Pilgrimage to Heresy

The Story of Man: Manfred Gnädinger

2012-01-08T15:52:00.006+01:00

Here on the Costa del Sol it is 20 degrees today and the tourists are out in T-shirts. I dress rather more appropriately to what we call “winter”: a sweatshirt and a scarf tucked away. In Galicia it is not particularly cold, at least not in A Coruña: a very respectable 15 degrees. But the nighttime sees a drastic drop. I can see I’ll be lighting fires in the Casa of the Little Fox as soon as I get there, which is only days away now. Two degrees and no idea where my hot water bottle is.

Perhaps 8 klms north from Carantoña is the little fishing village of Camelle. It is remote, even for the Costa da Morte. Were it not for the Prestige oil spill disaster (more on this next blog), I doubt anyone would have heard of it. Even then, it was one of many whose fishermen saw their livelihood covered in layers of deadly “chapapote”: thick oil which devasted the wildlife and paralysed the fishing industry for miles and miles.

One resident did not make his living from the sea. In fact, he did not make a living – in the way you and I might consider it – at all. He lived a hermit’s life, tucked away at the end of the road which led from Camelle to the sea. His name was Manfred Gnädinger. Some say he died of a broken heart.

Manfred was born in south Germany in 1936. Who knows what brought him to Camelle in 1962, but whatever it was, he stayed until his death in 2002. When he arrived he was well-dressed and clearly educated. Perhaps it was his education which made him seek out company other than the fisherfolk: Manfred fell in love with the schoolteacher, but his advances were not reciprocated and in many ways we might say that this rebuff was the architect of the next 40 years of his life.

Some years later, having read extensively on the subject, Manfred became very sensitive to environmental issues. He built himself a small concrete hut on the spit and carved out a natural living for himself. In Manfred’s case this was quite literally: using the natural rocky shapes as his medium he began to sculpt the landscape around him into the shapes they suggested. He saw piles of stones, ever decreasing in size, chimeras in the sand; his own world grew around him in a fantasy forest of rock and spirals. He created from what the sea brought him: driftwood, animal remains, cork, net …

"I came here and built this to create my own world. I was looking for a place to be alone," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.

"This is my world. I don't think like other people."

The people called him simply “O Aleman”, and later just “Man”. Manfred accepted this for the symbolism it represented. He read philosophy, deep ecology. Man was a strict vegetarian gathering what he was able to grow from his garden around the hut. No matter what the season, he wore only a loincloth and swam in the sea year round until well in his 50’s.

Not surprisingly, Man became a curiosity. People came from far and wide to visit him, and they were all welcomed, given notepaper and asked to write of their impressions, to do drawings for him. Thousands of these still exist. Man charged a token sum for visits to his “museum” and when he died his bank account revealed he had saved extensively. His last wishes are as controversial as he was: in some circles it is said that money was left so that his work and museum could be maintained after his death but to the present day, this has not happened. Other sources claim that Manfred wished his museum to be left as an everlasting symbol of the destruction it suffered as a result of the Prestige disaster. One thing is certain: after a severe storm in 2010, the hut is in disrepair: only a few visitors come to pay their respect to Man these days. But those who do, remember.

You see, one morning in November of 2002, Man woke up to find his world covered in oil. The devastation on his face – captured by one intrepid, though rather insensitive photographer – reminds one of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. The realization tore out his heart and left him broken. Man was not a well man by this time: his bronchial system and circulation was dangerously debilitated and no doubt the shock of seeing his life’s work destroyed hastened his end. The pathway to his hut was so covered in oil that the local council gave him a pair of rubber boots, his only other items of clothing. But Man retreated into his house and there, it would appear, simply allowed himself to die of melancholy. His body was found a month after the disaster.

Man, the hermit, the visionary, perhaps the mad man..? But who are we to say who is mad and who is not? He was not forgotten by the people of Camelle with whom he had lived alongside for 40 years. The Camelle authorities organised and paid for his funeral, and hundreds of locals attended. Man became a unique human symbol of environmental catastrophe as his body was carried through the streets; even the national papers took up his story.

Thousands of birds and fish died in the aftermath of the oil spill, but Man was the only human victim.

“Nunca Mais” say the Gallegos: never again. The handling of the Prestige disaster by the government remains a topic of debate. Yet, Manfred’s sizable bequest still sits somewhere in a bank and his legacy crumbles, his statues disintegrate, his garden reverts to the sandy promontory that really it has always been. November 2012 marks the tenth anniversary both of the Prestige disaster and Man’s death. And he is by no means forgotten: even in the press running up to Christmas this year there were articles about him. Man’s story touched me deeply when I was taken to visit his museum first, and even more in the cold dawn of a Gallego December just two weeks ago. You see him there with his bedraggled beard and wise man locks. You see him at work. You see him in despair.

Perhaps now is the time for those who have asked for his museum to be restored to have their voices heard. I hope to be one of them.
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It Was a Dark and a Stormy Night…

2011-11-30T22:56:00.004+01:00

Off the coast of Camariñas in the month of February 1890, the Costa da Morte lived up to its name.

The British cadet ship The Serpent was on route to Sierra Leone when she ran into the treacherous weather this coast of Galicia is still famous for. There were 179 young men aboard, some on their very first voyage. The rain fell in torrents and a sea mist obliterated the headland upon which stood the Cabo Villan lighthouse, at that time manually operated.

“We was three days out of Plymouth, sailing along at half speed. Most of the lads was below deck. As we began to make our way down to Cape Finisterre, the waves began to swell and crash over the leeward side. That started it: we got pushed nearer and nearer to the coast and the visibility was something rotten. Somehow we got turned around. We was about three miles out from Cape Villan and about a mile only from the land.‘Course, we didn’t know it then. We didn’t know where we was with the fog being so thick, see?”

Upon passing Cabo Trece, The Serpent ran aground on the treacherous Punta Boi..

The ship did not sink immediately; instead, pinned there by the tumultuous waves the sailors climbed unsteadily up on deck battered by a sea which would show them no mercy.

The commanding officer, Harry Leith Ross, a veteran of Her Majesty’s Navy, ordered the lowering of the lifeboats. The launch cannon was fired but the waves were so great that the projectile never reached land. Men were scrambling down into the lifeboats just as an enormous wave hit the ship broadsides and washed both the little craft and the men overboard. At that point the Commander’s voice could only just be heard: “Every man for himself!” he cried.

Some of the men had managed to put on their lifejackets, although only a very few. The Serpent remained wedged. Soon nothing and no-one remained on deck: the crew, the lifeboats and even the deck of the ship had simply been hurled aside by the force of the wall of water. All that remained were the six cannons pointing uselessly at an enemy which shot could not defeat.

First Seaman Edwin Burton here picks up the tale:

“There was only three of us: Gould the lifeboat captain, Luxton and me. Luxton managed to hold on to the rocks. I saw others around him try the same, but all were washed away. Luxton he was a strong one, to be sure, but even he was half-dead by the time he reached the shore. A big swell threw me against the body of Lacane, one of my shipmates. We slammed into each other trying to save ourselves. There was bodies all around us, some with the arms ripped away, with their heads just … gone. It were a gruesome sight.

“Somehow I was able to reach Luxton. We managed to reach some folks in the little parish just up from the shore: Xavina they told me it was called later. I looked back and saw Gould struggling in the water, but with so many out there, there was little we could do for him save get help as quick as we could, like. We got to a fisherman’s cottage and called the alarm. We was exhausted, I can tell you. He was ever such a good man: he gave us food and dry clothing and called others out to help. For most though, it was too late.”

Gould finally made it to land. Overnight, The Serpent broke in two. Forty Eight bodies washed up on the shore. Most were in their lifejackets but even so they were in a terrible shape: mutilated by the wrath of the ocean as it battered their lifeless bodies against the rocks. One of them was the Commander. Over the next few weeks, one hundred and twenty eight bodies finally made it back to land, all in an advanced state of decomposition.

Depending upon whom you talk to, there may have been a sinister motive for the sinking of The Serpent. According to writer Ramón Allegue in his book Mar Tenebroso, the English government needed to transfer a substantial amount of money to its Colonial army in South Africa: this was to secure the release of crews of other boats which had been captured by the enemy. The Serpent had another ship, The Lapwing, along with her as protection.

But wreckers didn’t just exist in the coasts off of Cornwall, a la Daphne du Maurier. Indeed, the Requeros, as they were known, were just as active and dangerous in Spain. Some were even in the pay of the landowners who stood to gain from any cargo washed ashore. It may then have been the Requeros who turned off the lights at Cabo Villan luring The Serpent and all her crew onto the rocks…

The Lapwing sped away for help and came back with another ship, The Sunfly. Between them, they managed to salvage a chest filled with gold coins.

But the second chest was never found.

After the shipwreck, the English Admiralty gave a rifle to the Parish priest of Xavina in gratitude for all his help. A gold clock was given to the Mayor of Camariñas and a barometer to the City Council: you can see the barometer still. It is embedded in a wall in the town’s centre and is signposted. The figurehead has been preserved as well

The bodies were buried close to where they lost their lives: today it is called simply The English Cemetary. It has its own eerie peace there on the headlands, and a chilling lesson when the winds raise the ocean along the Coast of Death. The cemetery is just north of Camariñas around the coast on the way to the fishing port of Camelle, which has its own story to tell, as you shall see later.

Until 1950, when an English ship passed this part of the coast, it shot a salvo as a sign of respect for the death of so many fine young men.
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Monte Neme and the Wolfram Mines...

2011-11-12T18:04:00.005+01:00

One of the truly compelling things about moving to a new area is discovering all the little walks and passageways, all the roads you’ve never been down, all the little hidden gems to be discovered and uncovered. Even though I won’t be in residence in the Little Fox House for another 6 weeks, I have begun to do a virtual tour of the area ready to take pilgrims out to places they could never have had a chance to see from the bus! Since I am taking a bit of a break from researching The Dove and the Yellow Cross while waiting for St. James’ Rooster to make it onto the shelves (and packing!) I thought maybe you might like to learn a little bit too and so in the next few weeks I am going to explore here some of the places of the History and Mystery of the Coast of Death in Galicia… Once La Casa del Zorrito is up and running I hope to offer some of these tours to those of you who are interested.

One of these places involved the Nazi exploitation of a little town called Carballo.

In the First World War a mineral called wolfram was discovered in the Monte Neme close the area of the Costa da Morte. Wolfram was used to harden steel and not surprisingly became in great demand especially on the eve of WWII as the Germans were rebuilding the navy denied to them by the Treaty of Versailles. Since they foresaw that there would be difficulties obtaining wolfram from Burma and China, their usual sources of supply, the Nazis turned to Franco.

Wolfram is very scarce in Europe. Only areas of Portugal, some parts of Caceres in Extramadura and Galicia had it in any quantity. Hitler appealed to the Generalissimo for the authorisation to exploit the wolfram as compensation for economic and military help during the Spanish Civil War. Two virgin sites were opened up: Casaio and Carballo just south of A Corunna. The Germans then created a company in Vigo called the "Estudios y Explotaciones Mineras de Santa Tecla" and by the end of the Civil War the mines were already producing in great quantities.

The Galician Wolfram had a decisive importance for the Nazis. It was practically their only supply source. The Nazis needed the Galician Wolfram to harden the steel for their armament trades and supposedly neutral Galicia became a meeting place for Nazi agents willing to get the material at any cost. The price of the mineral skyrocketed to amounts far exceeding its pre-war limits and the scramble for the grey gold began in Monte Neme. Needless to say, mining fever brought all varieties of adventurers and speculators. More than 1000 workers needed to be housed in the golden days of wolfram. Some stole the wolfram to sell on the black market but the sentences were grim for those who were discovered!

Money was plentiful and the little city of Carballo grew more and more, doubling its 1500 inhabitants in 1940 to 3000 in only ten years.

Women played just as important a part in the mines as men did. Not only did they do domestic service, but they also moved the carts, separated the ore, and brought water to homes and factories until running water was introduced. They carried firewood and gorse brush to the ovens and driers. No doubt their children also played a part. No laws against child labour in those days: the only moral code was whether your family ate or starved.

The constant dust in the air led to many deaths, most notably by silicosis, the bane of all miners. Stealing and smuggling led to many a body being thrown down a shaft on a moonless night...

The wolfram was used to coat different weapons to ensure a greater strength. The demand from both the Germans and the English made the price go up to 200 pesetas per kilo, a sizable sum in those days. The close of the hostilies of World War II meant the end of this first mining fever, since prices fell as other countries' minerals became available once more. Other new sources were discovered such as a large mine in Bolivia with cheap labour. A second fever did break out in Carballo in the early fifties due to the war of Korea but with the end of that conflict, the whole Galician wolfram lost its importance.

The exploitation of Monte Neme continued on - in fact, for a long time right up to 1980 – but it never regained the splendor of the war times.

Even closer than Carballo for me in Carantona, at the end of the lovely coastal walk known as the Insua route, are the remains of the old Amparo mine located in the so called Campo do Turco. All now is overgrown, of course. The walk itself begins at a picnic area overlooking the Camarinas ria. A little further around and a small promontory opens out into a vista stretching all the way to the pilgrim town of Muxia just across the bay. If there is a perfect spot on earth just to sit and reflect on your Being, this has to be it. The mine workings are signposted in one place and the subsidence can easily be seen in others.

I don’t think I’d want to walk too far off the track though...

Next time: Shipwrecks of the Costa Morte, old and new.
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Age before beauty ...

2011-10-21T09:52:00.004+02:00

A very short one today connected with the post below. This one I found by accident Googling for "Border Collies".

I love the Internet, don't you?

Something remains for me to do or dare
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear
For age is opportunity no less than youth itself,
but in another dress.
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars invisible by day
Longfellow

Beauty is Truth; Truth Beauty...?

2011-10-17T16:51:00.007+02:00

For the past few days I have been thinking about youth and old age. Not, actually, connected with me personally. More that I spent two days at the Marbella Film Festival and three of the films I saw involved a juxtaposition between people when they were younger and now.

One of these films was called Mila’s Journey. It is the story of Mila Jansen, a woman from Amsterdam, who when young had gone with her husband to India there to embark on a 1500 klm trek through the Ladakh area of the Himalayas. The journey was filmed by herself and her husband. Some sort of serious disagreement ensued once the trek was over, however, and was so acrimonious that the couple parted, and so did the footage of the journey with Mila keeping one half and her husband and soon to be ex-husband the other. Mila doesn’t elaborate on the source of the split, but she does hint that he wanted not to return to India, and she most wholeheartedly did.

Fast forward almost 40 years and Mila wonders what happened to him. She finds that he is dying, of cancer, and goes to his bedside.

My first thought on seeing both of them in the 70’s was how incredibly beautiful both were. Hans, her husband even comments on this when he sees his picture. Mila, so many years later, is still a beautiful woman with fine bone structure and laughing eyes. Hans is a skeleton. His once fine and handsome cheekbones reduced to painful protuberances.

Mila wishes her ashes to be scattered at a certain lake high up in the mountains and decides to go back, to try to meet up with some of the people with whom she had walked and, most especially, to locate the guide who had become one of the family. She succeeds in most cases, although many have died. Mila has had a recent heart attack and is far from well physically, but this doesn’t stop her initially; although later she finds that the altitude is too much for her. The crew must go on, and she must return.

The second film I had pause to consider was called Spanish Steps. This film looked at a group of mainly English people (and a few Spaniards who had found themselves transplanted in England) who had become not only aficionados of flamenco, but practitioners of the art themselves, mainly in dance. The footage this time took us back to more or less the same time period as Mila’s Journey; perhaps a little before.

In both cases, the people I saw on screen were more or less the age I was when singing with a band and later a folk duo: running a folk club in the Midlands and spending late nights entertaining many musicians who were to go on to considerable fame, and their friends. The film footage of those times was so dated that I might have been looking at Dageurrotypes!

What struck me about both films (and both were truly excellent) was the realities of aging. Once young, beautiful and energetic, the people in these films were now overweight, lined, slower of movement, more ponderous, and in some ways, more innocent than they had been before, although most of the dancers in the latter film had no problem once the Duende – the spirit of flamenco - entered into the scene.

The last film called Beyond the Noise directed by and featuring Dana Farley, a young filmmaker who had struggled all her life with serious learning problems. Dana had been introduced to Transcendental Meditation by the filmmaker and director, David Lynch and it had helped her enormously to concentrate and overcome her fear of such things as exams and so on. The last third of the film is an interview, initially Dana interviewing Lynch, until then he turns the microphone on his young friend. The resulting conversation is quite an extraordinary one: a sharing of knowledge and most of all camaraderie between the famous man and the young student. The juxtaposition between young and old simply melts away in the light of a shared passion.

“She doesn’t really know who he is,” her almost lookalike mother Karen told me over a beer on the hotel’s terrace. Lynch, of course, is perhaps best known for the series Twin Peaks and the award-winning film The Elephant Man. Dana had met him in a context quite different from the Hollywood glitz in which most people would meet such a person. As a result, while she knows of his fame, it doesn’t seem to have any impact on their interaction. Dana's film follows her own difficulties with growing up dylexic and suffering from attention and processing difficulties and the bullying and self-esteem issues which are endemic to young people with learning "disabilities". As an educator myself, I greatly enjoyed it and for one so young it is a remarkable effort.

So going back to my original thoughts. Why do we have to change physically as we grow old? Do we really have to "wear out"? Do we have to become redundant, leaving the world to a younger and more attractive "race" of people who do not have our wisdom and abilities, nor our own particular beauty? Why do our limbs begin to fail us? ("Bits are falling off," said the outspoken Prince Phillip recently.) Why do our thoughts become so much harder to process? Why sometimes do we make excuses for ourselves citing our age as reasons? Why do we so delight in sending each other those slightly offensive (but “fun”)) “age” cards for our birthdays? Why does “beauty” so often seem to be equated with “youth”? Is it because once we grow beyond our childbearing years (and of course I am speaking more for women here) that “looking beautiful” is no longer seen as so important because we have no need to attract someone with whom to mate? Yet from a man’s point of view, it also seems to put most of us out of the running in the romance stakes… Have you ever watched a man sitting at a café on the street direct his gaze to the butt of a woman in her 50’s? I thought not. And what about the one who said: “Well, with her long hair she looked pretty good from the back, until she turned around”. (From a Facebook post from someone I have as a “Friend”: Not about me as far as I know, but it could have been!)

I watched a film recently in which Angie Dickenson’s words were (mis)taken as a “come on” by a much younger man: “Why would I do that with an old stick like you?” the man says. Under the dirt and trappings of an alcoholic bag lady, Dickenson still looked beautiful, at least to my eyes.

Why when we look at a photo of someone when they were young do we say: “Wow. S/he was so good-looking/pretty then,” when the person in question has gained an inner beauty through self-confidence, risk, knowledge, peace? Can't we acknowledge that instead?

Oddly, I would not want to be any age but the one I am now. Not if it meant that I had to go back and re-live all those years of struggle and doubt. I look at a photo of someone like Vanessa Redgrave, gorgeous still at seventy something and without a trace of hair colouring or botox, and say: “I’d like to look like her” whereas I have no desire to look like, say, Cameron Diaz or Keira Knightley. I don’t mind at all what I see in the mirror.

Furthermore, I know that what I have to give today is of great value. In that sense, I guess I consider myself “expensive” in the way that a younger woman might value her looks. If diamonds littered the beaches, then diamonds would have no value.

What does concern me though is this assumption, often by men closer to my age than either of the stars above, that women “of a certain age” are no longer attractive. Living in Marbella I see so many “trophy wives” (the Marbella Woman is legendary) on the arms of men who quite clearly have left their own wives to start a second family. Often these men are in their 50’s and 60’s, even ‘70’s and well… not what my mother would have called “an oil painting” themselves. Do they think those women are in love with them? What about the wife or wives they have left? I find this very, very sad indeed.

Is there a conclusion to this general rambling and ambling I am taking? I don’t really know. Perhaps I am looking less for a “Fountain of Youth” and more for a shady avenue of trees under which beauty achieves a broader recognition and in which we can walk together without coming into a meadow in which we are to be put out to pasture...

Your comments (young and old!) would be most welcome.
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Pay It Forward...?

2011-10-10T23:15:00.003+02:00

I was trying to come up with a blog post this morning and nothing would come. I made myself a cup of tea (always good for inspiration and sympathy) and had a quick look on Facebook. A mutual Friend had posted a link to another Friend's blog. I have been thinking about it all day.

