The Symphony of Our Soil

By Sempad Shahnazarian

verybody in the monastery looked upon Avedis as a little eccentric.  He was self-centered; wary; wistful.  In the spring, summer and autumn months, he would roam over the mountains reflecting, talking to the rocks, trees and flowers; smile at the little rabbits scampering in the bushes and climb up the cliffs in search of eagle nests.

He would stop, every now and then, to watch the thundering waterfalls on the granite boulders; pick wildflowers to admire their beauty and fragrance and to lie down on the ground looking at the crystal blue sky, and sail on the clouds far, far away.

He would fly, dreamily, into the limitless space, far beyond the sun and the stars, to the top of the universe, to contemplate its enigmatic structure and listen to the enchanting concert of the celestial bodies.

Lying down, lazily, hour after hour, in the bosom of fragrant flowers and odoriferous herbs, he would think about the architecture of Heaven, and its population, as described in biblical writings, with a smile of irony curling the corners of his lips.

In these inspirational moments he would hear the voices of angels flying in space, singing and praising the Lord for His infinite might and intelligence as Governor of the Universe.

He would swim with them in the blue waters of the boundless space, touch their wings; converse with them; caress the luminous eye-lashes of the stars with his trembling fingers, and dissolve tracelessly into a profound silence.

Thus, he would remain all day long, thinking; dreaming; writing; with his ears cocking up, every now and then, he listened to imaginary voices and footsteps on the plateau. 

One day, a strange thought grabbed him. He thought about it all day.  To the ordinary eye, a chunk of clay is just a chunk of clay.  A raw and crude mass of lifeless particles of soil, forming the walls and the roof of our eternal abode.

However, when we look closer and think deeper we have an entirely different representation of it.

That chunk of clay displays a glorious spectacle of elements in motion...microcosmic solar systems in eternal revolution...colorful radiation bursting with laughter everywhere...sparks of meteorites heralding the birth of ideas in darkness...inexorable reign of laws governing the uninterrupted actions of atoms...invisible forces controlling the movements of visible substance...life dances with immortal dreams and images...and thoughts bloom silently from the gradually swelling luminous buds...

What a magnificent reality!

Avedis looked dreamily at the magic view of his fatherland that spread before his eyes like an unearthly painting and talked to the rocks, ridges and peaks with certain names that he had given  them.

Mount Ararat was Vahakn...Sipan was Movses Khorenatzi...Meghraked was Mesrob Mashdotz...Andok was Kevork...Dziringadar was Der Derope... Innagnian was Vartan Vartabed...Marnig was Antranik...

You see, Avedis had christened every landmark with certain characteristic names of his volition and enjoyed having done so.

 He used to stand in front of a cliff and actually get involved in a discussion with it. He would criticize, violently, the mistakes he made during his lifetime and would praise, with devotion, the good things he had done for his fatherland. After all, what is the sense of living if one brutally forsakes certain moral values upon which only can be built a full, rich and beautiful life.

The sun had climbed up into the clear sky. Avedis strolled, absorbed in thought. An eagle passed overhead, casting a shadow on his face like a dark ironic smile and disappeared into the forest.

Beautiful vistas of an unknown world were gradually unfolding before his eyes. The air was full of hums, whispers and laughter. 

Melancholic sensations vibrated in him, and he, as if in a hypnotic state, muttered: I can hear now...I can hear the voices of my ancestors from down below. I can even see them...How beautiful!  How beautiful!... Multicolored lights there far exceed the sunshine here... The flights of our poets there surpass those of the eagles and angels, here...The symphonies there are more luminous and heart rending than the symphonies here... Pink-lipped flowers bashfully throw kisses to our living dead, reading superb lyrics to them, veiled with the mist of love...and the grapes, from the vineyards, smiling seductively at the poets, sprayed their feverish hearts with the kisses of their bubbling wine...

Intoxicated with these visionary realities, Avedis would kneel down religiously to kiss the warm ground of his homeland; enjoy its exotic beauty; dream and write until sundown and then return to the monastery profoundly shaken by everything within and on the outside.

