It's this podcast thing. It started me thinking about the use of sound in writitng. I remembered something I had written a long time ago and rewrote it with more sound used to evoke feelings in mind. What do you all think?   RETURN TO DODONA On a fine summer morning in the year 316 of the current era, The Christian farmers of Dodona came with their axes to the great oak. No one knew how long it had stood there; most believed that it had always been there. Their grandfathers had listened to the rustling of its leaves; their grandmother's grandmothers had asked questions of it. The men had come to cut it to the ground. The black robed priests of the new god had declared it to be an evil thing. The old wood was still hard. The great riven trunk was enormous. Cautiously, the men formed a circle around it. With a sprig of basil leaves,the priest sprinkled the ax heads with holy water. Far away, A barefoot old woman heard the sharp clang of the first blow and winced as if she herself, had been struck by it. Dodona is the oldest holy site in Hellas. It was a sacred place before the coming of the Greeks. Here the original people of this land worshiped the earth Goddess in a sacred grove of oaks long before the arrival of the Gods of the sky. When the old Goddess became the wife of the sky God,Zeus, and subject to his will, Dodona became the site of an oracle of Zeus and Hera, yet the the oak trees remained. In their majestic heights Zeus and Hera lived and talked, in the rustling of the shining leaves, their whispers could be clearly heard. Gods evolved and changed, but the oaks endured. Here the barefoot priestesses whose feet must always touch holy mother earth tended the oaks since the time before memory. They knew the language of the leaves and the people asked questions of the gods to hear the priestesses read the answers in their murmurings. At Delphi was the oracle of Apollo and far away in Egypt Zeus spoke at Siwa, but this was the oldest of all the oracles and from the time before the new gods. What is left of it is yet there, not far from Ioannina and close to the Albanian border. You can visit and many do. The buses pull up every day and spill out their tourists. They are herded to the old theater which is still in passable condition, but no one would tell me where the oak had once stood. I found an open space by the temple ruins and thought perhaps it was the tenemos where the tree might have grown. I think that I was right as I felt that odd prickly feeling on my skin that comes to me in holy places like Delos and thought I heard a curious rustling sound. When I went to Egypt, I stood at the rim of a valley and looked down upon Wadi Siwa and I cried. I cried to see the dates growing in the old way. Not tall and trimmed to be trees in the new way, but an impenetrable thicket that had not changed over all the years. Something of Siwa remains yet. Oddly it was the still living things which so moved me. Through all the changings of all the gods of men, the dates remained the same, the fronds making a distinctive swishing sound in the breeze. I felt nothing in Delphi. It was crowded with noisy tourists closely shepherded by noisier guides. There were stands where one could buy bottled water and Coca Cola. There was much of interest to see, but nothing to feel. The god of beauty and reason seemed long gone. I could not miss him as he had never been there. He had reigned above the place, not on it. I did not return. And yet, I return to Ioannina year after year. It is a pleasant place with a lovely lake. I often take the bus to Dodona to look for the tree which is not there. I know it is not not there, but I fancy that sometimes I can feel it. Often I think I hear the sounds of rustling leaves and shuffling feet upon the ground. But then, like the barefooted old woman, I hear the sound of the ax and I wince as if it had struck me. In a taverna on the island in the lake at Ioannina I drink a glass of Mavrodaphne and listen to the Polish disco music. It sometimes drowns out the sounds of the ax.