There is no way I could top this one today, Rebekah, and perhaps not ever.

From Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo by Rebekah Scott who practices love every day from her home on the Meseta.

Will you Pay It Forward just a little today...?

Link to the original also follows.

"This is going to sound "woo-woo," but what the hell.

I watch the news, and most of it is bad. Soon our money will be worthless, the plans we made to keep us in comfort for the next few years are not so stable and sensible after all. What can I do? How can I get ready? How can I change a system so evil and so entrenched?

I felt scared for a little while. I looked at the wall of negativity on the Web, and I sat down with it to think. I decided to look round the other side of it, at what else could happen. I looked for a glimmer of light.

On the other side of this mess is something simple and beautiful.

I pray for it. I think so much of the answer to the fear and suffering around us, the suffering that is and may be to come, is for everyone to calm down, shut up, and do something Good.

Doing Good doesn´t have to cost anything. It is therapeutic, calming and cleansing. It has tons of historic precedent. You don´t need lessons or workshops or seminars to learn to do it. You don´t even need to believe in anything or anybody. It is as natural as breathing. It is something humans just do, whether or not they call it "prayer" or "works of mercy" or "charity work" or "volunteering" or "standing up for what´s right."

My friend Claire made me think a couple of days ago, when she quoted author Brian Taylor, an Episcopalian Rector:

'Do you feel God most directly when you sing the blues? Then sing the blues and call it prayer. Do you blurt out things that everyone seems to be thinking but no one is saying? Blurt one, and call it the prompting of the Spirit. Do you love to cook and eat? Hold parties and consider it Holy Communion.'

So he expanded on the "prayer" thing a bit. My point is, many of the things we do naturally are, with a simple re-phrase, doing Right. Doing Good. People have stuck labels on all these things and assigned them to lists and Virtues and Gifts of the Spirit, Sacraments, etc. etc., as if they were church property.
Nope. If God is as big as the church people say (s)he is, no one can co-opt goodness. It is from God. It is natural and human and therapeutic. It is not Democrat or Republican, Labour or Tory, liberal or conservative. You know what it is, because you are good.

Unless you are a sociopath, you know what is right, and you know what needs to be achieved in your house or yard or street or neighborhood. Shut off the goddam TV and/or computer and go do it.

For all our sakes. For God´s sake.

It will put your mind at ease. It will correct wrong, clean up the mess, solve a few problems. Just imagine if everybody stopped snarling, snarking, fighting, and worrying, and just did something good. Every day. Not waiting for the government to do something, not worrying about someone else taking advantage. Just doing it because it needs to be done, and our hands are free, and the needs are clear.

Even if the über-rich win and we all must live under a bridge, if we all are in the habit of doing Good we will make the bridge into a community, where good people do good for one another, without having to make a buck out of it, without having to score points at someone else´s expense. Maybe when we are all collectively screwed out of all our "belongings" we can dump our over-hyped, alienating "Individualism" and learn to take care of each another.

Jesus talked about that. Jesus the homeless brown-skinned revolutionary, the woo-woo Jew. (If I am just a silly dreamer, I am in very good company.)
We cannot stop a financial armageddon. But we can stop being afraid, and go out and be kind to our neighbors. This is the only answer I can find."

Link: http://www.moratinoslife.blogspot.com/

Review of Emilio Estevez' The Way...

2011-10-05T23:42:00.006+02:00

My pilgrim daughter, Rebecca, and I went to see the film in Malaga last year. I was expecting to be disappointed. But I wasn't.

First of all, it is balanced. There is acknowledgment of the religious aspects of the Camino, but also the idea of the Way as the destination, as Tom spreads his son's ashes at various waymarks along the path, but also decides - having had a conversation with a helpful gypsy in Burgos - to take the path beyond Compostela to Muxía to scatter the remainder of the ashes in the sea on the rocks in front of La Virgen de la Barca. Having visited Muxía myself this year I was delighted that they chose this place rather than the more commercialised Finisterre.

Secondly, it is powerful. The notion of a Tom who changes gradually from someone who sought to impose his own values and lifestyle on his adventurous son follows the idea that no matter who your are or what you believe in, the Camino WILL change you in one way or the other, as Tom does, "seeing" his son along the Camino and even visualising him pulling the ropes of the Botefumeiro with great satisfaction in the Cathedral.

Finally, it is funny. The scene where the four are practicing baton-twirling with their bordones had me laughing out loud. In fact, the dialogue free part of the movie as they move across the Mesa was my favourite. It helped to encapsulate what happens when individuals with nothing whatsoever in common, come together in commonm circumstances.

I didn't particularly like two of the characters and in this Rebecca and I were in agreement: Sarah the Canadian is much too brash and intrusive from the outset (and who wears skin tight jeans on the Camino?), but perhaps she had to be hard in order to mellow through the journey, as she seems to do. There was nheed to flesh out the character but perhaps little time. The Irish writer selfishly only wants to take the lives of others in order to break out of his writer's block and it is hard to warm to him at any time although even Tom accepts him for what he is later in the movie.
Tom, however is brilliantly portrayed by Martin Sheen whose facial expressions leave extensive dialogue unnecessary. A true award winning performance.

Purists will complain about the non-Latin Compostela and the fact that the replacement was given so easily (can't tell any more though...). No we don't go up the steps and through the Great Door: I believe only the King does that! Both Rebecca and I as long term residents of Spain were offended by the unpleasant "Madame Debril"-type character who has never walked the Camino and who informs Tom that he is in Basque country - Navarra in this case - and not Spain. This was a gratuitous, misleading and unncecessary throw away by Estevez and I could hear people bristle around me here in the cinema in Andalucia. It's a touchy subject. More Catalunians think themselves "not Spanish" than Navarese, or even those from Pais Vasco. Also police are not likely to throw enebriated and noisy pilgrims in the drunk tank (God knows they'd never get any real work done else!).

On a positive note - and there are many - "El Ramon" from Jack Hitt's wonderful book Off the Road was a great little vignette as were others taken from that favourite Camino book of mine (though not where the bird drops from the sky, alas). Read it for yourself; it is still the best.

I am looking forward to the DVD and the chance to see it in English. Certainly it can only have a positive effect on those who are feeling the Camino draw them closer. It's gently done, perhaps too gentle for a general audience, but it has a lasting effect and made me want to get my boots out (yet) again.
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More soon on my recent adventures in Galicia and the birth of the Little Fox.

I Love Ryanair...

2011-09-30T16:38:00.005+02:00

Yes, you read it right. After weeks now of worrying about all the hidden charges I was expecting to pay, my first flight with the dreaded low-cost Irish airline turned out to be the most stress free I have ever taken.
Now, I admit I have never booked with either Virgin or Easy Jet, and maybe if they had flown from Malaga to Santiago I might have chosen one of them instead. But they don't. Previously I have flown with Vuelling (OK) and Monarch (OK) and both were cheap and efficient, but not THIS cheap and efficient. I moved straight from daughter's car to seat 18A window (it's open seating I was told - well, of course it is!) without the slightest increase in my blood pressure and with a strong sense of faith in Sense. The Polish steward (inexplicable and frankly completely impossible accent in both English and Spanish) made all of us laugh with his dramatical salesmanship of perfume, Snickers and "Vodka!" and as we landed there was a starter's trumpet. Everyone in the midsection of the plane spent most of the time in hysterics. I loved it.
Mr. Ryan o' Naire, you got my bizness man.
And if all goes well with The House of the Little Fox that might amount to quite a bit. One and three quarters of an hour from south to north. Sixty euros return(could even have been cheaper as I found out with another booking for later next month though more on that when the time comes). All of this is going to become more and more important as I contemplate the downside of being a country away from my daughter and granddaughter in order to follow that loco pilgrim dream you all will likely know about by now (and if not scroll down and WHERE have you been?).
I decided this time on a rental car. "What colour is it?" I asked, anticipating wondering around in the semi-darkness looking for an Opel Corsa amongst many. The key fob was duly checked: "Lancelot", she said. "That's yellow."
"Yellow? Are you sure?" I said surpressing a giggle. Yellow cars are still rare in Spain as the colour yellow is traditionally associated with bad luck.
"More or less yellow," she confirmed. "Anyway, if you click the key it will sing to you."
Such a delightful possibility could only be spoiled by explanation.
Lanceleot was indeed yellow, or kind of light gold. Rather pretty. Sparkly and yellow inside too. I have an older Corsa at home and when at my daughter's drive their Astra, so this was a piece of Tarta de Santiago.
Easily now negotiating the ring roads around Santiago I found myself singing the theme song from Camelot (since Lancelot was my trusty guide for those of you with short-term memories):
"A law was made a distant moon ago here
July and August cannot be too hot
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot."
I started to laugh so hard that I completely missed a turn and had to go the roundabout once more.
"That's Galicia!!!" I said aloud.
Car and bags parked at the Hostal Alameda - now known as my second home - I ventured out to find pimientos. My usual haunts were closing up as it was by then 11 at night. But oddly, I had had the image of a certain restaurant in my head even before I headed towards the Suso. Skirt the cathedral, down past the Palacio de Rajoy, down the steps...and I walked bang slap into a Quemada, all in delightful and fumerous flame and being nicely encanted by a man from the 15th century.
No, I hadn't walked into a time slip, as Laura does in St. James' Rooster (you'll see). This was a nightly occurance during the Mercado de Medieval I was told. The brujo sang and clapped. He indicated when we should sit and listen and when to leap up and disclaim. My chiperones arrived and my Estrella, and my second. Somewhere later I sent over una jarra of cerveza to the musicians which included a cherub-faced gaitero who might have been chosen to play before the gates of Jerico. With a nod or a sideward glance he brought the others (percussion mostly) in to join him at the right moments. I was captivated, entranced. In love.
"You play better than Hevia! Better than Carlos Nuñez!" I said as I was taking my leave. "Como te llamas?"
The comparison to Galicia´s most famous gaita player went down well.
"Soy Pablo," he said delightedly. "Desde Orense."
"Estoy enamorada," I said as I made my wobbly way down the Rua de San Clemente and "home".
I would NEVER behave this way in Marbella. The opportunity would never present itself. Que lastima: what a shame!
Santiago!!! I'm home...
(P.S. I have missed out the bit where I nearly fell over the drum case.)
Oh and by the way, it's 25 degrees today and not much colder by night. If this is climate change you'll ALL be moving to Galicia.
Pix to follow.

Competition Winner! (and Banned Books bonus)

2011-09-28T11:21:00.006+02:00

In the absence of a post this month (the first time ever), and in honour of Banned Books Week 2011, I am adding a link to a webpage called Banned Books online which is part of a much larger collection of free books. And of course if you have Kindle you must check out the Gutenberg Project for over 36,000 free books.

I am calling an early end date to the competition as in fact I have a clear winner for a couple of weeks now. Congratulations Los Hitos del Camino for correctly identifying (rather publically!) that the marker stone is on the corner of Rua de San Bieito. The other street I was looking for was Rua Travesa and yes, you do know where they are: just a hopskip from Casa Manolo, the best pilgrim restaurant in S de C by far! A copy of Peregrinos de la Herejía winging its way (literally - with me) to Santiago in the next few days.

I have had over 230 really wonderful and encouraging responses to my questionnaire and today I am preparing charts and a report prior to looking into financing arrangements. It's not going to be easy. Mortgages in Spain are no easier to come by than anywhere else, and for a single self-employed woman "of a certain age" damn near impossible. (Note the word "near".) But I have Plans B and C at hand too and hopefully a plethora of gods and goddesses on my side.

Mike Doolley says "Thoughts Become Things": I have a band on my right wrist which reminds me of that 24 hours a day.

"If you build it, they will come..."

More adventures next month.
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P.S. I am keeping the Questionnaire open. It will take you only 3 minutes (7 easy anonymous questions). Please do continue to submit because your participation and opinions are TRULY NEEDED:

Here's the survey LINK: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MNQ93PN

And here's the Banned Books link:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html
Enjoy.
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Naughty Stones in Santiago...(and nuns)

2011-08-27T15:04:00.009+02:00

First off: a Challenge!

Somewhere in the city of Santiago de Compostela is this stone. Were it in any Indian village we would have to call it a "lingam". Call it what you may, it's pretty obvious what it is supposed to represent. I don't know the history of this stone but hope one day to find out. Presumably it dates back to the days of the dolmens and the castros. If you can tell me either one of the streets it is on the corner (of!), I will happily send you a copy of Pilgrimage to Heresy either in English or Spanish, or, a very limited copy of my new book Being and Paradox which looks at the question of the "rights" of nature and the problems in trying to define them. Send your entries to: priscillianmartyr@yahoo.com by September 30th, 2011 and don't forget to say which book you would prefer.

As usual, I walked the equivalent of a day's hike on the Camino while in Santiago. It is such a walker's city and I always use any excuse I can to pass through the Obradoiro Square and also the cathedral itself. This frequently sends me well out of my way. I never feel at all guilty using this "short cut" as to me it binds the "hub" of the basilica into my meanderings both purposeful and not.

This time there were certain little things I intended to buy. I wanted to add to the growing collection of what I consider "amulets" on my silver necklace. I began with my first Holy Year medallion of 1999, then added a Cruz de Caravaca when I visited the shrine there (one day I want to learn a lot more about that story too). The year 2009 saw me add a shell for my Camino Portuguese, and last year yet another Holy Year medallion. This year, I was not sure what I wanted so set out to find out. Had to be silver; had to be less than 10 euros. I found a little Tau.

Now of course, anyone else would think that I simply added a T for Tracy, and that is also true. But I have always been attracted to the Tau and decided it would make a nice addition to my collection. I don't wear the necklace all the time but it always goes on - almost automatically - when I head for the Camino. I don't want to overdo the additions either (my daughter says: "Mom, you are looking very Spanish and very Catholic").

Not at all. It is very suitable for a Happy Heretic. The Tau, according to Wikipedia is: a symbol of the Roman God Mithras and the Greek Attis, and their forerunner Tammuz, the Sumerian solar God, the consort of the Goddess Ishtar.

Tammuz, like Christ, was associated with fishing and shepherding. The Tau cross takes the shape of the letter of his name, and is one of the oldest letters known. A solar god, the death and resurrection of Tammuz were celebrated every summer.

I like to think that the Camino also celebrates "death and resurrection" and so I am happy with my little present to me.

The next thing I wanted to hunt down was a suitable present for Mariana, the daughter of my friend Fernanda who opens her home - and her heart - to hundreds of pilgrims on the Camino Portuguese every year. Mariana always puts on Abba and Celine Dion and dances like a professional. She is 11. I feel that I have been watching her grow up every year I have gone back there.

I stopped into a gift shop with the intention of buying a "hada": a Galician fairy. Mariana always reminds me of a sprite with her mother's pixy face. I found the perfect one, but then, remembering her age, and that what is symbolic to a grown-up may seem childish to a pre-teen, I had misgivings.

As luck would have it, behind the counter and helping her mum was a girl about Mariana's age.

"What do you think?" I asked as she was wrapping the fairy. "Would a girl your age like this?"

"No," came the definitive answer. "Maybe a pulsera (a bracelet), or a CD?"

I left the shop having learned, yet again, that no matter how in touch you might think you are with today's kids, you are far from the mark.

I found the pulsera ... and the CD ...

Guess which she liked the best out of the three presents?

Yep. The hada!

Next stop for shopping meant going to Encontros Bookshop on the Rua do Castro to see how their stocks were for Pilgrimage to Heresy in English. They have sort of an "exclusive" mostly because I hate going into bookshops to sell my books (and everywhere has the Spanish version Peregrinos de la Herejía including El Corte Inglés and FNAC). I also find it hard to collect my "profits" so stick with Encontros (and Bookworld España in the Costa del Sol and Madrid).

Anyway, they had only one copy left and so I took another bunch.

As I was leaving, I noticed a book in the window. It was called: Compostela: Una Historia Entrentenida. It was a history of the city, beautifully illustrated with maps and fanciful pictures of all the things I have been writing about in St. James' Rooster.

All the money I had just received was then duly handed back ...

It IS a lovely book though.

I have been trying to track down the original altar from the cathedral for some time. I had read (very obscurely - can you read obscurely?) that it was in the Museo de Arte Sacro, a little visited museum attached to the Convent of San Paio which is that massive building with the frighteningly small (and high) windows, all with their own iron grill, on the side of the cathedral where the Puerta Sacra is. (That sentence is too long!)

I paid my couple of euros and asked. "Yes, we have it," the young girl said. She was reading a daily prayer book so I assumed she must be a novice perhaps... She was very young? "It's over there." An older nun with a sweet face appeared. She was delighted that I wanted to see the altar. "It was carried on the boat that brought Santiago to Galicia," she kindly informed me.

Over there turned out to be just around the corner. "But you can't take photographs. It is forbidden!" The novice pointed to a sign with an old fashioned camera and a big X through it.

"But I wouldn't use a flash," I offered. I should really know by now that Rules are Rules.

"No. No cameras. No fotos."

I put my little Canon back in my purse.

The original altar was rejected by Diego Gelmirez as not grand enough. The monks, who actually had had the custody of the shrine for 200 years, were not pleased. They took it back and here it still is, almost 1200 years after it was first installed in the first basilica. There was writing on it which seemed to say that the original inscription had been erased in the 16th century (I think). I wrote down everything and I haven't seen my notes (or my sketch) since!!!

What intrigued me was that the altar stone appeared like a tray. It had raised edges all around. Now I may be wrong about this (if I am I hope you will let me know), but it is my understanding that altar stones were standardised very early on in Christian history and stones such as these were banned because they were like those used for pagan sacrifice. I was also desperate to look around the back to see how the flat stone was supported by the (separate and later dated) base.

Yes, being led into temptation, I did it again, I put one leg over the rope in order to sketch what I could see.

The young nun was on me like a ton of bricks.

"¡Usted no se puede hacer esto!"I explained I was a writer (I didn't elaborate. People in convents are a bit funny about happy heretics)and researcher and this stone was muy importante en la historia de la catedral y ...and I just wanted to ...

Nope. She wouldn't budge. Further more, I had shrunk to approximately 30 inches tall; smaller than the altar.

So, I can assure you that the original altar does exist, that it has had the original inscription removed, that it is said to be of the first century, and that it has a support dated later. I can't prove it though 'cos I've lost my notes.

And "¡No fotos!"*

Tomorrow, on foot to Muxia...NOT. The best laid plans, even of pilgrims, have a habit of not quite happening the way they are supposed to.
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P.S. PLEASE don't forget: I need your help! It will take you three minutes to fill my little 7 question questionnaire on the viability and the need for a pilgrims "refuge" for after the Camino: a place to get ready for "re-entry". I really do need YOU to add your voice. It is all anonymous.

Here's the LINK: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MNQ93PN

*P.P.S. There is a picture of the altar on Google images...(Not me!)
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Lead Us Not Into Temptation...

2011-08-23T20:13:00.005+02:00

And forgive us our trespasses...

This one is very personal.

I didn't mean to gatecrash their mass! I got up early to go to the cathedral. It is lovely first thing in the morning. There are no crowds and you can commune with your own sense of the divine without feeling either lost, or conspicuous. You can trace your fingers over the builder's marks and no-one asks you if this is some sort of a ritual. I went "down in the basement" as I call the crypt to have a quick word with Priscillian: just to let him know that I was back. I heard them singing you see. Singing very sweetly in German. It was a private mass, behind the tomb in a place I longed to visit. I didn't take myself there; my feet did.

Once there and realising that I was truly intruding, I could hardly turn tail and run. So I stayed. As I listened to the mass in German I began to think of the things I was grateful for: the opportunity to be so close to these people who were in some way "related" to me. I thought of being a grandmother and how much joy that brings me - the child of my child - and then suddenly remembered that my paternal grandmother, "Oma", was a Catholic from the Black Forest. I never really knew her at all. In fact, I don't remember liking her very much. I think somehow I knew that she wanted to steal my father and take him back to Germany. I spoke no German, although her English was good. But I didn't trust her and that was that.

Neither of us made much attempt to bridge this gap.

My father did not go back to Germany. At least not then. That came much later. In fact he died there. I didn't know him either and I have written about this at length in another book of mine entitled The Índalo Quest, not now in print.