On his way back he couldn’t help saying, “Good Night” to every peak and cliff and then waiting with a smile on his face to hear their replies.

ne Sunday morning, mass was being held in the chapel of Sourp Haroutune. This little chapel had been built seventeen hundred years before on the ruins of the pagan temples Demetre and Kissane.

That chapel was the nucleus around which had grown, through the long centuries, the imposing Saint John Monastery which was surrounded by fortress-like walls. During the mass, Avedis remembered the day when he entered school there. He remembered how one of the monks walked with him to the chapel. The door was locked so he approached one of the slit-like windows on the mossy wall and said; “Put your ears here and listen.

He placed his right ear against the window and listened.

“Do you hear anything?”

Avedis wasn’t quite sure if he had heard anything special yet.

“Listen intently and concentrate. Can’t you hear voices now, that seem to come from far away?”

Somewhat hesitatingly, Avedis thought this time he seemed to hear some sort of whisperings; faint, blurred voices.

“That’s it! Those voices that you hear come from the bottomless pit where Gregory the Illuminator had thrown the Pagan monks and nuns after they were defeated by the Christian Armenians centuries ago.”

Avedis shuddered but kept standing there for awhile with his face against the window listening. 

Even now when mass is being celebrated, all of Avedis’ curiosity is focused on trying to hear those voices.

Every time the readings and Sharagans stop a deep silence would follow. During that silence he would strain his hearing, tense and in anticipation, to see if he could still hear the same voices, or any voice for that matter, from the underground monks.

Those were exciting moments for Avedis, for he seemed to hear whispers and footsteps crowding the chapel. He even heard them singing with the choir in a different language. Great excitement for Avedis!

When the mass was over, the congregation, composed of a couple dozen monks and students, began moving out in extreme silence. 

On his way out Avedis noticed a sign, near the entrance. Which read: Beware! This is the bottomless pit. The abyss. This sharpened his curiosity to the degree that he hid himself in one corner until everybody left, and the key screeched in the keyhole.

He immediately came out of his hiding-place and began to explore the entrance to that historic hole.

He lighted a candle and stepped down cautiously. It looked like a huge cave with the walls and the ceiling hidden in darkness. On his left, he saw a stand where dozens of bricks were arranged like books on a shelf. He approached and scrutinized the writings on them in the pallid candlelight, but couldn’t make out what language it was; so tenderly caressing the earthen books he walked away without being able to penetrate the secrets of that library.

A few steps down on the platform two huge bronze statues -- God and Goddess -- stood high, firm and silent.  Demetre and Kissane.

They had the most mysterious looking eyes which followed him wherever he went. Their hollow and cold depths made him shudder. 

While looking at them more closely and calmly, he was filled with a flow of warm sensations. In those eyes he saw the reflection of the magic beauty of Armenia...the mountains and plateaus...the fields and the vineyards...the kings and queens in resplendent procession... the crystalline blue of the sky...the enchanting sunrise of our worshippers...and he felt an urge to approach them to touch their strong metallic bodies and to kiss their divine hands.

He wanted to get closer because they were actually saying something and he wanted to hear what they were saying. The more he advanced the farther they withdrew. It remained a mystery what they were trying to say to him. They walked silently on the soft dark earth for miles, brushing past the foundations of our mountains and watching the sources of our waterfalls, rivers and springs.

Footsteps were heard in the Moush Plain where the Meghraked and Aradzani rivers rumbled on, dark and furious.

Going through the volcanic passages of Pure-Agn, they entered into a devotional silence. The immense caverns of Mount Ararat where our ancestors had gathered in holiday garments to read their essays on Dialectical Materialism...to display their artistic achievements enthusiastically...to strongly criticize our naive view of the architecture of Heaven...to disclose the idea of God to be a purely poetical conception...to unveil their undeniable proof that our universe is soulless and complex -- a Mechanical Structure -- and to admit that its eternal beauty consists in the daring flights of imagination and the luminous thunder of symphonies.