FRUIT OF THE DIVINE

Visiting Exhibit Reflects Thracian Passion For Wine, Sacred Value Of Grapes

THE ANCIENT Thracians loved gold, fast horses, fighting and strong wine,
which they were famous for drinking undiluted. Thracian wine diluted 20
times still retained its potency! Odysseus relished it, Homer writes in his
epics. Thracian priests and kings drank it from heavy golden bowls and
horns, wine spurting into the mouths of celebrants who believed the blood
of the grape united them with the blood of the gods. Surely their libations
mediated worlds, joining mortals and immortals through the eternal vine.

In Thrace, said to be the battleground where Olympian gods fought for
supremacy over the world, those beliefs were as potent as the wine itself.

For millennia, humans have revered the vine, ubiquitous expression of
God-given life. Every Sabbath, Jews lift their glasses to praise God, the
``creator of the fruit of the vine.'' Jesus's ministry began at the wedding
feast of Cana, where he transformed water into wine, and ended with him
offering it to his apostles at the Last Supper. Even earlier, the
intoxicating nature of wine was associated with the intoxication of the
spirit in Thrace, an area north of Greece, covering much of what is now
Bulgaria and central Europe.

It is possible to imagine the bouquet of Thracian wines and the vitality of
Thracian civilization by visiting the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San
Francisco. There 200 Thracian treasures, some dating back to the fourth
millennium before Christ, are on display through Oct. 11 in an exhibition
entitled ``Ancient Gold: The Wealth of the Thracians.'' These are treasures
worthy of Zeus: golden jewelry, a crown of golden leaves, and a bevy of
solid, golden drinking vessels, including one that weighs nine pounds. They
are fabulously, intricately, sculpted with horses and griffins and
sphinxes, lion hunts and battles, lovemaking heroes, the fertile mother
goddess and snorting dragons that destroy the earth's fertility.

One with Dionysus

And with images of Dionysus, the god of the vine, who was particularly
celebrated by the ancients in seasonal rites that were wild with dancing
and revelry. In their Dionysian festivals, the Thracians drank much
powerful wine and perhaps the blood of sacrificed animals, who were thought
to embody Dionysus and contain his energy. And because Dionysus was the
vine, the effect of the ritual was to ``get the god inside you,'' explains
RenE9e Dreyfus, curator of the Thracian exhibit. ``You get union with the
god.'' She likens the ritual to the Christian Eucharist: ``It's the blood
and the body. Nothing new under the sun.''

Many Christians would say the differences are fundamental, yet the idea
that wine is sacred and even life-giving echoes through religious history.
The Tree of Life often was depicted as a vine in ancient cultures; a common
Sumerian symbol for life was the vine leaf. In early Hebrew culture, the
vine represented the Israelite nation, tended by God, while the church used
the vine as a motif for Jesus the Messiah, bringer of new life. In the
Gospel of John, Jesus says, ``I am the vine, you are the branches.''

Similar symbols abound in almost all traditions: the Sufi poet who
described wine as ``the draught of Divine Love'' and Japanese Shintoists
who make offerings of rice and sake, or rice wine, to the deities, hoping
to be rewarded with long life and blessings.

What is it about wine that has inspired so many metaphors and strong beliefs?

The ancients knew that milk spoils and that water, when it sits too long,
becomes undrinkable. But wine has ``eternal qualities,'' says Brent
Walters, professor of religious studies at San Jose State University. ``The
longer you have it, the better it is. God's grace is said to be like wine:
`My cup runneth over,' the psalm says. The idea is that God is so
bountiful, he bubbles over. Creation is seen the same way, bubbling forth.
The Hebrew word for `prophet' means to bubble over from within, as if God's
word is held deep within them and all of a sudden -- pop! -- out comes the
cork and the divinely inspired words flow, like wine.''