So while I was thinking about my granny and my father, something very embarrassing happened: I began to cry; quietly, but very visibly and in that small space and with that small group, very noticeably.

To make matters worse was something I hadn't even considered: when it came time to take the sacrament, I hoped that I would be passed over, but I was not. I did not know then that one may cross one's hands over one's chest and just receive the blessing. I was not baptised. At all! I had to make a decision: run? explain? (no chance of that!), or accept that this was perfectly OK, Catholic or not. I had made myself part of the group's worship and no-one would mind if I continued to participate.

I should not have done it, of course. I do not accept the transubstatiation. But somehow, it didn't seem to matter. I felt a wave of love from somewhere in that normally inaccessible chapel, the one I was really trespassing in. As soon as the mass was over, I left immediately. I went to sit on the front row of the south transcept and made myself small.

And then the most amazing thing happened...

A woman from the group approached me. She seemed to be seeking me out. She said no words, but she came up to me and gave me the most wonderful hug I have ever had in my life. It was completely maternal even though she was probably a little younger than me. I started to cry again and, learning she spoke English, said I was sorry to have barged in to what was clearly a private service. I told her about my thoughts: about my German half that I had never acknowledged and the father and grandmother I had never known.

She kept on hugging me.

Finally she said: "You know that God is with you?"

I said that Yes, I did. I really did. I knew he was.

"Behold I stand at the door and knock..."

Someone once said to me: you know the handle is on the inside?

Words and times to ponder.

The woman's name was "Garda": a guardian angel perhaps...?
____________________________________________________________

Please don't forget to fill out my "Post-Camino Refuge" Questionnaire. Go down two posts for the link. Help me get to 200 responses by Sunday. It's just 7 questions and 3 minutes but it's worth a million to me. Thanks, Tracy

Post Camino Reflections ...

2011-08-21T13:30:00.009+02:00

I realise that what with all the excitement ´n all, I haven't followed through with my promise to tell all about my non-Camino. I shall begin to put this right every day this coming week (ojalá). But please don't forget the Post Camino Questionnaire below...

Having driven as much of the Camino as I have walked (and the Ruta de la Plata many times by now) I tend to think of myself as a Motorperegrina as much as a walking pilgrim. For two years now, I have had very good intentions of walking from Santiago to Finisterre and Muxia. Last year, two cracked ribs kept me from doing that. I drove it instead, and another 2,500 klms to boot (no pun intended). This year it was stitches on my leg, there post-removal of a nasty basal cell carcinoma which now, thankfully, is history!

I went to the hospital in Santiago for the 10 stitches to be removed. It was a day earlier than suggested on my little piece of paper from the surgeon in Málaga.
"Mujer! Estás loca?" was the reponse from the doctor when I told him I was planning a little 230 kilometer walk. This was agreed by all in both Castellano and Gallego. "Crazy pilgrims!"

Anyway, it was not the doctor but the leg that decided it in the end. Each step down on the right leg felt like it was pulling at my muscle (and with inside soluble stitches, it probably was!).

Once again, the Motorperegrina made her way to Muxía. There to fall in love as you all know by now.

But I am getting well ahead of myself.

One of my main reasons for going north this year (apart from that Homing-Pilgrim instinct) was to appear at the II Encuentro de Peregrinos in Villafranca del Bierzo. The conference is to take place every year between the Holy Year of 2010 and the next in 2021. Of my own appearance I shall say very little other than ask you to imagine being in a tunnel where you know there is an end and you know where it is, but that it seems like forever until you get there, and nobody else knows it is there at all! This is what it was like reading Peregrinos de la Herejia, the Prologue of five pages, to a group of completely Spanish-speaking pilgrims.

Having read through it in my head I thought that it would be easy: 20 minutes tops...? But reading out loud in a language that - even if you do quite well in it conversationally - is not your own is a truly horrific experience. It was just like being back in third grade when you haven't quite got those long and short vowels sorted out. Truly. I realised that I was not reading my words, but those of the translator Lorenzo Luengo. Lorenzo did a wonderful and eloquent job, but some of the words just would not come out properly and that was that. I found myself actually apologising as the back row began to talk and then the row in front of them (a bit like a Spanish church service actually).

It ended. Finally. I felt just mortified. As I left, Jesus Jato, that great legend of the Camino and hospitalero of Ave Fenix, took my hand and gave me a knowing smile.

They say he's a brujo. A witch. He knew just how I felt...

Despite the general humiliation, I did enjoy myself greatly. The response was good (and I sold a few books which at least helped me pay for some of my expenses). The best part was meeting Sienna Reynaga who was there on behalf of Lydia Smith. Lydia, as you may know, is the director of The Camino Documentary, a beautifully put together glimpse into the world of pilgrims and pilgrimage. Lydia is strapped for cash (aren't we all) and despite the promotion she has received from Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen (The Way), she still hasn't been able to finish it. Another casualty of a dream postponed for lack of (financial) faith. Click on the link to see the trailer, and if you think you can make a donation you are helping Lydia to share the Camino with many more people than just those who are able to traverse it.

Sienna and I hit it off immediately. She has decided to make her home in La Coruña having moved there recently from California. Sienna is a dynamo. In many ways she is everything I am not: genuinely open to everybody whereas I am more reserved sometimes; thriving on public relations where I would rather have dental surgery than do a book signing (last year, Sue Kenney, bless her, took the bull by the horns in one main Santiago bookshop, and virtually dragged people to where I was signing!) Sienna mentioned she needed a ride back to Santiago. "I'm going that way tomorrow," I piped up. That "casualidiad" (coincidence) seems to be morphing into a really good friendship.

As luck (on her part; really good timing on mine) would have it, we arrived just in time for the fireworks and light and sound presentation in front of the cathedral on the 24th of July. For me this was my third time; for Sienna the first. I say "in good time". In actual fact we had to wait for almost four hours. I brought the El Gallo de Santiago manuscript to do a final proofread. Sienna brought her laptop.

Within minutes, thanks to the Golden Girl, we knew everybody around us: Italians, Germans, Spanish, one very charming and garrulous New Yorker, and an annoying French group who came and stood immediately in front of us blocking our view. Everybody else was seated. They wanted to stand (for 4hours?) so that they could videotape it. "It'll be on YouTube in a few days," I said, "Far better than you can do it." "French! Speak French!" said one of the women glowering at me for living. I have a feeling I may have responded rather rudely (in French).

The display was, as always, crafted entirely for me. I wonder how the Xunta knows just what I want each year? This year it was a history of the building of the cathedral, starting with the leafy and pagan Celtic dolmens and a dragon which destroys them, rain, and the Stone Boat bringing St. James. The first basilica. The second. Almanzor and the burning of the Romanesque cathedral; the Portico (you've never seen nothin' til you've seen the cathedral towers spin round on clockwork cogs! Simply magic). In short, everything I have written about in The Camino Chronicles, especially my upcoming St. James' Rooster!

Finally, the doors open and we are transported into the cathedral to pay our respects to the golden St. James on his pedestal. (We all know who I believe is down in the basement...) A gigantic Botefumeiro swings out into the Plaza de Obradoiro to the delighted squeals of the childlike spectators.

And then the fireworks begin!

But don't expect me to really convey what it was like being there, go instead to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX-C11lCqwc&feature=related

This a pretty good version. Not as good as being there (it was all three dimensional. Brilliant) Watch it in the dark on full screen! And don't worry if the begining is a bit difficult to see. Just you wait ...!

Next time, I'll take you on a walking tour of Santiago. Oh, and I've got a mystery for you! If you can figure it out, I'll send you a copy of either Pilgrimage to Heresy (or Peregrinos) or my new, very limited edition, Being and Paradox, which otherwise, so far, is only available on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords.

Buen Camino...

Oh, and PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE ... don't forget to fill out my Post Camino Questionnaire (see below). A great start and lots of very encouraging reponses. But things have slowed down. I want to try to get to 200 responses. It has only 7 questions and will take you 3 minutes, and I REALLY DO NEED YOUR OPINIONS

HELP WANTED! Post Camino Questionnaire

2011-08-16T18:15:00.005+02:00

Dear Blogsters and Pilgrims all:

It's official! I am trying to buy a little house in Galicia near Muxía. It is everyone's dream of a Gallego house: stone and wood and surrounded by meadows, mountains and with the most beautiful beaches ever just a 3 klm walk away. It's not big, but there is room for 4 or 5 pilgrims plus me.

My dream for years now has been to work with pilgrims after they have completed their Camino. I have always thought of a Post Camino Centre, perhaps in Santiago de Compostela but that has become impossible: real estate in S de C is prohibitively expensive, still.

Post Camino Syndrome is a very real condition. Many find it hard to re-integrate their experiences of friendship and openness and simplicity into their lives. Camino Blues ensues (sic).

As a psychotherapist/counsellor and hypnosis practitioner, I have long wondered how I could be of any service. I hope to open a Post Camino Refuge, a.k.a. my home, to pilgrims who want to spend between 2 and 5 days simply reflecting, writing, reading, resting or walking some more, swimming, working (a job jar is planned: work is therapy!)

For this reason and to gauge reactions I have created this little questionnaire. It will only take you 3 minutes or so to complete as there are only 9 pertinent questions. There is a short (very important) "Comments" space at the end. At the moment it is only in English but I am working on a Spanish one too.

Do please be a sweetie and fill it out. My moving is not contingent on this as I shall have to support myself on my teaching and writing as I have always done (I don't think I can do hypnosis in Galego). The more interest I can show, the better chance I have of pulling this off...

Pretty please..?

Here's the link. If it doesn't work, or you get redirected to their main site, please let me know at priscillianmartyr@yahoo.com

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MNQ93PN
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Generosity and Gratitude Part 2...

2011-08-16T17:48:00.005+02:00

Pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago often experience unexpected acts of kindness along the way. A hand profers an apple, a barra de pan, a cupful of water, a place to sit in the shade or out of a torrential downpour. Often these gestures are accompanied by "Un abrazo por el Apostol": A hug for the saint. On occasion something fortuitous happens, seemingly for no reason. Synchronicity? Who knows?

St. James.

But these things are not limited to while one is actually walking the Camino. Pilgrims seem to trail some sort of air of, dare I say, sanctity? Joy. Pilgrims cut the path that many others would love to follow but do not, or cannot. They take wishes, prayers, blessings with them, often unknowingly.

Just this past trip, these four things happened:

1/ I was admiring a game about Galicia in the 26th of July cafe in Santiago(opposite the new Police Staion - great breakfasts). I asked where I could buy one and the response was disappointing. It seemed it had been the result of a promotion by a local radio station some years ago. "But you can have it if you really like it," Noria said.

2/ My hosts at the Hostal Alameda (rua San Clemente - really recommended and very central) looked after my other luggage when I went to Muxia. Upon my return, Rosa gave me a beautiful book of old photos of Compostela. "It is Antonio´s favourite," she said. "He wants you to have it." Inside where these words:

Que esta visión al pasado sea una inspiracion para tu futuro

I doubt I need to translate but it means:
That this vision of the past will be an inspiration for your future.

It was signed by Antonio, Rosa, and Lia their granddaughter whom I have watched grow up year by year.

3/ Seeing my interest in having a go at reading Rosalio del Castro's poems in Galego, the bookseller at the stall by the park gave me a little book about colours for children in Galego. "For your grandaughter," she said.

4/ My car's electrics were playing up most of the time. In Muxia it seemed to get worse. I asked the lady cleaning my room for a local garage. I figured it was something small like a fuse (it was) "Nothing in Muxia," she said, "but if it won't start tomorrow, you can take my car and go to the next town". I had met her just 5 minutes earlier!!!

And then there is Portugal. Five times in the past years I have found myself looking for something I can't find, and five times someone has either walked with me or jumped in the car or their motorcycle and said "Follow me!"Whenever I am in north Portugal I stay at the house of Fernanda Gomez Rodriguez and her husband Jacinto and their daughter Mariana. Fernanda treats every pilgrim who comes up her steps, weary and thirsty, as though they are the prodigal son, or daughter. Such love and kindness I have never ever seen elsewhere, though there are some which come very close along the Way.

Today in the mail I got a packet. I did not recognise the address. Three weeks ago I was presenting my books Pilgrimage to Heresy and the new book St. James' Rooster (Peregrinos de la Herejia y El Gallo de Santiago) at the II Encuentro Mundial de Peregrinos in Villafranca del Bierzo. I got talking with Jacob from Barcelona, or near it. "The Holy Grail was in Montserrat," he told me. I said that I thought this was actually a later Catholic myth designed to cover up that it might have been in Montsegur. He was insistent. I demurred, and then said how I had been looking at every flea market and yard sale for years for a figure of the Black Virgin of Montserrat. "I'll send one to you," he said.

Well, I had truly forgotten about this til she stepped out of her wrappers in all her Black is Beautifulness. She is in front of me as I write. That search, at least, is over.

Thank you, Jacob. So much.

I wonder about these phenomena. Do we radiate something angelic while on or close to the Camino which makes others WANT to help us? Draws them to our innocence? Are we in some sort of state of grace that others can feel our weariness and our joy?

I don't know. But I sure do like it!

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Hither and Yon...

2011-08-15T11:17:00.007+02:00

That is where your blogger has been for the last three weeks. Here and there, there and back again: a wannabe Pilgrim’s Tale. Wanna be because despite all my good intentions, the walking was restricted to Santiago and the lovely seaside town of Muxia. Stick with me over the next week or so and I'll tell you why...

I drove overnight to the north along the Ruta de La Plata, the “Silver Route”. Silver because the Romans used it to transport that metal, mined in the north, to the south. Silver, iron, gold even: they are still to be found in the hills around Pontferrada but very little is mined there now.

I had intended to overnight in Merida but passed it just as I was enjoying the drive (about four hours from home in Marbella). So I carried on to Santander because I wanted to see the cathedral illuminated. Passed it, or it passed me. I was in a Zen trance by then (I’ll bet you never realised that when you are driving long distances you are in a state of hypnosis). Too late to stop and look for a hotel by now…

Zamora, Benavente, Leon, Sahagun. Finally at 3:00 in the morning, having driven 1,100 klms straight through in 12 hours, I pulled my car up beside Rebekah Scott’s front wall, let the passenger seat all the way down, put my backpack in the footwell, pulled out my sleeping bag and …….zzzzzzzzzzzz

The next day, having been duly breakfasted (and taking a short afternoon nap in the silence of The Peaceable Kingdom ,broken only by the trill of the canary), I drove Rebekah and her American friend, Kathy (who had just arrived after an exhausting trip from San Francisco) up to Cantabria.

“Doesn’t Kathy want to rest?” I asked, innocently.
Both women looked at me as if I were Raggedy Ann. O.K. Potes and Liebana, here we come.

The drive through the Picos is quite spectacular: mountain goat country and a few wolves to keep the goats on their horny toes. Vertiginous heights and babbling brooks and a few old monasteries to keep the history lover happy. (It's so deserted up there that any lovers would be happy!) Reb and Kathy were to walk back along the Camino Vadiniense, an almost lost trail named after a native people who once inhabited that area. Rebekah is writing the Pilgrim Guide for the Confraternity of St. James.

We had visited the monastery of Beatus of Liebana - who, if you read earlier posts, you will realise is a bit of an arch-enemy of mine - (from a Priscillianist point of view you understand: I am sure Beatus meant well as he tried to promote the cult of James. No doubt he was a lovely man). I had visited it once before. Rebekah and Kathy went inside to touch the fragment of the True Cross the monks claim to hold. I went outside and splashed my face in the Pagan fuente. We heretics do that sort of thing.

Then it was top of the mountain, photos taken, and off they went!
I believe the words “Lucky buggers” escaped my lips as I watched them go.
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Photo by Rebekah Scott/Kathy Gower

Love at Sixth Sight...

2011-07-30T17:37:00.006+02:00

There are no longer any horses at Cabo Touriñan, the man with the twin dogs told me this morning. He spoke in a toothless Gallego but I knew what he said somehow. Someone got too close and was kicked and denounced the owner to the police (at least I think that's what he said, but it could have been because the horses were hobbled: something about the legs or ankles anyway); so one thing I had hoped to find again is no more. There is nothing at Cabo Touriñan now except the smell of the soft turf and the salt and the wind on your skin. Nothing except the lighthouse, and the sapphire waves below. Not even gulls.

As for me, I am in love. With Galicia. Deeply, blissfully, joyously, perhaps hopelessly in love. This should come as no surprise either to me or anybody who knows me as every time I have been here (five, six. I don't remember now) I have furthered our relationship. I love the countryside, the fields of corn and pimientos, the woods, the barren wild lands; I love the sea, the long spread of white sandy beaches and the vertiginous heights of the lighthouses on the Costa Da Morte. I love the food, the wine. I love the wild flowing rivers and the slow sedatious ones closing to the sea. I love the music and the dancers in their native costumes so far removed from the idea of "Spain" that most of us have with its flamenco and castanets. None of that here. I love the granite; I love the rich loam which would grow anything and the blue clad ladies who tend their grelos and potatoes. I love the language, Gallego, which each time sounds more familiar. Sometimes I understand it even better than I do "Andalus". I love the people and the fact that when driving you never have Mr. Big with his BMW up your tailpipe, flashing his lights and beeping his horn. People actually stop to let you pass, and if you do this for others, they wave to thank you!

This is unheard of in Malaga, believe me!

This morning I walked the 10 stepping stones across the Rio Castro without slipping or falling in or dropping my camera, though the last part was iffy. I was like the Little Fox in the 64th hexagram of the I Ching: determined to keep my tail above water (so to speak). This year there is a bridge and you no longer have to use the stones. Of course, pilgrims being the purists they are, continue to use the stones although I have been told that in winter this is almost impossible. This makes me wonder what this last part of the Camino - from Finisterre to Muxía or vice versa - would be like to walk in December or January. Even today while trying to follow it as much as I could in the car, I saw no-one.

Yesterday I visited a shrine to Maria Magdalena. Her feast day was last week and it was garlanded with white scarves and flowers and candles. There was no statue only an ancient and probably pagan spring now covered over with a granite roof and gathering in a moss lined pool. I had brought a stone (two actually) from the Cruz de Hierro in the Maragateria near Leon. I wrote two words on it in red marker: one in English and the other in Spanish. The same word. La Magdalena will know what to do with them. The other stone contained more words. I left it on a pilgrim marker by the stepping stones.

Tomorrow I will watch the marisqueros bring the Virgin de la Barxa out of the sea. Perhaps I will send her a reminder too.

All my wishes are now out there for the Universe to consider. Perhaps I am being selfish: but you see, I want it ALL.

More soon, and a photo of the horses at Cabo Touriñan which are no longer...
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A Picture...

2011-07-26T22:36:00.005+02:00

...needs no thousand words.

At the end of January of this year I posted about what seemed to me to be Bliss, or "A State of Grace". I have come to understand it more as "Joy". I have posted yesterday about "joy" and been thinking a lot about it in the past few days. Not knowing this, my daughter sent me this as one of a recent series of photos of my granddaughter, Daniela, aged just 14 months. In it I immediately recognised what I had seen in that wonderful still from the second Fantasia film. (Do see January 29th blog for picture and comment: http://pilgrimagetoheresy.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html You will see what I mean.)

If you have ever wondered what the wind looks like ... here it is.

Zoom in, and be prepared to lose your heart.

More soon.

"Generosity and Gratitude turn good into great"

2011-07-25T22:43:00.009+02:00

This was my Note from the Universe today, the Day of St. James, and my first full day in Santiago. I went to the Pilgrim’s Mass this morning and sat very scrunched up on the tiniest piece of floor (impossible to rise to join the prayers but that's OK with me and my god) and this thought kept coming back to me: don’t ask for what you don’t have, and/or think you might want. Instead, thank whatever forces have brought you to this place in this time for all of the wonderful things you DO have: all the great gifts you have been given. With the release of this thought, I found myself absolutely deluged with all the blessings I have in my life and the feeling was just wonderful. So thank you to “The Universe” (and Mike Dooley) for reminding me.

The fireworks last night in front of the cathedral were quite spectacular as fireworks in general are expected to be, but this time I think even they were superceded by the sound and light presentation which was projected directly onto the Cathedral and its flanking buildings. Since this is the 800th anniversary of the cathedral’s consecration (NOT completion. I have had to put a few people straight on this today) the theme was the history of the Cathedral of Santiago from the time of the “translatio” by sea, the discover y (“inventio”) of the “Apostle’s” body, through the razing of the basilica by Almanzor, the rebuilding, the time of Diego Gelmirez, the Portico de Gloria, the Botefumeiro. We were invited into the nave as the three dimensional projection opened up and swallowed us, the twenty thousand. It was, in short, a brilliant piece of artwork.

