproductive organs and menstrual blood, and, by extension, that of the female divinity. The ancient peoples of Sicily, therefore, would have seen the periodic reddening of the lake as a potent blood mystery. Maria continues her impassioned speech, describing the ecological deterioration that has taken place in only the past 35 years. The concrete of the racetrack prevents the lake from being able to expand naturally, she says, while the intensive building of homes and their accompanying wells and sewers is draining the basin of its water. As a result, the lake, which was seven meters deep in 1860, is now less than two. Pollution resulting from the gas runoff from the racecars, sewage, litter, and chemicals from the racetrack has disturbed its chemical equilibrium. The water bird population has diminished dramatically and most of the fish have disappeared. Still, Maria and her activist colleagues have scored some victories in their attempts to save Lake Pergusa. Hunting is now prohibited along the lake's banks (though illegal episodes still occur). In 1991, the lake was declared a nature reserve, but the supporters of the racetrack pressured the politicians to weaken that law. Recently, Maria and her colleagues have appealed to the Minister of the Environment to have Lake Pergusa declared a wet zone on the European level and to put the territory of the lake under his control. The WWF hopes, moreover, to see the fulfillment of its longstanding proposal to the Sicilian regional government for the building of a bird observatory on the banks of the lake that would allow for the study of migratory birds in Sicily. As I listen to Maria, I realize she feels a strong spiritual tie to the lake, as do I. "Would you take me there to conduct a little ceremony, a prayer to help save it?" I ask. "Sure!" she exclaims, smiling broadly.
By the morning, our spiritual task force has grown to include Yvonne and two American friends of ours who are also staying at the farm. Maria has suggested we conduct our ritual at an abandoned church on the hills above the lake. The church, some four to five hundred years old, was built smack next to the entrance of a cave she believes was once an important cult site to Demeter and Persephone, and perhaps even to the original goddesses worshipped by the indigenous peoples of the island. Now the church is in ruins. Only four roofless, crumbling walls remain, within which resides a small forest of trees, plants, and bushes.
We make our way to what was once the altar, passing through brambles that reach out to leave stinging welts on our arms and legs. Clearing out a place on the ground, Yvonne and Maria assemble a Buddhist altar of brass water bowls on a yellow cloth. In a special pot to the side, they light wood on fire, poking it until it becomes like smoldering coals. Yvonne hands out sheets with a special chant for a Surngo ceremony, a Tibetan Buddhist offering ritual to honor the local spirits. Here at Pergusa, the divinities would include Demeter and Persephone, she explains. When we've finished the chant, Maria speaks. "The person who cuts his roots is destined to die, like a tree," she says in somber tones. "We're in a society that is denying, nullifying, forgetting the past, and we are in great danger. Lake Pergusa is a place of tremendous historic, religious, and cultural importance. We ask the Lord of the Lake to help restore serenity, silence, peace, and prayer to this place. We ask that the racetrack be peaceably removed so that the lake can flourish as it did in the time of Ovid."
"Amen," we all say. Yvonne and Maria then throw a flour and butter mixture onto the fire as an offering. "The deities like things that smell nice," Yvonne explains. "There are spirits that actually live on smoke and smells." We watch in silence as the flour sizzles and turns black, throwing fragrant gray billows into the air.
As the smoke dies down, Maria grips my hands, her smile as big as her Sicilian heart. I pause a moment to pray silently that in the clash between life and death, heaven and hell, and nature and technology that is taking place on this ancient spot, my Sicilian sister will be protected. And that Lake Pergusa will eventually emerge from her concrete hell to see the blush of springtime on her banks once more. You may contact Marguerite Rigoglioso at mrigoglioso@earthlink.net. |
Demeter or Ceres's Rock, where a temple to the grain goddess stood in antiquity.
Inside the crumbling church. Dentro la chiesa crollata.