Wine is everywhere in the Bible and apocalyptic literature, from Noah's
drunkenness, which causes his downfall, to descriptions of the wine that
awaits the righteous in heaven. The power of wine was a given in early
religious life. It didn't take long for people to connect the ``subtle
shift'' that occurs in one's metabolism after drinking a glass or two of
wine to a related, ``subtle shift in consciousness,'' says Jay Kinney,
editor-in-chief of Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions. The
wine ``served as a symbol of the refreshment of one's spiritual being.''

Such heady interpretations of a common drink make sense because ``the grape
is a perfect fruit,'' says Yosef Levin, a Hasidic rabbi in Palo Alto.
``Wine, when drunk in moderation, it lifts your spirits just enough. It's
something that God put in nature to get us out of the ordinary and to lift
us up a little, without overdoing it. We have a saying that `it makes God
and man happy.' ''

Just as Jews recite the weekly Sabbath blessing, or kiddush, over the wine,
they celebrate circumcisions, weddings and other life cycle events with
blessings over a cup of wine. Wine sanctifies, or elevates, the moment. A
little bit of wine also loosens the inhibitions: ``I've seen that happen
with great teachers,'' Levin says, ``where all of a sudden there was
unbelievable stuff being taught. After a cup of wine, they were less
reserved in their teachings. You know there's this idea that when you drink
wine, your secrets come out? In the spiritual worlds above, we believe wine
is related to the inner, esoteric parts of Torah. The secret things are
referred to as `the wine of Torah.' ''

Ancient Jews included wine, along with food and breath, among the
essentials of life. But like almost all religious groups, they cautioned
against excessive drinking. The Book of Proverbs warns that drunkenness
yields poverty, quarrels and strange visions. Better to be ``filled with
the Spirit'' than with drink, proclaimed Paul at the dawn of the church.
Earlier, at the dawn of civilization, the Code of Hammurabi had established
a set of capital offenses. Included was the selling of beer too cheaply:
The Babylonian ruler didn't want a kingdom full of drunkards, so he
threatened to kill anyone who made drink too accessible.

Winemaking as Metaphor

Wine's power is perhaps most apparent to those who make it from scratch.
Mike Marini is a priest at Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz who remembers
working with family friends in a vineyard as a boy. He is eloquent as he
describes walking into a vineyard and seeing the lushness of the black
grapes, hanging in bunches, ready to pick. Marini can't help spicing his
words with Christian metaphor: ``You see the beauty there,'' he says, ``but
in order for it to become what it is to become, it has to be crushed and go
through a process.''

He recalls drawing out the wine, taking out the must, clarifying the
liquid. Now the grapes have ``gone out of existence and, through a process
of aging, become something else. It's the aging that's important, and that
says something about one's spiritual life: There is no substitute for age.
My feeling is if you haven't gone through the experience of making wine,
you bring a lot less to the altar when it's time to celebrate the
Eucharist.''

In the Eucharist, which means `thanksgiving' in Greek, celebrants thank
Christ for the blood that he shed and for the body that he sacrificed. As
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians approach the altar, they
believe that the sacramental wafer and wine are the real body and the real
blood of Christ. That tenet dates to the early church when celebrants
``partook vicariously of the death of Christ,'' says Walters, who
specializes in the first three centuries of Christian history. ``And it was
a sacred meal, not unlike the sacred meal of the Dionysus cults. That
comparison was frequently drawn by early critics of the church.''

As the grapes were harvested and the vines cut back each year in the
ancient world, Dionysus was seen as being bountiful and then cut away and
dying so as to be reborn. The Dionysian rites of death and rebirth were
carried out with great panache in Thrace, for the Thracians loved gold,
believing it to be sacred, much like wisdom and the sun. The Thracians
marched into battle wearing golden armor, and they drank their wine from
gold vessels -- all the better to take in the power of Dionysus. He was the
plant kingdom's expression of immortality, and by imbibing his spirit,
perhaps they thought they might become immortal, too.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED The Thracian exhibit is at the Palace of the Legion of
Honor, 34th Avenue and Clement Street at Lincoln Park in San Francisco,
through Oct. 11. The exhibit is open 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays through
Sundays. Information: (415) 863-3330.