Perhaps what I liked most of all was at the very beginning of the presentation: The facade covered in ivy as a red dragon appeared and swirled, devouring the foliage as it did so. Whether the makers of the film were aware of the significance of the Dragon in pagan times, the Celtic reference, I don’t really know. Certainly nothing about it was mentioned in the Galician press today. There is a repeat performance tonight and every night until the 31st when the fuegos artificiales are to be repeated. I am going to go back for more tonight. I am a real sucker for such spectacle, especially where history is concerned.

And, to think that I have written about all of this: in Pilgrimage to Heresy and in St. James’ Rooster ... and here on this blog, of course!

Going back to the thought of gratitude, so much talk today has been of death: Amy Winehouse, and the terrible, terrible tragedy of Norway. The grief of the parents and friends of those children I can not even begin to imagine.

Yet, here in Santiago I have been immersed in LIFE! I find it impossible to get this silly grin off my face whether I am suddenly caught up in a Marxist-Leninist demonstration (not intentionally may I add) or eating so many pimientos de Padron that I swear my skin is taking on a decidedly greenish tinge. I have in years past been to several sites of pilgrimage (which is an odd thing for a Happy Heretic to admit, I suppose). Jerusalem is an exception, and of course there are many others too. But I would imagine in Jerusalem as a pilgrim there would be too much sanctity for me, just as in Lourdes (though I do love the candle-lighters by the Grotto) there is too much near death and disease and despair only assuaged by blind faith. There is Age: one becomes elderly in Lourdes, fragile and mortal. This is not for me. Fatima is just strange. Rome is too Catholic, too much adoration of a man whose decisions and pronouncements and thoughts can never be wrong.

But Santiago is a place of intense JOY. It is youthful, regardless of the age of those who enter it and how they do so: Pilgrims with a sense of purpose they have trailed with them for 100, 200, 500, 1500 kilometers; Peregrinos who may not have known why they had set out or what they were seeking but along the way have found their priorities changed once and for all. And here in Compostela is the pay off. Yippee and throw that old donkey hat in the air. I know. I’ve done it: cried and cried at the sight of that beautiful, almost surreal Baroque front, and been hushed into silence by the builders’ marks on the stones, pillars, and archways. Whomever is buried in the Crypt, Santiago Cathedral simply hums with life and so does its city.

And now, if you don’t mind I am going back for a little more.

More in a few days when I begin my walk to Muxia and the ends of the earth. (Ojala!)
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Photo by Francesco di Gregorio, a lovely German from Frankfurt with a very un-German name! I am sure he won't mind my sharing this here...

Wise Words from Other Sources...

2011-07-21T17:18:00.003+02:00

This one comes without Pix 'cos I am on someone else's computer and I don't do that sort of thing. Will find perfect picture when I get home... (See: Promises Kept!)

I am currently on the Camino, helping out a bit at the wonderful location of the Peaceable Kingdom, a private home near Sahagun (Leon) run by Rebekah Scott and her husband Patrick O´Gara who welcome pilgrims year round. Paddy has given me this book to read: The Age of Pilgrimage: The Medieval Journey to God by someone with the delightful name of Jonathan Sumption. In it, I have found the following. I could, I suppose, paraphrase it, but I would rather make risotto and sit out in the sun with the dogs; so hoping Mr. Sumption will truly understand: that I write what I have read in its entrirety. It's a really good book by the way. Highly recommended...

"Particularly interesting is the hand of Cluny in composing the elaborate promotional literature put out by the church of Santiago. Most of it is contained in the Liber Sancti Jacobi, an exquisitely produced manuscript in the cathedral library (alas, no more.Ed.)
The Liber consists of five quite separate books bearing on the pilgrimage to St. James, proclaiming at the beginning and end that it was written for the benefit of the Abbot of Cluny by Pope Calixtinus II. The attribution is fictitious for there are parts which could not have been written for the abbot of Cluny by any Cluniac. But the second book which consists of the miracles of St.James, bears strongly the imprint of Cluny. Most of the miracles (contained therein) happened to the inhabitants of Burgundy, the Viennois or the Lyonais, and some happened within a few miles of the Abbey. A few are attributed to a canon of Besancon, while another was related by an abbot of Vezelay. Three miraculous stories which St. Anselm told to Hugh (Abbot of Cluny),during a prolonged visit to Cluny in 1104 (i.e. at the beginning of Diego Gelmnirez' bishopric. Ed.)all appear with minor alterations in the Miracles of St.James. These miracles were Cluny's greatest contributions to the Pilgrimage of St.James. They were plagiarised by every collector of marvellous stories, copied out in a great number of manuscripts, from the twelfth century to the sixteenth, set forward in sculpture and stained glass throughout Europe. Arnoldo de Monte a monk of Ripoll (which,the Santiago manuscript being missing, now has the oldest copy of the Codex: ed) justly remarked that it was these miracles which had made the apostle ´shine forth as bright as the stars in every part of the world´."
Their message was clear: embrace the teachings of the saints for they were the closest to Jesus and we have the priests to interpret for you exactly what you are too simple to read/understand for yourselves. Pilgrims, afraid of the Devil - a very real entity in the Medieval mind - flocked to Compostela to the tomb of "St.James" for forgiveness. Meanwhile the townspeople were of course, to use a modern phrase: "raking it in".
Plus ca change, plus ce le même chose...?

Next week I shall be posting more directly about the Camino and how it is affecting me. I shall be presenting at the Encuentro de Peregrinos (in Villafranca)on the 22nd/23rd. On to a few days in Santiago for the 24th through 26th, and then, God willing (I have had recent surgery in my leg and have 10 stitches to show for it!) on to Muxia, Touriñan (the real end of the world) and Finisterre. Wish me luck my friends and followers... X from T and Priscillian...
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Please Mister, can we have our Codex back...?

2011-07-12T10:59:00.007+02:00

Like the Historia Compostelana, the Codex Calixtinus was written at the behest of Archbishop Diego Gelmirez of Compostela. By this time the archbishop was aging but he lived long enough to see the completion of the work which was composed between 1135 and 1139. It is believed that the main writer was the French ecclesiastic Aymeric Picard who may have been connected with the abbey of Cluny, although it is likely that a work of this size had many authors. As I have mentioned here often in this blog, Cluny at that time was by far the most powerful order and was establishing many churches in the north of Spain. Gelmirez had close ties with the Cluniacs (who produced more than one pope at the time). Perhaps in order to lend special credibilty to the book, the authors prefaced the Codex (also known as the Liber Sancto Jacobi – The Book of St. James) with a “letter” supposedly signed by Pope Calixtinus (himself a Cluniac). The letter of Pope Callixtus II which opens the book. The author, who claims to be Callixtus II, tells how he collected many testimonies on the good deeds of Saint James, "traversing the cruel grounds and provinces for fourteen years". He also describes how the manuscript survived many hazards from fire to drowning. The letter is addressed "to the very holy assembly of the basilica of Cluny" and to "Diego, archbishop of Compostela".

The problem is that Calixtinus died in 1124 and most scholars today maintain that this letter is spurious. (Like the rest of the St. James' story, ed.) Accuracy never really bothered our friend Diego Gelmirez.

The book itself comprises five parts: the first in Book I is the largest by far and contains sermons and homilies concerning St. James and describes his martydom. Book II contains stories – often from pilgrims – abut miracles attributed to the intervention of St. James.

The third book contains the life of Saint James and the supposed miracle of the discovery of his tomb. It is the shortest but perhaps in many ways the most important as it was this part which launched the phenomenon of pilgrimage in the 12th century. In order to bring wealth a prestige to his city, Diego Gelmirez knew that pilgrims were essential and in his 40 years as first bishop and then archbishop he devoted his life to increasing the wealth and prestige of Compostela.Book III tells of the death and martyrdom of St. James and how his body was transferred “by stone boat, rudderless and without sails” to Galicia and subsequently to the burial place discovered in the early ninth century. It also tells of the custom started by the first pilgrims of gathering souvenir sea shells from the Galician coast. The scallop shell is the symbol of the Santiago pilgrimage even today although many pilgrims acquire their shells before starting out whereas in the Middle Ages at first it was proof that the pilgrimage had been made. Later enterprising shell sellers realised that these shells could be used to hold morsels of food and to scoop water from rivers and streams.

Book IV tells the History of Charlemagne and Roland. It is attributed to Archbishop Turpín of Reims, although in fact it is the work of an anonymous writer of the 12th century. It describes the coming of Charlemagne to Spain, his defeat against the Moors at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass and the death of the knight Roland. It relates how Saint James then appeared in a dream to Charlemagne, urging him to liberate his tomb from the Moors and showing him the direction to follow by the route of the Milky Way. This association has given the Milky Way an alternate name in Spain of Camino de Santiago.

In fact it was far more likely that the attack against Charlemagne’s army came from the Basques. The story, however, did a lot to promote the idea of holy intervention on the part of “Santiago Matamoros” at a time when, as the Moors called upon the Prophet Mohammed when going into battle, the French (and Spanish) forces had no such protector.

In point of fact it was all very convenient.

The story of Pilgrimage to Heresy claims that St. James is NOT buried in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. In fact it is unlikely that he ever preached in Spain or if he did he made nine converts at the very most. I have told this story in some detail if you care to go back a year or so. It is far more likely that the occupant of the tomb, still venerated by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year, is a “heretic”, Priscillian Bishop of Avila, executed in Trier with six of his followers (one a woman) by the Roman secular court with the condonement of the Roman Church in 385 or 386 A.D. His body was brought back to Galicia by his disciples and buried there in an unknown place. As Compostela was already established as a Roman cemetery (hence the name) it is likely that this is where they brought him. Around the tomb many late 4th century graves have been found all oriented to the East as was the custom of the Priscillianists. The Vatican of course, resists carbon dating of the body.

St. James’ Rooster, which is due for publication later this year (also in Spanish as El Gallo de Santiago) tells the story of Bishop Gelmirez and his quest for fame and glory for his cathedral of Compostela.

The stolen Codex Calixtinus is priceless and irreplaceable. It is the earliest copy (not the original which has been lost) dating to perhaps 1150. A copy of the Santiago edition was made in 1173 by the monk Arnaldo de Monte and is known as The Ripoll (after the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll in Catalonia). It is now kept in Barcelona. The book was well-received by the Church of Rome, and copies of it were to be found from Rome to Jerusalem. This widely publicized and multi-copied book describing the legend of Santiago Matamoros or 'St. James the Moorslayer' is considered by scholars to be an early example of propaganda by the Catholic Church.

The idea that it is to become pride of place in some wealthy collector’s mansion makes me very, very angry indeed. We can only hope that it will be found and the perpetrators locked up in some medieval gaol for life!

In some things I am not merciful!!!

Off to the Camino next week and the week after. I’ll keep you all posted.
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Codex Calixtinus: Crime Scene Investigation

2011-07-09T20:53:00.004+02:00

Rebekah Scott said: “I told them not to take it on the bus but would they listen? Noooo.”

After two days, I still can’t believe that the Codex Calixtinus has been stolen from the Archives of Santiago Cathedral. It’s a Dan Brown novel (or a Tracy Saunders one: what AM I thinking!!!).

I am a hypnotherapist, not a psychic, but I do have "antennae" sometimes. If I were investigating this very real “unholy theft” I would aim my questions in these directions:

Whoever stole the book must have know that the security was lax (as is stated almost everywhere in the press). They must also, presumably, have known something about the video camera in surveillance and its times of monitoring the Codex. According to El Pais, it seems one minute it was there and the next it wasn’t. The camera timing and angles appear to be quite strict, but, so says El Pais, the access to the keys is “bastante laxo”: Somewhat relaxed. The keys were found in the lock after the manuscript had been stolen! This seems to be in contrast with other reports I have read which state that only two or three people have access to the treasure. What I have seen of the Archives, it seems very small. I don't know whether the Codex was housed somewhere else or ...?

But, you have to admit, this would point to something of an “in job”, or with the keys still there, someone who wanted to flip the bird...

I would find this almost amusing if it were not for the very serious loss. In St. James’ Rooster, the new book in The Camino Chronicles series which is to be published later this year, I have one of my characters working in the Cathedral archives leaking out certain information he is not supposed to have access to to a university professor on sabattical because he thinks it might get him a better grade in his university degree. I have penetrated the Archives myself in a very modest way. The first time a notable and published scholar who agreed to meet with me was very cagey indeed about my questions of the “pink marble tomb” in the Cathedral which appears on no maps, in no literature, and is virtually hidden in the very east end of the cathedral. But the second time I went I spoke with someone else who was very helpful in most ways (although even he claimed not to have noticed the aforementioned: rather obvious if one is of a inquisitive bent, marble … thing). You can enter the cloisters easily from the Cathedral Museum. You locate the Archives, and push a button at the bottom of the stairs. They let you in, y ya está.

So back to my investigation. CSI: Who would want such a thing? Only a private collector and you can be certain that this was executed on his or her instructions. What kind of private collector? Well, anyone interested on old manuscripts comes to mind for a start. But that just doesn’t ring true enough. Dollar to doughnuts, this collector is a Pilgrim. Yes, I am serious. The Camino de Santiago homogenizes everyone. Why not a millionaire pilgrim? It wouldn’t be for the first time. This is about possession, not money or fame. It would also indicate, to me, that the person who wanted it fell hook, line and sinker for the entire St. James story portrayed so nicely (and falsely ) in this extensive manuscript. Would I look in the direction of the US? Yes, I am sorry to say, I would. Over 40% of visitors to this blog come from North America. But the Camino has a hold over everyone who travels it. I don’t know why. I just know I am one of them.

Would I like my own personal, signed by Diego Gelmirez, first edition copy of the Historia Compostelana?

No, actually. It would worry me to death. And it, like the CC, is to be shared (the oldest known copy is at the University of Salamanca. Tighten your security you guys… One might not be enough!). The idea of such a thing as the Codex becoming part of some Goldfinger’s prized collection makes my blood boil!!!
So, Policia Xunta Galicia, my advice is to check your pilgrim records. Impossible? Probably. What a shame. But I have great faith in forensics these days so maybe.

P.S. I just thought of something: I believe that a cross given to Santiago from Oviedo was stolen many., many years ago. Maybe there is a connection. Either way, I am dying to write the book!

P.P.S. It wasn’t me, officer. I have a nice blue, not even marked up with comments, copy of my own. I wouldn't be able to write notes in the margin of the original so you can cross me off your Usual Suspects list.

More on the CC and its history in the next post then its off to the Camino with me and who knows what adventures may arise….

Being and Paradox: A New Look at Anthropocentrism

2011-07-03T13:57:00.003+02:00

Just published on Kindle and Smashwords and looking for a mainstream publisher too, here is my latest book. Being and Paradox is at, first glance, a long way away from Pilgrimage to Heresy and St. James' Rooster, but I do believe that readers of my novels will find something with which they can nod their heads in agreement in this book about environmental issues. I have claimed that the difficulty in solving environmental dilemmas is because we have created a paradox in which we forget we are not apart from but a part of nature. Here I look at Buddhist environmentalism, the Greek philosophers - in particular Heraclitus -, particle physics, existential philosophy, Martin Heidegger especially, and finally the conservationist Aldo Leopold to show that we owe a duty to care for nature in the same way as we would care for ourselves, and in fact if we neglect that duty we lose the right to consider ourselves specifically Human nature.
I am currently discussing things Celtic on this blog and so will not elucidate any further here on Being and Paradox, not yet anyway. I encourage you to order it from Amazon (you can get Kindle for PC for free if you don't have a reading device) and consider carefully what part you can play in what has to be an inevitable paradigm shift in understanding towards this fragile planet of ours.
Back to the Celts next week, so don't go away...

http://www.amazon.com/Being-Paradox-Look-Anthropocentrism-ebook/dp/B0055COMCU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1309693857&sr=1-1
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Beer, ploughs, and other matters of Celto-Iberian male interest...

2011-06-30T17:31:00.005+02:00

And so, back to Spain.

What would life have been like for the Celt-Iberians?

One major advantage that the Celts brought with them was that they brought their plough. Although it was of little use on the highlands, it was immeasurably welcomed in the pastoral areas. It was women who planted seed and hoed the cereals for bread and beer (Cerveza - Cervexa in Gallego - is a Celtic word, by the way; Beer is Saxon). There seems to be little dissention in the association of males and ploughs and so to some degree men began to be involved in planting, which re-affirms the also universal fascination of men for tools and gadgets! Up to this point, men had considered farming unmanly and women's work. Now, they couldn't wait to get out into the fields to try out their new toys and no doubt congregated in Celt-Iberian taverns to down a brew or two afterwards and discuss the relative size and efficiency of their ploughs...

And their women folk likely breathed a sigh of relief and went back to raising children and small animals.

In the central area around the present cities of Zamora, Valladolid and Palencia, large quantities of wheat were harvested especially by the Vacceos, a group living close to the Douro valley; these people came late into the peninsula and may have brought more sophisticated farming methods with them. As their name suggests, they were also raisers of cattle. These people were likely also Celts from Europe, perhaps originating in the Alsace-Lorraine region. They organised into a collective society, and this made them unusual. The grain harvest was officially controlled - division was made equally and the death penalty was enacted for holding out any of the grain from the collective pool.

In the northern mountains, there was more a combination of herding, farming, and hunting and gathering, without any particular accent upon one or the other. This remains very much the system even today in Galicia. Strabo, writing about them was surprised that they lacked olive oil (which the Etruscans and Greeks introduced to the south and east much later). In its place he said they used butter, although it was much more likely lard. The words manteca for pig fat and mantequilla for butter predate Latin and as you see are very similar in sound and derivation. In either case, there was notable dependence upon animal fat and in fact still is. Olive oil is more a part of the Mediterranean diet.

To this day, the north west of the Meseta, the area known as Extramadura abounds in oak trees, as does much of central Portugal and north into the area around Leon. Gathering appears to have had much importance and Strabo also mentioned that the northern people gathered great quantities of acorns, both as food for themselves and for their livestock. He neglected to mention the chestnut. There are still woods of sweet chestnut trees in this area, and the vast forests which preceded them have disappeared only in the last few generations. In the 19th century they still flourished.

Although the Iberians knew iron, and in fact the northwest abounds in this mineral, they did not seem to have known how to use it. It was the Celts who taught them how to make tools and utensils from iron. Open-cast mining would have been in evidence, and by the time the Romans came in the 2nd century BCE, the abundance of iron in the northwest would have made this a desireable area to settle and work. And they did.

Despite, Asterix the Gaul, the Celts had met their match.
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Tall Tales in Ireland ...

2011-06-24T10:39:00.006+02:00

What I've suggested so far, and much literature concurs, is that the inhabitants of the north-west of Spain and Portugal began as one and the same people, originating near or east of the Black Sea. They left their homeland at some point in Biblical history, and separated near the Danube. There is good evidence which shows that these were of Indo-European stock and in fact originated in Assyria, but I shall return to this later.

It puts a very different spin on the notion of what was "Celtic"...and whom.

It took 2000 years or more for the family reunion. By that time, Great Uncle Arthur would barely have recognised Great Aunt Maud.

And so, we are free to pick up our tale once again of how the Hibernians got to Hibernia, and what they did when they got there. (Parental warning: Bad puns.)

It begins with King Breoghan, a Celt-Iberian who had two sons: Ir (or Ith) and Bil. Bil had a son whose name was Mil (Milesius, from whom the Milesians are named). Breoghan had built an enormous watchtower on the north west coast of Spain.

One winter evening, Ir, Breoghan's son, stood atop the watchtower and looking northwards across the seas he saw a glistening island (Don't say I didn't warn you!). He set off with 90 warriors to investigate.

The rulers of this land were the Tuatha Dé Danann, the gods who had wrested control from the giants. They welcomed Ir and his men when he landed, but Ir was foolish enough to speak of the land in such glowing terms that the gods decided that he might have plans to take over (and yes, you have heard this story before - you would think they would have known by now). So they had Ir killed.

