Laurie, this watery way you have brought before me reminded me with a bit of a jolt of my visit more than a decade ago to the Turkish town Iznik (Nicaea in Byzantium). I was there precisely to visit the site of the 4th century First Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church, summoned suasively by Byzantine Emperor Constantine - I'm sure you will remember :-) ...Nothing remains of the church in which it was held, although there are remnants of a later one. However there is much evidence of the ruins, the rubble, left by furious ethnic cleansing of the Greek minority at the hands of the Turkish nationalist forces in August 1920 (and vice versa in other parts of the Balkans). My point being that, on the grounds of a museum, I almost tumbled into a weed-clogged stagnant pool of water that had once been (according to the Museum guide) a sacred spring of agiasma,, water that was holy to both pagan and Christian worshippers. The once free-flow of sweet underground water cleansing the face and hands of those who paused there for refreshment physical and spiritual was now reduced to a sludgy trickle, while a grate that had been helpfully installed to trap rubbish hadn't been cleared in what appeared to be ages. (Meanwhile in Turkish-minority towns in mainland Greece, Greek nationalists heroically reduced hamams [public bathhouses] to similarly undistinguished rubble....But I'm glad that you were able finally to exult in your creek;s " babble in its fullness, chicory in flower, broken maple, feral apple, honeysuckle,..."
Laurie, this watery way you have brought before me reminded me with a bit of a jolt of my visit more than a decade ago to the Turkish town Iznik (Nicaea in Byzantium). I was there precisely to visit the site of the 4th century First Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church, summoned suasively by Byzantine Emperor Constantine - I'm sure you will remember :-) ...Nothing remains of the church in which it was held, although there are remnants of a later one. However there is much evidence of the ruins, the rubble, left by furious ethnic cleansing of the Greek minority at the hands of the Turkish nationalist forces in August 1920 (and vice versa in other parts of the Balkans). My point being that, on the grounds of a museum, I almost tumbled into a weed-clogged stagnant pool of water that had once been (according to the Museum guide) a sacred spring of agiasma,, water that was holy to both pagan and Christian worshippers. The once free-flow of sweet underground water cleansing the face and hands of those who paused there for refreshment physical and spiritual was now reduced to a sludgy trickle, while a grate that had been helpfully installed to trap rubbish hadn't been cleared in what appeared to be ages. (Meanwhile in Turkish-minority towns in mainland Greece, Greek nationalists heroically reduced hamams [public bathhouses] to similarly undistinguished rubble....But I'm glad that you were able finally to exult in your creek;s " babble in its fullness, chicory in flower, broken maple, feral apple, honeysuckle,..."