When news of his murder reached Breoghan in Iberia, he ordered his nephew, Mil, to send his 8 sons north to even up the score. So they gathered an armada of 65 ships and sailed, arriving, legend has it, at Donegal. In their number was Scota, the wife of Mil, who was to give her name to the land of Scotland, as the Celts moved north-east. Amergin was the first to set foot upon the shore, and planting his right foot upon the soil, said: "What land is better than this island of the setting sun." Some reports say that he cut off his right hand and threw it onto the shore from the boat so that he would be the first to touch it. One can only assume this was not his sword hand.

The Milesians agreed that this was their new home, but first they had to contend with the gods.

They marched towards Tara and along the way they met with Erin, one of the goddesses and the wife of the god, MacGreine. She prophesised that the land would become theirs and asked them to name it after her and Amergin consented.

However, when they reached the home of the gods, the gods complained that they had been taken by surprise. A cry of "No Fair" was heard upon the land. A plan was agreed upon whereby the Milesians would behave in an honourable manner and that they would once again embark on their ships, returning to a distance of nine waves from the shore. By then, the gods would be ready for battle.

But the gods played a trick on them and raised a powerful wind preventing the Milesians from reaching the shore.

This, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed Amergin off!

"I invoke the Land of Erin," he bellowed, "The shining, shining sea! The fertile hills! The wooded vales! The rivers abundant! The fishful lakes...!" ("Fishful": I love that word.)

The incantation worked as the land itself rose up and forced the wind to die down.

To make an increasingly lengthy story shorter, the final result was Milesians 1 and the gods, Nil - but since Nil is an Irish name, perhaps zero might be more accurate. The gods and goddesses retreated below the earth and selected a new king, the Dagda, who allotted each member a mound beneath which the deities would engage in perpetual feasting, emerging every now and then to curdle milk, and blight corn, and so on, as crossed gods and goddesses do.

After a while of this, the new kings of Ireland decided it was in their best interests to make peace with the deities, hence they were given an honorary role - even if their palaces were below ground.

Many stories issue from here, some as tall or taller. But I shall leave those to the Irish!
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Who were the Celts?

2011-06-10T08:27:00.009+02:00

Although there was certainly a variation between the generally dark haired Iberians and the taller, blonde or red-headed Celts, both types may be seen in the northwest today, and have quite easily identified features which differ both from the Spanish of the Eastern ports, and the Andalucians, which show considerable Moorish influence.

Today's Galician or Asturian, as well as the people of Northern Portugal, show that the Celti-Iberians, as they became known, have produced many descendants who occupy these regions today.

But did these earliest people call themselves Celts? As we have already seen, there is some conjecture that they called themselves Iber, and that the land of Iberia, today's Spain (which comes from Hispania, the name given to the Peninsula by the Romans), and subsequently Hibernia as the ancient land of Ireland, the Land of Ir, or of Erin.

While he may not have been the first, Herodotus mentions the Keltoi. They are also called this and Galatai by other writers of the period and later, and it is interesting that the two names are given to essentially the same peoples. They are generally described as having fair or red hair, and blue eyes. But the same description has been attributed to the peoples of Scythia. The Romans modified this to the Celtae and the Galli. But although there were to be found throughout Europe and as far as the Black Sea, the Celts as a people do not seem to have existed. They were instead a great number of tribes who appeared to have acted, for the most part, independently of one another. There was no Celtic Emperor, nor common leader. They had no central administration, no form of government outside of what was determined individually by the tribes. They had no unified army which could be called upon in times of war against a common foe. Perhaps because the European Celts, such as they were, had no common foe.

The problem of identifying who, in fact were "Celtic" and who were not and the extent of Celtic culture might be solved if we were more knowledgeable as to which of the tribes identified by the Greeks and the Romans were indigenous and which were not. This is particularly true in the Iberian Peninsula. Speaking of the Keltoi of Iberia, Herodotus identified them in a region close to the Algarve in southern Portugal, yet Aristotle claims they were above Iberia in a very cold region. Although the northwest is colder than Portugal, even during the winter, it could hardly be described as very cold - very wet, maybe. The interior of Castilla, however, can be downright chilly in the winter.

It would appear that there is little agreement. The problem as it appears to me is that we have fallen into a tendency to think of the Celts as a clearly identifiable people, and I think I have demonstrated that this was not so. Although the term "Celtic" may mean certain common features in terms of economics, social structure, and religion, even this differs from area to area, and likewise, since geography frequently determines character, from tribe to tribe. Only language seems to be a constant factor and it remains so today, although by this criterion - and this has kept Galicia from being accepted by the Celtic League - the so-called Celtic peoples remaining in Galicia and Asturias, are not so by contemporary definition.

Besides, the time of Herodotus is much later than our story, so next time perhaps it is time to return to it.
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I've just discovered this very in depth article about the Celts in Iberia so thought I would share:
http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_12/olivares_6_12.html

2011-06-02T15:33:00.004+02:00

II ENCUENTRO MUNDIAL de PEREGRINOS. VILLAFRANCA del BIERZO 2011

II WORLD-WIDE PILGRIMS CONFERENCE, VILLAFRANCA del BIERZO, July 22nd to 24th, 2011, Spain. From Valencia in 2010 to Santiago in 2021, the next Holy Year. This is the stated aim of the "Siete Botas de Leguas".

Announcing the second conference after the very successful one in Valencia last year. This year the venue is much closer to Santiago: Villafranca del Bierzo in the beautiful wine producing part of Leon. This year I am particularly looking forward to supporting this much anticipated event because I am speaking at it about Pilgrimage to Heresy, Priscillian, and Archbishop Diego Gelmirez.

The doors of the Theater of Villafranca will open at 5:00 on Friday July 22nd and until they close again on Sunday 24th you will be in for a pilgrim treat.

Marialaya Burgos, presents the II World-wide Encounter of Pilgrims to Villafranca del Bierzo 2011 and thanks the mayor for welcoming us.
Roger de la Cruz, Vice President of the AACSdB will speak.
Following are Tomas, the last Templar hospitalero of Manjarin.
Jesus Jato, hospitalero in Villafranca.
Alfredo, hospitalero in Molinaseca.
Lydia B. Smith, director of The Camino Documentary Way,
Jose Almeida, will present his book, "Sentimientos Peregrinos"
Teresa Simal, presents her book “Mochila y Bordón”
And yours truly, Tracy Saunders will speak about my new book St. James' Rooster/El Gallo de Santiago, the second book in The Camino Chronicles after Pilgrimage to Heresy/Peregrinos de la Herejía. Maybe I might be also talking about The Dove and the Yellow Cross which is my working title for the next book.

There will be a superb exhibition and film on "The Promotion of the Way of Santiago from the Holy Year of 1965” from Fernando Lalanda Pijoan who has rescued this material from oblivion.

Noelia Velasco, presents her photographic exhibition “Camino”.

The new Facebook page of Encuentro, very animated by the way, picks up the writings of Marialaya telling the news about the Organization and its Friends who contribute to the News Feed.

Thee will be a "Mini Camino": from Cacabelos to Villafranca (so bring your hiking boots!), Tapas, Meals, Dinners and Breakfasts, Water, Bread and the excellent Wine of del Bierzo; and Conferences, Exhibitions, Cinema, Books, Colloquies and Debates, Conversations and Cameraderie. Marialaya is busy making reservations right now but accomodation is sure to be limited so make sure you book early.

I for one am thoroughly looking forward to it: the Church of Santiago in Villafranca holds very special memories for me (and if you want to know what they are, read Miranda's account in Pilgrimage to Heresy!)

Looking forward to seeing many of my pilgrim friends and readers there...

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/ENCUENTRO-MUNDIAL-DE-PEREGRINOS/169224246468324

Con tiempo para la siesta incluido, a las 17:00 abriremos las puertas del Teatro de Villafranca donde podremos disfrutar de una estupenda tarde presentando este II Encuentro, Conferencias y posterior charla-coloquio:

- Marialaya Burgos, presenta el II Encuentro Mundial de Peregrinos Villafranca del Bierzo 2011
- Saluda del Alcalde.
- Bienvenida de Roger de la CruzVicepresidente AACSdB.
- Tomas, hospitalero en Manjarin.
- Jesús Jato, hospitalero en Villafranca.
- Alfredo, hospitalero en Molinaseca.
- The Camino Documentary, Directora Lydia B. Smith.
- José Almeida, presentará su libro «Sentimientos Peregrinos».
- Teresa Simal, presenta su libro “Mochila y Bordón”.
- Tracy Saunders nos hablará de su nuevo libro "El Gallo de Santiago", el segundo en «Las Crónicas del Camino».
Magnifica exposición y película sobre “La Promoción del Camino de Santiago para el año Santo de 1965” que propone un bonito recorrido por este material histórico rescatado del olvido por Fernando Lalanda Pijoan.
- Noelia Velasco, con su exposición fotográfica «Camino»
El nuevo Facebook del Encuentro, muy animado por cierto, recoge los escritos de Marialaya narrando los acontecimnientos de la Organización y a los usuarios que día a día se comunican y organizan.

Mini Camino, Degustaciones, Comidas, Cenas y Desayunos, Agua... Pan y Vino, excelente Vino del Bierzo. Conferencias, exposiciones, Cine, Libros, Coloquios y Debates, Conversaciones y Hermandad.

Esperando a reuniar con muchos de mis amigos peregrinos y lectores...

...but not Basques

2011-05-30T15:03:00.005+02:00

In the present Spanish provinces of Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya, and Navarra, there is no record whatsoever of Celtic dominance, or, for that matter, any dominance at all. For these are the Basque regions.

The Celts would have found themselves moving through this area, but it would appear that the local populations were sufficiently strong to resist them, or to finally absorb them and completely transform them.

As is well-known, Basque bears no resemblance to Spanish, or any other language.
Farther west, however, the Celts either displaced or dominated the older stocks of people, amongst them would have been the Iberians. Still farther west and northwest, they found people very much like themselves and they began to blend with them. The Celts wore trousers, whereas the Iberians still wore robes. It is likely that the Celts brought the domesticated horse with them and it is also just as likely that the Celtiberians adopted the Celtic mode of dress. Another point worth mentioning is that the Celts had no written language, yet the Iberians did, in some cases quite sophisticated. It is this language which has been used to identify the names of the gods inscribed throughout the northwest.

The Celts came into Iberia with their flocks, families, and wagons. Interestingly, one type of wagon is still in use in Galicia today. Like the Iberians, with whom it is more than likely they share a common racial bond originating in the Middle East, they were a pastoral people. It is difficult to determine which kind of economy was dominant - as in all countries, this is determined by the region itself, but in the northern forests there was an abundance of everything they needed for their animals -beech mast and acorns for pigs, and food for their horses, cattle, and goats. On the Meseta, the land proved perfect for the harvesting of crops, and there it was this type of farming which predominated.

The wild boar seems to have been an object of veneration, possibly of both groups, but certainly after the two began to meld their very similar cultures. In the northwest, several Verracos have been found: crude stone sculptures of life-sized pigs. These appear to date to the 6th century BCE, and are considered Celt-Iberian.

But the veneration of the animal did not preclude its uses as a food, often perhaps as sacrificial animals, whose flesh was later enjoyed. Other animals also seemed to have been held sacred and it is noteworthy that the Irish Celts also kept sacred cattle and swine.
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Beakers and Battleaxes...

2011-05-23T10:37:00.003+02:00

To go back somewhat: Two new groups of people emerged in Central Europe around about the late Neolithic period. Each group may be identified independently by their respective burial sites.

The first is the so-called Beaker folk, buried with their Bell Beaker-shaped drinking vessels; the second the "Battle-Axe" folk. It is thought that they may have originated in the Middle East, perhaps as far as present day Iran, and as separate peoples. In Central Europe, by about the beginning of the second millenium, they have fused to become one European people, though with varying cultures. Shortly afterwards, the Bronze age began.

Three successive cultures appear: the first, the Unêtice appear to be the original fusing of the Beaker and the Battle-Axe folk. The Tumulus culture followed the Unêtice, and they are distinguished, as the name implies, by their manner of burying their dead beneath burial mounds. These are to be found throughout Europe, and the British Isles, , and are found also, scattered through Northern and Northwest Spain, and Northern and Central Portugal.

The next group to follow we know as the Urnfeld culture. Some scholars have identified these people as "Proto-Celtic" in that they may have spoken an early form of that language. These people cremated their dead and placed the remains in urns which were buried in flat cemeteries without any covering mound. Like the Tumulus people before them, this period of prehistory shows a great deal of expansion with trade to the south east and later the south west.

It is during the period of the Urnfeld people that agriculture begins to thrive in south and central Europe. This was the time that the Bronze Age was at its peak. Archaeological evidence shows that they produced weapons, tools, eating and cooking vessels, etc.

By the time of the Hallstatt people (named after the town of Hallstatt in Austria where large archaeological finds have been made), and La Tene people, (named likewise after an area in western Switzerland), we find tribes who are considered fully Celtic. Their culture stretched from approximately 1200 BCE to 500 BCE, and it is the very central period which is of interest to us, for this is the period that they began to cross the western passes of the Pyrenees. Many historians argue that the Halstatt people, from whom we derive the idea of "Celtishness” may have penetrated as far as Britain, and possibly later into Ireland through Wales, but by the time they did so, those who had moved towards the Iberian peninsula had long gone.

These people that entered the Western passes through the Pyrenees appear to be an earlier group. It is thought that they did so as early as 1100 BCE. That they left a strong impression upon Iberia, especially in the north, there is no doubt.
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Who were the Iberians?

2011-05-09T19:41:00.005+02:00

In order to investigate this thorny question, we have to go further into the mists of legend, and these are contradictory indeed.

The Irish Book of Leinster makes the extraordinary claim that the ancient peoples of Britain and Ireland were the descendants of some of the lost tribes of Israel. They were, surprisingly described as fair-haired, with light eyes. These were the Hiberi, or Iberi, which at least one writer claims means Hebrew. This is the story of Fenius Farsaid, the leader of the Scythians - a region to the north east of the Black Sea bordering on the Russian steppes. Several comments on this story claim that Fenius was the descendant of Noah, via Japeth his son, and that he was active in helping to build the Tower of Babel. The story says that these people left their homeland and wandered to Egypt where they were welcomed by Pharaoh who wanted to learn their language. The son of their leader, whose name was Niul, fell in love with and married Pharaoh's daughter. Her name was Scota. They had a son named Gaedel Glas, sometimes spelled as Goedel. The generations pass, and a great grandson known as Eber Scot, was suspected of having plans to take over Egypt and his people are ejected from that land. They return to Scythia where, it is said, they dwelt in their boats in the marshes.

One day, a holy man, called in the story "a Druid", told them that he had had a vision of a land which he called Irland. He prophesised: "Your people will not rest until they reach this land." Upon reaching the Danube, some of the Scythians decided to follow it, spreading their peoples upon the European lands as they wandered ever westwards. Unfortunately, since neither GPS nor Rand McNally had been invented in those days, the rest went a little off course and ended back in North Africa, likely in the regions of Libya, Tunisia (present day Carthage), or Algeria, where they supposedly stayed for 7 generations, which begs the question as to whether the druid, whose name was Caicher, described the topography of Irland to them very well. But I suppose even Druids make mistakes.

After a while, someone must have mentioned this curious fact, and they set off again, first quite possibly to Sicily, which although an island, did not measure up either, and from there to what later became known as "Spain". They may have actually gone beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" and entered the area by the River Tagus in Portugal; or conversely via the already existing Mediterranean ports. From there they gradually worked their way across the Peninsula until they reached the areas of what is now Northern Portugal, Asturias, and Galicia, either way, this green land appeared as something which even the most dense amongst them must have recognised resembled the land they had been told to expect.

At this point, I must remind you that we are referring to Myth.

Generations pass. The inhabitants of the land are known as Iberians, and many place names begin to appear including the word "Iber" (which most likely means "River" as "aber" does in Welsh, but why ruin a good story at this point!) We shall refer to it again in due course.
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Incidentally, if you can't wait for the next part, you can order it from Amazon.com Check this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Influences-North-Heresy-ebook/dp/B004YXKZU4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AZC9TZ4UC9CFC&s=books&qid=1304963381&sr=1-1
It's a bargain at $2.99! That's the cover above. I have had no luck finding our who the artist is so if you know, please let ME know!
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Tartessos: a myth? Perhaps not...

2011-05-03T20:27:00.009+02:00

New influences seem to have reached the Peninsula by about 3000 BCE and began to spread slowly through the next couple of centuries. This culture seems to have come from the Eastern Mediterranean to present day Almeria where mineral deposits were found in plenty. Some of this new wave of people appear to have come directly by sea, possibly via Sicily; others from North Africa, possibly via the region which would later become Carthage. These people may have originated in the regions around Syria and preceded the Phoenicians in their voyages in search of metals. They were called the Hiberi, and again, we shall return to them later. Others likely came via the Danube Valley, but much later. The first split had begun.

Spreading eastward along what is now the Andalucian coastline, by the middle of the second millenium these people may well have founded the legendary civilization of Tartessos - known in the bible as Tarshish. It was likely in the south west of the peninsula in what stretches towards Cadíz from Huelva and into the area now occupied by Portugal. The area was, and still is, rich in mineral deposits, especially copper and silver, and some tin and some gold. True Bronze Age technology began to emerge about this time.

Tartessos was long believed to have been a myth, another of the Atlantean-type until a German archaeologist named Adolf Schulten published a book on the subject in the 1920's. A major find appeared during routine dredging at the mouth of the Rio Tinto, near Huelva. (Tinto means "red", and the river runs with a clear copper colour. Smelting still takes place there.) An ancient wreck was found revealing more than 400 bronze weapons, needles, buttons and other artifacts.

The map I have shown above suggests that Tartessos was very close to the city of Cádiz (Gádir), probably one of Spain's oldest cities known to the Phoenicians. The wide bay shows a basin where the Guadalquivir and Guadalete rivers would have met. This may have stretched towards modern day Sevilla and would have encompassed the Doñana, Europe's largest national park in area and today a mostly wetland sanctuary for many rare species of wildlfe.

This area has even been suggested recently as the site of "Atlantis"! See
http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/kuhne/
for an interesting paper on this particular subject.

More soon
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Celtic Influences in the North of Spain

2011-04-25T10:50:00.006+02:00

The story of the Celts in Spain is a long and detailed one. My own research suggests that there was not one simple migration from the north west but rather two separate one, one of which was much earlier and came from north Africa. Over the next few weeks I hope to convince you that this is so.

And if you are Irish you might be in for a surprise!

The story of Spain begins somewhere in the confused muddle we call pre-history. Somewhere in the Peninsula, perhaps in the place we call Altamira, an artist picked up a piece of cold charcoal from the ashes of his campfire, and scratched a few lines on the wall of a cave. With a little practice, he produced a rough outline of a bird, a fish, a horse. He sat back, pleased with his work, and went to ask others to come and see what he had completed. The first art exhibition was a complete success.

As generations and aspiring artists perfected their techniques they began to experiment with other materials. Charcoal, they found, did not last, and so they replaced it with flint tools, and mixtures of ochre, blood, animal fat, plant extracts and minerals. Simultaneously, through the peninsula wherever there were caves, other works were in progress. In Altamira, the paintings are vivid and realistic: bison stand proudly: many of them painted on the cave's ceiling; horses gallop. In order to depict the muscles of these animals, the artists used the irregular relief of the rock's surface, and the colours are bold. Cave painting had been born, and with it, Art. More than 15,000 years ago, humankind learned to tell stories in pictorial form, and sometimes simply to dream.

The end of the last Ice Age (about 8000BC) ushered in a long transitional period before the arrival of the Neolithic cultures who came from the eastern Mediterranean five millennia later. I shall return to these people later, as they are the progenitors of our story.

As the climate began to warm, the nomadic life of the hunters and gatherers began to melt away northward with the icecaps as reindeer and other game left for cooler climates. In the next 50 or so centuries, new races began to enter the peninsula, most likely from North Africa. They were most likely proto-Berbers (the indigenous race of most of North West Africa today) and also Iberians, although as we shall see, these people came later and mixed with inhabitants. They brought their own form of art: rock shelter paintings which survive all along the eastern coast of Andalucia. For the first time, human figures begin to appear alongside the animals of the hunt. Stories were being told, but the quality was vastly inferior to those of earlier times: often just stick figures such as the famous "Índalo Man" of Almeria.

The Índalo Man was the focus of my first book The Índalo Quest, about to be re-published, but this is just an aside. Much more on this later ... one book at a time!
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El Gallo de Santiago...

2011-04-11T13:43:00.007+02:00

It's done!

Done, done DONE!

Three years of research and a little over one year of writing and St. James' Rooster is finally FINISHED!

I still have to proof-read it and do some final editing but to all intents and purposes that's another waystage in my life accomplished. Believe me there have been many times when I didn't think I would be writing these words.

It's a funny thing, writing a novel. One gives birth to a family and in some cases sees them grow up, fall in and out of love, learn about life, enjoy their golden years and finally pass on. But as with all your loved ones, they never pass out of your life. My main characters - both the fictional and the non-fictional ones - have become as real to me as my family, friends, students. When I had to break the heart of my favourite character, I cried, and when I had to say goodbye at the end of his life, I missed him so much for days that I couldn't write at all.

But that's in the past now.

I am going to take a bit of time off to update The Indalo Quest, my non-fiction book about mid-life changes, travel and the bond between father and daughter and mother and daughter. It is the type of book which will appeal to fans of books like Eat, Pray, Love and is due for re-printing after 15 years of retirement. It is also my tribute to my mother whom I nursed in her last weeks and whom I began to know only then. Every day I grow more like her. Readers of Pilgrimage to Heresy will recognise a bit of Miranda and Alex in the woman that was me just as I left Costa Rica and came to settle in Spain. It should become available in the late summer and perhaps before that on Kindle if I manage to get a roundtoit. They have been in short supply around here lately. Must be the Recession.

And then what? Well, I have already begun to research the next book in the Camino Chronicles Series. This third one will follow one of the characters from St. James' Rooster to the Languedoc area of southern France... Cathar country.

And that's all I am saying for now.

The story continues...Priscillian's book moves inexorably towards the present day.

Music for Japan ...

2011-03-29T09:05:00.006+02:00

No time for a blog post this week. I am pulling all nighters trying to get St. James' Rooster finished by Easter. Phew! I wish these 12th century folks would hurry it along a bit.

Anyway, there are more important things going on in the world than my little rants and obsessions. Here is one of them I hope you will investigate.

I heard their very sweet plea on Spotify and Googled them immediately. The video is very low key and their sincerity will break your heart. Here is also the Facebook page. If you have any contact with a musical group or venue or any way to help them promote or raise funds, I urge you: do please get involved. What they say is true: now that the shocking images have receded along with the tide of destruction we are perhaps more worried about how it will all affect us. But there are still 17,000 dead or unaccounted for, many children orphaned, livelihoods lost, a nation in mourning, an economy in ruins and an environmental catastrophe about to taint their land for centuries to come if a solution is not found soon to the leaking reactor.

Anyway, enough from me. Here are some links.

http://www.facebook.com/musicforjapanhelp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNqjcCoZKCU

Please send them to your Facebook friends and everyone in your mailing list (undisclosed recipients). Let's show them we care...

Back soon.
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Beyond Good and Evil ...?

2011-03-17T13:23:00.003+01:00

I read recently - and forgive me for my lack of accuracy - that a top ranking Japanese official said that the damage done by the tsunami was a punishment for the Japanese demand for more and more consumer goods. I have a horrible feeling that it was the Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, but it doesn't really matter. It is not unusual that someone blames such-and-such disaster on the people most affected by it: the wrath of (whatever) god, or gods.

I don't subscribe to this kind of god. On the other hand, if we try to look for a reason "why" such tragedies have fallen on the Japanese (and of course, you can fill in the blanks with whichever nationality of group you wish: there are many we never hear of) we are bound to come up short. Does "God" punish children, babies ...dogs, innocent men and women for their so-called superficial lifestyle? If so, we'd better all watch out. Would you, personally, want anything to do with a God that launched such a biblical outpouring of fury? I thought that Zeus had gone into retirement, and I hoped that Jehovah was keeping him company.

Whether we can attribute cause to God or apportion blame to those unfortunate people who experience "His" vengeance, the degree of horror associated with the tsunami and even now as I write, the doubt expressed in the extent of truth that is being allowed speech as far as the condition of the reactors is concerned, has caused all of us to stop and examine our own understanding of morality and mortality.

I think that what has remained with me all week is the first helicopter footage showing the speed with which the tsunami made its way inland. For me, it was seeing those people in their cars out on the highway going about their business not knowing that everything familiar in their world was about to go into a tailspin. It was looking at that white car, metres from the wall of water bearing down upon them, halt, turn to go in the other direction and seemingly stop on the verge of the road. What was going on in the minds of the people inside? Did they make it? Did their loved ones? Did they have a home to return to?

Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil seems to be claiming in the following quote that we over-reach ourselves in our desires and that what formerly was a blessing now has become a burden.

"That which an age feels to be evil is usually an untimely after-echo of that which was formerly felt to be good - the atavism of an older ideal."

Perhaps the Japanese have allowed themselves to slip away from the simple things. Perhaps we all have. Look around you: do you really need that, or this, or the other? Does it really add anything to you, as a person? Are we over-reaching ourselves as we widen the gap between the rich and the poor? Do we somehow believe that we have that right, just because we happen to born "here" and not "there"? Perhaps it is this which makes a disaster such as this one in modern, industrialised Japan seem so much more horrific than if it happens in Mongolia or some island chain: after all, we are the "developed" nations: don't we buy security from the ire of Nature?

No, I don't think that God has anything to do with this. Perhaps it is simply "bad luck". More likely the more recent seismic activity has something to do with the extraordinary number of sun spots and the gigantic solar flares that have been observed lately. Certainly these will have been affecting the earth's magnetic field. That's enough to give our planet the belly ache. The heavenly bodies do affect our planet, and that has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in astrology!

The biggest problem is that we somehow believe that the planet is here to serve us and we forget - to our sorrow - that we are tenants only, living on a crust so thin and so vulnerable that at any abrupt moment the seething mass underneath which is the true substance of our planet may remind us that really, life - any life - counts for very, very little to it.

If that is God speaking, I'll buy it. But I always hoped - vain hope I know - that God was somehow more than just the laws of physics.

Sorry if this is rambling, but I cannot apply much logic to those pictures I have been seeing these past 7 days.
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Big Bluebird is Watching You…

2011-03-09T14:03:00.008+01:00

Every now and then on this blog I have a little rant. It’s my blog, and I’ll rant if I want to. If you don’t want to read about me ranting, then come back next week when I shall return to being all sweetness and light.

Right. You’re still here aren’t you? Good, because what I am about to talk about will offend everyone from the civil rights movement to the animal protection league.

It seems that the American government has spent a no doubt proportionately ridiculous amount on developing little spy planes designed to look like hummingbirds.

Yes, you read it right. If that is not enough, they are also working on mechanical drones to look like insects and even maple leaf seeds.

I kid you not.

And if that is not enough, they are also fooling around with the idea of implanting surveillance equipment into real insects as they are undergoing metamorphosis. The only aspect of this which seems to be bothering the folks at the Pentagon is that these little guys might interfere with aircraft. Oh and the "legal implications".

This makes me Very Mad Indeed.

But, enough about me, let’s talk about them for a minute. Here’s the Associated Press article in its entirety. It’s worth reading all the way through… (The Silly Comments in bold are, of course, mine.)

AP: The Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into the development of tiny drones inspired by biology, each equipped with video and audio equipment that can record sights and sounds.

They could be used to spy, but also to locate people inside earthquake-crumpled buildings and detect hazardous chemical leaks.

The smaller, the better.

Besides the hummingbird, engineers in the growing unmanned aircraft industry are working on drones that look like insects and the helicopter-like maple leaf seed.

Researchers are even exploring ways to implant surveillance and other equipment into an insect as it is undergoing metamorphosis. They want to be able to control the creature.

The devices could end up being used by police officers and firefighters.
Their potential use outside of battle zones, however, is raising questions about privacy and the dangers of the winged creatures buzzing around in the same skies as aircraft.

For now, most of these devices are just inspiring awe.

With a 6.5-inch wing span, the remote-controlled bird weighs less than a AA battery and can fly at speeds of up to 11 mph, propelled only by the flapping of its two wings. A tiny video camera sits in its belly.

The bird can climb and descend vertically, fly sideways, forward and backward. It can rotate clockwise and counterclockwise.

Most of all it can hover and perch on a window ledge while it gathers intelligence, unbeknownst to the enemy.

(Emphasis mine... That's it! The bird feeder has GOT to go.)

"We were almost laughing out of being scared because we had signed up to do this," said Matt Keennon, senior project engineer of California's AeroVironment, which built the hummingbird.

The Pentagon asked them to develop a pocket-sized aircraft for surveillance and reconnaissance that mimicked biology. It could be anything, they said, from a dragonfly to a hummingbird.

Five years and $4 million later, the company has developed what it calls the world's first hummingbird spy plane.

"It was very daunting up front and remained that way for quite some time into the project," he said, after the drone blew by his head and landed on his hand during a media demonstration.

The toughest challenges were building a tiny vehicle that can fly for a prolonged period and be controlled or control itself.

AeroVironment has a history of developing such aircraft.

Over the decades, the Monrovia, Calif.-based company has developed everything from a flying mechanical reptile to a hydrogen-powered plane capable of flying in the stratosphere and surveying an area larger than Afghanistan at one glance.

It has become a leader in the hand-launched drone industry.

Troops fling a four-pound plane, called the Raven, into the air. They have come to rely on the real-time video it sends back, using it to locate roadside bombs or get a glimpse of what is happening over the next hill or around a corner. (Note: Edgar Allan Poe is saying from the grave: "See!")

The success of the hummingbird drone, however, "paves the way for a new generation of aircraft with the agility and appearance of small birds," said Todd Hylton of the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

These drones are not just birds.

Lockheed Martin has developed a fake maple leaf seed, or so-called whirly bird, loaded with navigation equipment and imaging sensors. The spy plane weighs .07 ounces.

On the far end of the research spectrum, DARPA is also exploring the possibility of implanting live insects during metamorphosis with video cameras or sensors and controlling them by applying electrical stimulation to their wings.

The idea is for the military to be able to send in a swarm of bugs loaded with spy gear.

The military is also eyeing other uses.

The drones could be sent in to search buildings in urban combat zones. Police are interested in using them, among other things, to detect a hazardous chemical leak. Firefighters could fling them out over a disaster to get better data, quickly.

It is hard to tell what, if anything, will make it out of the lab, but their emergence presents challenges and not just with physics.

What are the legal implications, especially with interest among police in using tiny drones for surveillance, and their potential to invade people's privacy, asks Peter W. Singer, author of the book, "Wired for War" about robotic warfare.

Singer said these questions will be increasingly discussed as robotics become a greater part of everyday life.

"It's the equivalent to the advent of the printing press, the computer, gun powder," he said. "It's that scale of change."

I suppose that what really angered me about this development in robotics was not so much the invasion of privacy (there is far more out there than any of us wee mortal folk will ever know), but the fact that humans could sully nature so much that in order to re-create it we have to use it for our own violent ends. Can you imagine looking at a Blue Morpho Butterfly, or an Owl Butterfly and wondering: Friend or Foe?

I mean really… meddling Monarchs, snooping Salamanders, and terrorist Termites?

Holy Preying Mantis (sic), Batman!

But of course, the article offers by way of reasonable explanation, these drones can be used to BENEFIT humankind. Instead of sniffer dogs in earthquakes, man’s best friend could be a fully automated sparrow. Firemen could keep Great Spotted Whatnots as pets and save on the cost of Dalmatian food. It’s all very practical really and who wouldn’t love to be rescued by a hummingbird?

And you wondered where all the bees had gone…
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The Camino: Lessons for Life...?

2011-03-01T13:19:00.009+01:00

I mentioned this a few days ago in a post about The Universe. Several people have asked me to repeat it so here it is. Every day I find its lessons more and more relevant to how I want to see life, and perhaps to how I want to be seen.

Here is the original post from August 2009 post Camino Portuguese:

Insights and a Serious Attempt at Introspection...

What have I truly learned from this Camino?

I have learned, once again, that the Camino is a microcosm of the world that could be. Those who have walked it, (or within whatever transport they took it) already know this. Those who have yet to experience it, will, in one way or another learn this: that much is guaranteed.

I have learned as the I Ching counsels “not to put too much trust into those with whom we have recently become acquainted”: sad but true.

I have learned that there are angels on the Camino. Usually where you least expect them (and I am still not totally convinced about angels anyway.)

I have learned to ask for what you truly need, for it will be provided.

I have learned that sometimes we are too hard on ourselves.

I have learned that the distance is not something we need to really concern ourselves with: it is about putting one foot in front of the other.

I have learned that blisters go away; in fact most annoying things go away eventually.

I have learned that you can speak Spanish in Portugal and be more or less understood, but that you may not have the slightest idea of the response believe me, it doesn’t really matter, the Portuguese are the most helpful people on earth.

I have learned that parrots have a sense of humour, pigeons don't like peanuts, and that I can raise swallows from the dead.

I have learned that sometimes I have to let myself be taken care of.

I have learned that what “the church” has told you is very much open to question.

I have learned to open myself up to others: if you can master this you may find that the ones around you can help you move further upon your journey. This, I have found, is very important.

A corollary to the above would be not to let a moment pass by: sometimes an instinct which says “Do this Now!” can lead to contacts which can help you further your quest I was to find this time and again...: There is no such thing as “luck”.

I have learned that I am quite content with my own company, especially in the rain.

I have learned that most of the times the things that annoy us are part of ourselves and anyway, they don’t count for much in the overall scheme of thing. Learn to forgive and forget. see http://www.headstartcentres.org

I have learned that whatever religious path you may have been taught we all come together in the most fundamental things.

I have learned that life is a beautiful gift: you only have to open your eyes to the “ordinary”and accept it to recognise how lucky you really are.

Perhaps most of all, I have learned that I need to wage war against “righteous indignation”: those moments when the world provides us with idiots and you know you are right. It is easily spotted: it begins with these words:...they should..., why don’t they... you would think that they... it’s not right that...But it’s counter-productive and only increases the frustration. I’m working very hard on a Live and Let Live philosophy. But it’s not always so easy.

Now 18 months later I find myself wondering what I would add to this. I was asked a couple of days ago what my "objectives" in life were. The question pulled me up short. I answered: To maintain a reasonable level of contentment.

But is that it? It's easily misconstrued. It is not that I want to lack challenges: far from it! It isn't that I want to lead a dull, uneventful, unproductive life. Heaven forbid. What I want is to see each opportunity as a challenge to take me further and further to my own core of contentment; accepting what "the Universe" provides as steps to an eventual realisation of exactly what and who I am, and by that implication, I suppose, exactly "who" and "what" God is.

I've mistakenly fought for it, and missed it by looking too hard...now I just want it to manifest itself in everything I do: the hard and the simple; the extrasensory and the very, very ordinary.

Socrates said: "The unexamined life is not worth living". Perhaps. But I would rather say that the unlived life is not worth examining.

I would rather live life ... and examine trees.
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Something to Crow About...

2011-02-24T19:13:00.005+01:00

There is no doubt about it in my mind. Choosing a title is harder than writing the book. I have always had a title for Book Two of The Camino Chronicles, but I never thought of it as a working title. Compostela was the title I had chosen and that was that.

More recently, though, I have learned something of the skill of SEO: that's Search Engine Optimisation to you. I have also learned a thing or two about spiders: Google spiders. It seems they are very choosy and will only pick up words that are linked back. One or two people liked the name Compostela, but said that it might easily be confused with a non-fiction title while others said that it would never end up on the first page of any search about pilgrimage books. And I had to agree they were right.

But now what? Because the story has not one but two timelines (as does Pilgrimage to Heresy) it made it much harder to pick something snappy that would be appropriate to both. I needed something to grab peoples' attention.

Then the other day I was reading one of my many reference books and I found just the very thing. In a novel by Gallego Ramon Otero Pedrayo, one of his characters refers to Bishop Diego Gelmirez as El Gallo de Santiago. Now everything I know about Diego Gelmirez (and after three years of research I know a lot) tells me that was a man who - as my mother would have put it - wasn't backwards in coming forwards. Almost single handedly, Diego put the Santiago into Compostela. He was tireless (and ruthless) in making Compostela one of the three most important sites of Christian pilgrimage in the world. He was, most truly, cock of the walk: The Rooster of St. James.

So it's official. And you read it here first!

And the morning after...

2011-02-15T13:03:00.006+01:00

For some time now, I have been receiving messages from the Universe. No, I am not hearing voices or anything like that. My messages are relayed through Mike Dooley who somehow or another seems to know what I am thinking about! Mike Dooley is in Texas, I believe. We have never met and although the Universe very nicely addresses me by name, Mike doesn't know me from Eve.

Twenty years ago, my daughter and her best friend organised my 40th surprise birthday party. The theme - and the banner which adorned the wall - was Happy On Top of the Hill. I had no idea that these teenagers had been contacting my friends secretly and was astonished! I also liked the idea that at 40, I was "on top of the hill".

I was completely wrong.

Now I am sure that I had scaled a few foothills up to that point (abnd a few Sloughs of Despair), but I am not sure that I had really scaled The Big One.
I'm not even sure now, but the view from up here sure is nice. (Are those more mountains I see in the distance? Great! I've got my best hiking boots on...)
Anyway, the reason for two posts in two days is that the Universe has surpassed itself today. Having considered whether I was actually enjoying some sort of summit yesterday, here was my message today...

"Tracy, one of the greatest things about finally reaching the 'top of the mountain,' - gazing about at the magnificence of life through tears of joy, thoroughly understanding every inch of your climb and its many unexpected setbacks, and grasping the dazzling perfection of it all - is looking back down at those still climbing (no, not what you're thinking, there's more...), still struggling, still lost and confused, and realizing with absolute certainty that they, too, will reach the top, in just a whisper of time."

Have WikiLeaks been telling the Universe my top secret information?

Enjoy every day of your climb. The view really is magnificent!
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Thoughts on becoming a little old lady...

2011-02-14T18:43:00.006+01:00

I never thought it could happen to me! Today I officially become a "little old lady". That is to say that it is my 60th birthday and when I was a teenager I thought that anyone over 25 was incapable of having fun or really aware of the important things life at all. Well really: look at all the responsibility! Not to mention wrinkles and as Prince Phillip candidly put it recently, "bits starting to fall off". He is 90, I believe. By that time I shall be surprised if I have any bits at all. Not that I want my life in any way to be compared with Prince Phillip's, with or without bits.

And anyway, I am not 90. But nor am I 25. However, you know what? I think I am really going to enjoy my 60's - something I NEVER expected to be able to say. I wouldn't trade this day for my 25th birthday for anything in the world.

Why?

A couple of years ago, I posted my "Lessons from the Camino". I have since adopted them as lessons for life. I don't always succeed at remembering them, but I do try and I am grateful for all the little things the Universe sends me.

In fact the Universe did send me something today. I'll share it here with you. It said:

"Someone like you doesn´t come along very often. In fact, there has never been a single one like you, not is there any possibility that another will come again. You are an angel among us. Your eyes see what no eyes have ever seen before; your ears hear what no others have ever heard or will hear. Your perspective and feelings will never EVER be duplicated. Without you, the Universe and all that is would sadly be less than it is today."

Put it that way, and the very uniqueness of a human life - my life, my granddaughter's life, my children's lives as individuals your life - is an extraordinary thing.

Have you ever stopped to consider the very miracle that YOU are here at all? My father could have been torpedoed in his little e-boat off the Guernsey coast; my mother could have died in an air raid in Swindon. My grandfather could have fallen down a brewer's hatch, or my other one blown to smithereens in a Welsh coal mine. My German grandfather could have been killed during the First World War instead of living just long enough to sire my father in 1920. My German greatgrandfather could have had some horrific accident while he was chauffering the Kaiser's car (which of course could have wiped out the Kaiser too come to think about it). And then you can go even further back: if someone related to me hadn't survived the Battle of Hastings, or the Inquisition, if someone had been on the wrong side in the French Revolution, or the war of Caesar against the Gauls, I would never have come to be! So a big "Thank you" to all of them for the simple act of surviving long enough to procreate...

It's true! I am AMAZING!

And so are you.

Celebrate it! The Universe really wants you to.
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P.S. If you want to know what the universe really thinks about you, it speaks through a very nice man in the USA. See: www.tut.com

A Happy Heretic takes on the White Man's Burden...

2011-02-05T19:10:00.004+01:00

I received an e-mail forward a few days ago. It was called "I'm 63 and I'm tired", written, purportedly, by an ex-government official with a lengthy service record. It was from someone I have known for very many years. That she had sent it to me came as a surprise since she and I have acknowledged (or so I believed) that we are poles apart politically. It was full of the old "White Man's Burden, all Muslims are terrorists, and why am I supporting all of you scum" sort of crap which I had hoped was only limited to Tea Baggers and those unfortunate enough to believe that Nick Griffin is the Messiah. I certainly am not going to dignify it by repeating it here.

To make matters worse it ended: "If you don't send this on (to at least five other people) you are part of the problem".

Excuse me?

I fumed for a while; I muttered to myself; paced a bit; made myself a strong cup of tea. And then I decided that I would not be silent. I sent the following to everyone on the list of addressees including the person who had sent it to me.

Two strangers, to my surprise, wrote back and thanked me for my "thought provoking" response.

So I thought I might share it with you. Perhaps it makes me even more of a heretic... but somehow, I don't think so.

I'm tired.

I am very tired that people who I would have thought would know me better would think that I would agree with a single word of this hate provoking diatribe let alone further the racial divide by forwarding it on.

I'm tired of reading bigoted, racist and ignorant statements designed to provoke prejudicial reactions which somehow I am supposed to "send to friends". I wouldn't dirty their in-boxes with the shit I have received here today.

I'm tired of people in the developed world whinging about how bad they have it when they should visit the slums of Dar es Salaam and Calcutta.

I'm tired of the so-called Silent Majority heaving collective sighs of not-so-silent discrimination, most especially when they are not even the majority.

I'm tired of hearing people speak about Muslims as if everyone of them were a terrorist or keeps his wife in a Burkah. Traditionally Islam has been FAR more tolerant than Christianity. Read your bloody history books.

In particular, I am tired of the ignorance which serves only to promote the Anglo-Saxon White protestants' so-called work ethic when it was on the backs on the fuzzy- wuzzies in the colonies that we all got rich enough to have anything to complain about.

I'm tired of hearing so-called Christians assume that somehow God must belong to them and that gives them carte blanche to trash every other religious perspective without ever taking the time to study them or the people who practice them.

I'm tired of people who are blatant white supremists but who hide behind their supposed political correctness while seething underneath about how things were all so much better in the good old days (of ignorance; the rigid class system; apartheid; women's subjugation; slavery; lack of education; lack of sanitation, and religious intolerance...oh, sorry that last one is still with us.)

I am tired that people cannot see how their hatred is being manipulated by the media and hate-mongerers and in their ignorance they simply pass on mindless propaganda they have not bothered to investigate for themselves.

I am tired of hearing how the poor White Man still has to carry the Burden of paying for everyone else. Just think about that the next time you need to use some form of social services. What did your last by-pass cost you? What nationality was the surgeon?

I'm tired of hearing how X ethnic group treats its women and children. Do you think that no white man ever beat and humiliated his wife or deprived his children of dignity?

I am very tired of people who criticise the idea of global warming, mostly because I believe they must have their head up their arse!

I am tired of people who think that they have the right to blow smoke in my face because it's a "free country".

I am tired of wondering if some of the people I have known for many years are planning on voting for Nick Griffin in the next election.

And I am deeply sorry for the writer of this diatribe I have received today, Robert A. Hall, because one day he is going to realise just what his grand-daughter truly thinks of him...

But

I am glad:

I am glad I live in a multi-cultural world where I can learn and grow.

I am glad for the education I have received which allows me to think for myself.

I am glad that I have Muslim friends, Jewish friends, black, yellow and brown friends. They bring me joy!

I am glad that I was born in the western hemisphere where I don't have to worry about hunger or disease.

I am glad that I have a home, work, and family who haven't had to go to distant countries to earn money they have to send home to me so that I can live in squalor, but at least live.

I am glad that I know enough about deep ecology to know that we are heading for climatic disaster and I can do my very little part to help and encourage others to do theirs.

I am glad I can look at the foibles of this celebrity cult world we live in - and laugh!

I am glad I have studied Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and seen the beauty in each while not remaining blind to the horrors of religious fundamentalism.

I am glad that I can work with children and help them to see beyond self-righteousness, and show them how they can intelligently weigh up the pro's and con's of each idea before making it their own.

Oh and for all you self-righteous catholics out there...I am glad I can see through the Roman church and its 2000 year old out-and-out lies - yes, and write a best seller about just one of them! You think paedophilia is the Catholic church's only sin....? !!!

Prejudice and hatred will destroy the world if we let it. If someone sends you a hate-filled forward. don't just delete it. Write back to the person who sent it to you and tell them just what you think. It may lose you a friend. But do you really want those kinds of friends?
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State of Grace

2011-01-29T15:56:00.009+01:00

Here we are at the end of January and your Blogger is recognising that she should be sending out pearls of Gnostic wisdom to the Universe, but is struggling out under the combined mortal coils of making a living, writing, and getting over flu.

How to continue stimulating ideas that you might find of interest without taking them away from other areas in my life? We have been together for a while now and I don't want to let you down.

Sometimes the answers to these questions come from areas we would least expect. Let me explain.

A goodly number of hours of my life right now are dedicated to working with a child who has somewhat extensive learning disabilities and who has for various reasons not had a lot of formal education. It is a blessing and a burden. A blessing because I can do what I have dreamed of doing probably since I taught my teddy bears at age 7: teach what I think is important in the overall scheme of things. Sift through "general knowledge" for reasons for our being, here and now. In that we are doing incredibly well and both of us are learning at an advanced rate. It means that I have to look at new ways in which to teach as the national curriculum is of little use to me. We are voyagers of discovery in a learning world where music might give us adjectives, and adjectives an insight into feelings and prejudice. I love it.

But it is also a burden in that I know that I have fewer and fewer hours now to dedicate to writing "Compostela". Sometimes, telling yourself at 8 at night: "right...now... get on with it!" just doesn't seem to work when you are writing historical fiction and you are too tired to think about the present, let alone immerse yourself in the past. And my usual 10pm to 4am late nights are compromised by having to get up at 7:30 with new and challenging teaching ideas.

Excuses for not having this year's scintillating blog? You betcha!

But...

In the course of this week, I came across this video from Disney's Fantasia 2000 re-make which frankly I had never heard of. I found one of my most favourite pieces of music: Stravinsky's Firebird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FWq17CT6Cs&feature=related

This of course, would prejudice me in favour of this piece, but the first time I saw this, I was simply stunned. "This has a message, but beyond the obvious, what is it?" So I watched it again.

And again. And the last time I had tears truly rolling down my cheeks and I think that rather than hollow sentiment I truly understood why.

Please, do watch this and then as you do, mentally (or literally) slow this down. You are at 8 minutes 42 seconds. (8:42). Go slow. I know it is counter to today's pace but do it anyway!

There is far more symbolism than just forestry re-generation at work here. Go deeper... Challenge youself to the inner - and very spiritual - message.

What is going through her mind as this happens, and his at what follows? Who are they supposed to represent? Does it matter anyway?

Is this Bliss? Is this in Christian terms a "State of Grace"? Is it a glimpse into the Taoist world? Is nature created, or "Emanated"?

What is all the other stuff about?

Is this the ultimate that we all crave from the moment we are born into a magical world full of opportunity and potential only to become cynical, practical, and ultimately preparing for and ready for death? From a teacher's point of view: what happens between grade 4 and grade 8? Where does the wonder go? Why does cynicism win out? Why is it only small children and philosophers ask the "right" questions?

Your answers, comments, confusions are always welcome...
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The Butterfly Effect...

2011-01-15T15:11:00.000+01:00

If a butterfly moves its wings in Brazil, can it set off a tornado in Texas?

This question is at the basis of the Butterfly Effect: the idea that even the tiniest changes in the atmosphere could have far reaching effects many thousands of miles away. The term itself is based on the work of Edward Lorenz who while investigating chaos theory said that there were implications for meteorology. The effect in a line of causation may seem to have nothing to do with the cause which may occur far away either physically or even metaphorically. Anyone who has seen the brilliant though disturbing film Babel will know exactly what I am talking about.

I will shamelessly quote Wikipedia on the subject of the butterfly effect:

“Recurrence, the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions, together with sensitive dependence on initial conditions are the two main ingredients for chaotic motion. They have the practical consequence of making complex systems, such as the weather, difficult to predict past a certain time range (approximately a week in the case of weather), since it is impossible to measure the starting atmospheric conditions completely accurately.”

A film called The Butterfly Effect met with mixed reaction when it was released in 2004, although it did go on to win some more obscure awards. The implications for the butterfly effect seem to me most obviously demonstrated in deep ecology where the introduction of just one member of a species, one plant, even one seed can cause disastrous and long-term consequences for the environment. But in my case, I am hoping that one positive and optimistic act can set off a positive chain of events, as in another excellent movie Pay It Forward. I have a friend in Canada who regularly, while in line at the drive in, will buy a cup of coffee for the person in the car behind. Her rationale is that we are all trying to do the best we can and this might really make someone's day.

I have special friends...

So now you know…
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"Endquote"...

2011-01-09T15:01:00.004+01:00

And so finally we are back to the original question: why do I "like" Gnosticism?

Did the Cathar belief leave with the last to die? I don't know. What I do know is that there is a hunger in the world today. A hunger to release us from the chains of econotheism, and the wholesale worship of technology: of the Easy Option. A spiritual hunger? I don't know. Perhaps it is a hunger of the developed world which ignores or pays mere lip service to the real hunger of countries like Eritrea, Haiti, Pakistan...

But whatever it is, it has a hold on many of us.

Perhaps you recognise yourself here: wondering just what it is that you were put on this earth to do, or the even more difficult question: in terms of science, does my life count for nothing? Will I make no real mark on the grand scale of the existence (chaotic existence or...?) of this planet? Am I just a spread of time between birth and death? Am I a "waste of space"?

I hope that what I have written here on this blog in recent months and before will persuade you that you are UNIQUE and VALUABLE. Your very presence on this earth can affect anything you wish it to. All you have to do is to push just one domino...and you will affect everything that happens in the world after that. Every single thing! You are a butterfly. Flap your wings!

I was asked not long ago, why I “liked” Gnosticism. This was my brief when I was asked to speak at the Gnostcism conference at Brock University last September. I laughed. I mean I can tell you why I like high-heeled snakeskin boots, sushi, movies starring Sandra Bullock, and old Volvos. But as to why did I like Gnosticism? It just had me giggling.

But I am going to try: I like Gnosticism because it respects me as a person, a spirit, a flight of occasional fancy, an intellect, a once-in-a-while penitent, a craving, a light, a dreamer, a child in the clearing. I like Gnosticism because it respects my questioning mind; it does not seek to chain me to irreconcilable paradox to which I am told I must believe because it is absurd.

I like Gnosticism because it gives me liberation from the world, resurrection of the body, restitution of the Spirit in this life. It allows me to see the beauty of the world but not the need to identify with it in order to find my true home.
"It restoreth my soul"

I like Gnosticism.

I hope you do too.

(Beautiful photo of Tarifa beach by Rebecca Saunders)

And so this is Christmas...

2010-12-31T18:13:00.001+01:00

...and what have I done?

Certainly another year older though not necessarily wiser. Occasionally more cynical and that's one to go on the Resolutions list. This has been the year that I have lost one friend, and seen the nature of a relationship change. I have driven almost 3,000 klms of the Camino in retrospective, and flown to Canada to be a keynote speaker at a conference on Gnosticism based on Pilgrimage to Heresy. I have let go of things. I have come to treasure the peace and quiet of my home. I have overcome Writer's Block and am well into Compostela the second book in the Camino Chronicles series.

And I have become a first-time GrandMom and that's the very best of all. I love my little Puppy with all of my heart. I can watch her for hours just learning about the world.

And I hope that I too am continuing to learn about the world as I progress with my home schooling project and find that trying to condense "general knowledge" into a relatively short curriculum is a real challenge and one that we are enjoying immensely. I have seen my client base wax and wane and wax again following "El Crisis". Who knows what 2011 has in store for debt ridden Spain with our 20% unemployed?

Next year I will be blogging less frequently for the simple fact that I have a book to finish and a deadline to meet. I began these pages writing a history of the Camino, in particular the story of how Santiago and Compostela came to be linked together. I shall be continuing with this and the fascinating story of Diego Gelmirez, first archbishop of Compostela and the main historical character of my novel. I hope you will come along for the ride.

Happy 2011 to everyone who visits these pages. I hope the new year brings for you everything you wish for yourselves. For myself I ask for a chance to continue to write, to help adults in my psychotherapy practice and children in my Learning Centre. I ask for the chance to mellow and enjoy the pleasures of the Ordinary and remember that Yesterday is History, Tomorrow a Mystery,

but Today is a Gift.
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God is All Good...

2010-12-13T19:01:00.014+01:00

Such reasoning only led me to the conclusion that either:

God is not all good - because he either denied his creation access to their true natures, or else put temptation deliberately in their way so that he could exercise his power over them whether they transgressed or not. A God who wishes to keep his creations in the cave of ignorance cannot be all good.

God is not all knowing or else he would have realised that his creature was no fool. "God" is blind to the true nature of his creation, and blind to the fact that he is neither good nor powerful. His name is Samael, the Blind One, and he is evil personified.

God is not all powerful - he could have prevented them from having the longing for knowledge had he wanted to.

Strong words...? Try these on for size:

slavery, genocide, terrorism, poverty, environmental catastrophe, paedophilia, sex slavery, ignorance, squalor, domestic violence, rape, the exploitation of the weak majority by the rich minority, and the inability to free our minds from religious institutions which in order to secure our loyalty must keep us in a state of perpetual fear!

If man is responsible for all this, how can he have been created in the image of a Perfect God? Perfection cannot admit evil or it is not perfection. If God is responsible for this, well, he has one hell of a lot to answer for!

Who created evil? Satan? Perhaps. But who is the Devil and how did he get to have such a hold over us?

There is only one conclusion, that which we have been taught to worship as God, even knowing or perhaps despite the horrifics of the Old Testament and the evidence of our own television screens, is not God. This god is deeply flawed, malicious and insecure, ignorant of his own weaknesses and caprices, jealous of...?

In fact, God is indeed all good etc., but there is another God who perfectly fits this description. And once we realise this, the heaviness of the world, the imperfections of our bodies, the torment of our minds as they strive to make a sense of this life we have been thrown into, all assume their proper place as subservient to our true nature and are allowed to return to our true home, not as the Catholic church will tell you, after death, but in this life. We can be resurrected in the flesh as pure spirit.

Master, when shall the kingdom come? And he answered us straightways: It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying Here it is or There it is. Rather the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth. But men do not see it.

You will not find this is the New Testament; you will not even find it exactly as it is written here in the Gnostic Writings. It is an excerpt from The Apocryphon of Jesus the Christ which Kieran in Pilgrimage to Heresy is translating. As far as I know, no such gospel exists, yet the words are pure Gnostic, pure Priscillian, pure Cathar, and they are what I have come to believe in myself.

The world came about by a mistake. For he who created it wanted to make it imperishable and immortal. But he fell short of attaining his desire. For the world never was immortal; nor for that matter was he who made the world.

Who would ever have thought to find Jesus saying these words? Yet in the Gnostic writings they are repeated many times.

The disciples asked Jesus: Lord, when will the New World come? And he answered them: What you look forward to has already come and you still do not realise it.
The disciples entreated him: Lord, how shall we know truth from falsehood?
The saviour answered us thus: woe to those who are captives. For they are bound in caverns. In mad laughter do they rejoice in what they think you see. They neither realise their perdition,. nor do they reflect upon their circumstances. They do not realise that they have dwelt in darkness and death.
Some will say the lord died first and rose up, they are in error for he will rise up first and then die. If you do not attain the resurrection first then you too will die.

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is...
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A Child's Garden of Gnosticism - Revisited

2010-12-13T18:14:00.013+01:00

So, I suppose that brings me back to me.

If God is All Good...
If God is All Powerful...
If God is All Knowing...

Why do evil things happen?

The problem is, as has been pointed out by the Rev. Doctor Stephen Hoeller of the Los Angeles Gnostic Church, that it is impossible to reconcile these premises one with another. Personally, I think I may have predated Dr. Hoeller since I figured this out at the age of 16 around about the time I dropped God. My reasoning went a bit like this:

If God is all-knowing, then God must be aware of human fragility and weakness so that any attempt at testing humankind is expecting man to be Godlike: pure and omnipotent etc.

Either that, or expecting man to fail. If that was the expected outcome, it hardly seems fair to put us through a test that we are by nature (God-given nature at that) destined to fail. We are either perfect and able to withstand temptation, or we are not. Or some of us are...although that would make us less than human, and more like God.

God-like...Like God?

It's getting tricky already! Especially if that God is jealous by self-proclamation.

If God is all good but allows catastrophe and evil to exist then he is not all powerful. If he is all powerful and allows such things to happen, then he is not all good at all.

Ah, but I hear you say: Evil came about because of man's original sin and we have been paying for it ever since. The sins of the fathers and all that. According to Saint Augustine, who turned tailcoat against the Manichees the minute he realised what had happened to Priscillian could happen to him: "sin" is a sexually transmitted disease.

Saint Augustine, however, was writing not far from 400 years after Christ was born. And nobody else had ever suggested such a thing as the idea of children born tainted with sins of their species.

What a horrendous idea! I am tempted to say: "Jesus would turn in his grave".

There...I said it.

Yet somehow, we have been fed this as "Gospel Truth" since the time we were able to understand speech...Generation after generation of newborns cursed to go through life with the greatest of guilts weighing down their innocent souls. And what was that guilt? Wanting to Know!

Let's take the proposition that God created man in his own image. This begs the question: "What image?" If we are speaking of a physical image, well all well and good. But if that is so then God must suffer the same decay as we do, and the same bodily inconveniences which I will leave to your imagination. If however, we posit that this may have meant "in God's intellectual image" (the Nous), then we have to assume that not only does man have free will, but the right to use it. That being so, it is hardly surprising that Adam would have found Eve's gift of interest. And what if man was not exactly created, but partook of the spiritual image of God? Then surely that would make man Godlike, or perhaps even God as a piece of a hologram is the whole hologram.

Even though holograms didn't exist when I was sixteen, this was the form my reasoning was taking.

Is it possible, I thought, that God might not be the good, powerful, knowing being that we have been told to worship? Suppose, having created man, God found out that his creation somehow was smarter than he had expected him to be? Or conversely, is it possible that God thought man his creation simple and foolish and unlikely to give Him any trouble? It all boils down to the rather more plausible possibility that either man was intended to be an automaton, created to serve a lesser God who being All Good should not have debased his creation in such a way in the first place, or else, man proved to be too smart for God to handle hence the prohibitions about trees and apples and all that. Man, he found, was investigative: he, and she, seeks knowledge as a way to truth, and having found the means to that truth becomes all knowledgeable, all powerful, and good. What is the nature of that truth? Could it be that man and woman, realising their bondage to their earthly bodies, recognised that within them was a heavenly spirit, forever at one with and a part of the true God? Could it be that this investigation led Eve and Adam to the conclusion that the one they have been told to worship "above all others" is not only jealous, but deeply flawed!

What would be the one and only outcome of this conclusion? Atheism. Apostasy before religion had even been created. Now obviously "God" couldn't have that and so to punish Adam, Eve and all humankind to come for daring to challenge his orders, they would be forever removed from this paradise he had created for them where they had been expected to remain forever in ignorance of their true origins.
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A Vengeful Saint - Dominic Guzman...

2010-12-13T17:58:00.007+01:00

I have been to Montsegur. I left a white rose on a rock. To this day the atmosphere is redolent of sadness, injustice, and ignorance. I felt no glory there.

After this, there appeared to be no more organised Cathar resistance although the practice continued in secret, much as it is likely the Priscillianists had to take their conventicles out from the houses of adherents and elite to clearings in the forest, mountain retreats etc. But the Popes knew that the threat remained. By 1226, the second crusade against heresy had crushed the southern counts and the entire region had been annexed to France under the Capetian rule of St. Louis who had headed the Crusade in person. Meanwhile, in 1229, there emerges in the Languedoc a Spanish priest named Dominic, a religious fanatic and thoroughly unpleasant man, although it must be said that he cannot be held directly responsible for the deeds of the Dominican Inquisition which he founded as by then he was already dead.

For several years, now, I have spoken words of peace to you. I have preached to you; I have besought you with tears. But as the common saying goes in Spain: where a blessing fails a good thick stick will succeed. Now we shall rouse princes and prelates against you; and they, alas, will in their turn assemble whole nations and peoples and a mighty number will perish by the sword. Towers will fall and walls will be razed to the ground. And you will all of you be reduced to servitude.

Thus force will prevail where gentle persuasion has failed to do so.

These are the words of Christian "Saint" Dominic to the Christian"`heretic"`: the Cathars. The Lamb to the Wolves...

You decide.

The Inquisition was charged to do anything at all they wished to force Cathars to recant. This stopped short of actual torture or death. They had to keep their souls pure for the Holy Office. Instead, they handed their victims over to the secular forces for that. Any and every means could and was used to exact the "truth" from these poor innocent men and women in order to save them from eternal damnation, the perpetrators never knowing that it was they themselves who already lived in hell. The atmosphere of distrust in towns and villages grew daily. Anyone could be arrested on the grounds that they carried on heretical practices, never knowing the exact nature of their so called crimes, not the identity of their accusers. Bodies of suspected heretics were dug up to be thrown to the flames.

By the middle of the 14th century, there was not a Cathar left.

The Burning of the Holy Martyrs...

2010-12-05T12:17:00.003+01:00

The Synod of Verona took place in 1184. It was convened for the specific purpose of condemning the Waldensians, another Gnostic group whose beliefs were very similar to those of the Cathars who also travelled and preached in pairs as did the Bogomils. It was clearly only a matter of time.

In 1198, the very mis-named Innocent III tried to launch a crusade against the Cathars but couldn't drum up much support. The nobles and knights lived side by side with the Cathars, some, such as the Count of Toulouse, were clearly Cathar sympathisers and in some cases, their mothers and sisters were Parfaits and Parfaites. "Why would we want to persecute them'' the knights said in Albi. "They are our neighbours and our friends and we respect them and their honest work". Innocent had to be content with seething and fuming while his church became more and more shipwrecked by the doubts of the people.

But after Cathar sympathisers were suspected in the murder of a Papal legate near Toulouse in 1109, Innocent decided to make a call for Holy War and this time he had the backing of the King of France. He exhorted the knights to exercise their religious zeal, promising them full remission of sins for any deeds they carried out in the name of God. These men, for the most part, were mercenaries, interested in nothing but the spoils of war. Near Beziers, a town of some 20,000 both Cathar and Catholic, the townspeople were so terrified of the massed forces that they hid in the Church of Mary Magdalene. When asked by a commander what he should do in this situation, their leader Armaud Amaury most famously exclaimed:

`Kill them all; God will recognise his own`.

What followed over the next 40 years was some of the most blatant butchery ever carried out in the name of Jesus. At Minerve after a long and drawn out siege which ended when the water supply was contaminated, 140 went to the flames. When the knights approached their leader - who had offered clemency to any who accepted the Catholic faith - and said that they weren't there to see heretics escape, he told them not to worry. "They won't recant", he said. He was right. Chroniclers of the time say that the heretics "hurled themselves into the flames". At Lavaur, 400 Perfecti died the same death. Finally in 1244 at Montsegur, perhaps the most famous Cathar site of all, 225 Parfaits and Parfaites died by being burned alive at the bottom of the mountain upon which stood the castle which had been the last remaining Cathar stronghold.

After a prolonged siege, the defences of the castle of Montsegur were breached by a group of Gastons. The residents asked for 15 days to prepare for their deaths and distributed their clothes and few possessions to prepare for a death they did not believe in. Those who were credentes were given the option of deciding during those days whether they would give up their faith and walk free or not. It is on record that 20 credentes asked the leading Parfait Bertrand Marti to be consoled. What is extraordinary about this is that as ordinary believers they could have survived the capitulation, but as Parfaits they knew they would be burned alive.

The words of the Consolamentum are known to us. Part of the sacrament states that the supplicant say: "I have this will and determination. Pray to God for me that he will give me strength".

They would have needed it.
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Priscillian, the Good Man...?

2010-11-30T14:10:00.007+01:00

So what, then, is the world?

Simply put, hell.

This, folks is the realm of the Devil - you are in the Matrix, trapped on the island like Truman and the only way you are going to break out is to come to the realisation of what you are, where you have come from, what binds you to this world of suffering, and what you have to do to extricate your soul.

And you'd better wake up soon or you are destined to continue to be trapped in ignorance for many lifetimes.

Some very notable comparisons between the Cathars and the Priscillianists can be made here: both groups were vegetarians eating no meat or meat products, although fish appears to have been allowed since fish, according to the Cathars, did not have sexual intercourse to reproduce. Neither group drank wine as it was considered not only intoxicating to the spirit but contaminated with the earth of the material world. I am not sure what they thought about leeks and carrots. But I digress.

Both groups were expected to pray, day and night, but while Priscillian asked his followers to read all books including the Apocrypha it seems more likely that such books were not available to the Cathari who seemed to take much of their doctrine from the Gospel of St. John. This is not to say however, that there could not have been an oral tradition of additional material or perhaps they may even have had one or more of the so-called heretical writings as part of the much-written about "Cathar treasure".

The Cathars had no respect for the cross likening it to "the gallows on which your father was hanged". Instead their symbol was the dove of peace. Scorning the visible opulence in which the clergy, and particularly the Pope lived, they sought voluntary poverty. They denied the Apostolic Succession believing the Catholic Popes to be the Antichrist. The Perfecti aimed to live their lives in purity. Once they had taken the Consolamentum they became quite literally Christs themselves, and it is for this reason that the credentes would worship them, often by prostration, not because of any attempt at worldly glorification on their part but because they beheld the living God.
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A World Made in Error...

2010-11-26T18:59:00.000+01:00

Following Jesus' perhaps most difficult exhortation, the Cathar perfect once they had received the Consolamentum, were expected to leave their wives, husbands, families. They lived together in houses. When death was close, rather than submit themselves to the decay of the flesh, they would starve themselves to death in fast called the Endura. Not surprisingly, most credentes waited until their deathbed before asking to receive the Consolamentum. In the Roman Catholic church, the rite of Extreme Unction was introduced at about this time to compete with the deathbed ritual of the Cathars.

The Cathars had no doubt that the world and the association with the world was linked with Satan. Jesus could not have died on the cross as what perished was the body, not the spirit. The true world, they said, was spiritual, eternal, immaterial in fact the antithesis of matter. The world eternal was the spiritual renewal of the elected day by day, the knowledge of Christ's kingdom and never of this world. Satan was the king of the world, the visible, temporal world of the named and thus the desired. As Jehovah in the Old Testament he had showed his true colours by pretending to be, or perhaps even believing that he was God, the Creator of all. Satan for the Cathari was the lord of the physical person, the decaying flesh which lusts and covets and makes people sin.

Simply put, for the Cathars - and Priscillian - we are not meant to be here. Humans are the production of the fall of certain angels who followed Samael the Blind One in his fall to earth and were persuaded by him to enter into the bodies of the creatures he made out of sand and dust. When the angels realised the trick that had been played upon them, they longed to escape from their material bodies to return to their celestial selves of pure spirit from which they were taken by false promises and to which they hoped one day to return. The aim of life for the Cathars, then, was to reverse the fall: to re-unite the spirit with the body and in so-doing free oneself from the imprisonment of the soul.
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The Cathars...

2010-11-19T00:56:00.000+01:00

The Cathars or Albigenses lived, worked and preached in the areas of France from Toulouse to Beziers and from Albi to Foix in the foothills of the Pyrenees. There were, of course, Cathars outside of these areas. There were other sects whose practices were very much alike to Cathar practices such as the groups in Cologne in Germany, and the Bogomils from what is now Bulgaria and associated regions. It has been suggested often that Catharism originated with the Bogomils and was brought to the Languedoc by Bogomil missionaries. While this is indeed a possibility there are subtle differences between the two groups which suggests perhaps another, more home-grown and indigenous dualist tradition was already there. I suggest that perhaps the Cathars had a Priscillianist root system which in its turn, like many similar so called 'heresies' could trace themselves back to the Essenes of Jerusalem among whose members most likely was counted Jesus and most of his followers. It would only take a seed, a contact or contacts from this region to France or in the case of Priscillian, Spain, for this "heresy" to take root. And not only to take root but to spread.

What we have not been able to access in the history of the spread of Christianity, early Christianity that is, is that Priscillianism was widespread in the latter part of the 4th century; there were Priscillianist followers not only in Galicia, but the whole of Northern Spain, into areas as far south as Córdoba, and then into areas such as the Languedoc and Aquitaine of "Gaul": even into the northern part of Italy!

Priscillian's message was a serious threat to the power of the newly established Roman church: it said that priests and bishops were not necessary to understand the world of God. Not surprisingly it had to be stamped out!

But what is interesting is to see Priscillian's message re-emerge, centuries after Priscillian's death, but perhaps not so long after Priscillianism was forced underground in Spain. When we put Priscillian's message and the message of the Good Men side by side, the seams are almost flawless. How could this be? Many have suggested an influence from the Baltic areas, but do we really have to look that far?

Whatever the reason for their being, by 1143, the majority of Christians in the region were Cathar. Bernard of Clairveaux campaigned in the region against their practices but had no success whatsoever. Increasingly, the Popes, not surprisingly, became alarmed.

Like the Priscillianists, the Cathars had two levels of believer: most were the ordinary people who were allowed, though not encouraged, to marry - although strictly as a bond and not a sacrament - and bring up their families. These were the credentes. They were craftsmen and women, hard working weavers, metalworkers and potters. Above them were the Perfecti. It is hard for us to image the status these men and women had. Like their counterparts amongst the Essenes, these were the Pure Ones, those who had achieved perfection and redemption in this life. These Parfaits and Parfaites had renounced the earthly realm by receiving the only sacrament valid for the Cathars: the Consolamentum. To call this a baptism would be highly misleading. The Cathars renounced baptism as being of the material world. The Consolamentum meant baptism with the spirit and through it the supplicant received the Holy Paraclete, the gift of the Holy Spirit in exactly the same way that Christ had received it at the time of his baptism. For the Cathars the water was not only unnecessary but tainted. This was more a symbolic baptism of fire after which the Parfait became a comforter and a preacher of the only true way to the resurrection they had received, in this life. This is in many ways the core of the Gnostic beliefs and there is little doubt that both Cathars and Priscillianists were Gnostics especially when this realisation of the truth is linked to their dualism. Both groups rejected the Trinity, both made the extraordinary claim that redemption flowed from the understanding of the true nature of man's being, as pure spirit trapped in matter through either curiosity, or the machinations of a devilish trickster who wanted us to believe that faith in Jesus` death on the cross was all we needed to know for our salvation after death.
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On Pain of Death...

2010-11-13T00:42:00.001+01:00

The church forbade the reading of the Bible. Catholic Christians were forbidden from reading the Bible, or possessing one in any language, including Latin! Theological discussion with Jews was expressly forbidden since there was no such prohibition in the Jewish faith. St. Louis admonished any Christian upon hearing of the law from a Jew to "thrust his sword into the Jew's belly as far as it will go".

It was considered tantamount to proof of heresy that anyone would feel the need to look for proof of the church's teachings by resorting to bible study. In England, William Tyndale was burned as a heretic for translating the Bible into English and anyone owning or reading his translation was treated likewise.

Not surprisingly, the various translations into the vernacular in the Aquitaine and the southern regions of France had to be stopped and toute de suite!

So who were the Cathars and what did they believe?
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The Hunting of Heretics: The Cathars

2010-11-10T19:53:00.005+01:00

The term "Cathars" was never used by those who simply called themselves Les Bonhommes, or Good Christians. While some scholars have claimed the word comes from the Greek Kataroi, meaning the Pure Ones, others, most notably Nicolas Gouzy of the Centre d'Etudes Cathares in France, have suggested that the name was more comparable to an insult deriving from the German "die Ketzerei" meaning "cat worshippers" and indeed in the iconography of the Middle Ages they were almost always accompanied by cats, a symbol of evil for all of Christendom at the time. They have also been often referred to as The Albigenses, after the chronicler Geoffrey of Vigeous in 1181, especially in the scholarly literature. But this too may be a misnomer as the town of Albi was not notably Cathar with the greatest concentration of believers to the south and south east of the Languedoc and towards the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees.

Why were the Cathars (and for ease of recognition, I'll use this term throughout) such a threat to the Roman church that it was deemed necessary to persecute and exterminate them in their hundreds, perhaps thousands?

Notable in the Cathar writings of the 13th century we find this:

"The Roman church is not ashamed to say that they are the lambs of Christ. They say that the heretics they persecute are the church of wolves. But this is absurd. The wolves have always pursued and slaughtered the sheep. It would have to be the contrary for the sheep to be so mad as to hunt down and kill the wolves, and for the wolves to be so passive and patient as to let the sheep devour them."

The early 11th century brought about a crisis of faith. The world had not ended with the Millennium as most expected it to do according to prophecy. The clergy were seen as corrupt, seeking only power and riches; the Latin litany droned on with no-one understanding a word. No-one spoke Latin anymore and comprehension of the mass was reserved only for those who could read and write in that language; this did not even seem to include some of the priests themselves who used onlywell-used psalms and prayer books. In fact, as I shall mention later, the ownership of a bible was a capital offence since it pre-supposed heretical interests! People began to speak openly of the inconsistencies of the Catholic faith and Catholic practices. They spoke out about the usury of the church; of the fees collected by avaricious churchmen and their superstitious rites. The moneys they collected for holy water, oil, and earth for burial. Ordinary people began to move away from the massive cathedrals and abbeys and began to go - as the comedian Lenny Bruce has termed the 20th century spiritual comparison - "...back to God".

What can the world be other than created by the devil, they said. They began to preach detachment from this realm whose prince was Satan and sought ways to "a new heaven, and a new earth where justice will dwell".
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"For your own good...!"

2010-10-22T22:11:00.006+02:00

By applying this name of heretic, it was a simple step to branding the Cathars as a dualist movement, inspired from the east, and thus led to them being also referred to as "false prophets": heretics for whom the ultimate penalty of burning was appropriate, if they did not immediately recant, "to save their souls". After Constantine the emperor in Rome had "converted" to Christianity, the church achieved the highest power over life and death: those who lapsed from the state religion could be saved from eternal perdition by torturing and if necessary putting them death as cruelly as possible! A law of 407 against the Donatists puts heretics on the same level as traitors to the emperor. The punishment for treason was to be burnt alive. Such extraordinary thinking allowed the Roman church to accuse, and arrange for the torture and murder of those who sought to exercise their "choice" - the true meaning of the Greek word "hairesis", and with a clear and divinely- justified conscience that they were acting in the best interests of the accused! In this way, of course, the Dominican friars in the 13th and later centuries were able to carry out their gruesome and loathsome task with impunity, afterwards handing over the sacrificial victim to the secular authorities for burning.

And so to return to the time of the Cathar persecutions, perhaps what worried the church most of all was the translation of the Bible into the vernacular. In France, this meant Provencal and the Langue d'Oc (quite literally the Language of Yes). Magee, in Heresy and the Inquisition, says that by 1100 educated people were starting to read the bible by themselves, but the Pope was roundly against it. If people could read God's words for themselves they might begin to doubt or to dispute the Catholic practices which were not in line with the scriptures. Magee claims that the Popes wanted to see the power of the church, which was their own power, dominating men's lives. He quotes the novelist HG Wells in saying:

"It was just because many of them secretly doubted the soundness of their vast and elaborate doctrinal fabric that they would brook no discussion of it. They were intolerant of doubts and questions, not because they were sure of their faith, but because they were unsure.".

The Good Men...

2010-10-22T22:01:00.005+02:00

In this culturally and spiritually explosive atmosphere there appeared, seemingly in the early years of the 1100's an extraordinary movement whose Christian beliefs were noticeably different from those of the Catholics. It spread like a wildfire and lasted, with its believers living quite comfortably side by side with Catholics, for many years, but as they began to attract the notice of the papal church it became the custom to refer to them as "Manichaeans", just as the charges against Priscillian had also been that he was a follower of the Persian prophet Mani.

Despite what we have read about the throwing of early Christians martyrs to the lions, this was confined to relatively short periods of time and very specific emperors. A far worse fate was exclusion within the church. Early church writers seem to agree that religious liberty up to a certain point was a matter of personal choice. Hence we find Tertullian in the 3rd century in Ad Scapulum writing:

It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion - to which free will and not force should lead us.

Soon after the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Rome the persecution of people for holding different religious opinions began. In the year 38 Theodosias, soon after his baptism into Roman Catholicism, issued, with is co-emperors,the following edict which is worth quoting in full:

We, the three emperors, will that our subjects steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans...let us believe in one Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, of equal majesty in the Holy Trinity. We order that the adherents of this faith be called Catholic Christians. We brand all the senseless followers of the other religions with the infamous name of heretics, and forbid their conventicles assuming the name of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect the heaviest penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict.

For the most part this meant excommunication. This was a serious matter. Ex-communication meant exclusion from God and delivery to Satan. It meant everlasting death, a far worse thing to countenance than simply the taking of life
However, in 381, Christians requested the emperor to strip the Manichaeans of their civil rights. By the end of the following year, the death penalty had been pronounced for all the Manichees. They were accused of magical and obscene practices.

And within five years of Theodosius' edict, the "heaviest penalty" had been enacted on Priscillian, Euchrotia and the others.
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After Priscillian...

2010-10-22T21:57:00.003+02:00

With the Sueve occupation of Galicia, Priscillianism was more or less tolerated especially since the rejection of the Trinity was shared by both the Sueves who practiced Arianism and the Priscillianists, although initially, in the opening years of the fifth century, the barbarian invasions of Spain threw the whole Peninsula into confusion as the Sueves were for the most part pagan upon their entry into Spain. But those that followed mainstream Christianity were permitted to worship according to their own practices.

When they founded their kingdom in Galicia in 464, Arianism was the State religion rather than Roman Catholicism. There is nothing to suggest that the Arian bishops at this time were active in suppressing paganism. Priscillianism was tolerated as many of its beliefs were similar in fact to the state religion, and it was not until St. Martin of Braga (not to be confused with St. Martin of Tours), the Apostle of the Sueves, that Priscillianism is seen to be driven back underground. It is only after Recared the Visigoth's conversion to Catholicism in the mid 7th century that we cease altogether to hear anything about the Priscillianists.

But where did they go? Did they simply die out, or be absorbed by the Catholic church, a church notably antipathetic and entirely different to their views?
Or did the movement go underground, only to re-appear as a synthesis somewhere else, somewhere where Priscillianism had had a distinct foothold 800 years before? Did Priscillian survive in the guise of the Good Men?
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A monstrous deed...

2010-10-22T21:55:00.006+02:00

Going directly to meet with then new emperor was clearly a grave mistake as the charges against Priscillian now included witchcraft as well as heresy, and witchcraft was a capital crime. The Priscillianists had estates, money; Maximus needed to pay his war debts. He had no need of further difficulties with his bishops and even less interest in church matters. Instead of receiving the fair hearing they expected, their case was handed over to the secular arm for judgement. Priscillian's execution could only benefit the Emperor who was seriously short of cash. He made no move to stop the court proceedings.

Priscillian and his followers, including Eucrotia, the widow of a Roman noble with estates at Elusa in southern France, was beheaded at Trier in either 385 or 386, the first Christians martyred by those who were Christians themselves. Ambrose of Milan, Pope Siricius, and Martin of Tours protested against Priscillian's execution. But Priscillian had, fatally, presented his case outside of the ecclesiastical court for “justice”; his persecutors had made a case for witchcraft and sorcery as well as heresy; and the former was a capital crime. For us today, the charges themselves may seem innocent enough: Priscillian had more than likely participated in some age old ritual common in the countryside which had clung to the old ways. Perhaps he was observed by someone for whom this was interpreted as a direct threat to the newly formed Roman Church. Perhaps that person or persons had an agenda of their own. We simply cannot determine truth from falsehood at this point.

Priscillian’s “confession” was extracted under torture. He confessed to "magical" practices, meetings at night with women, and praying naked. All of these were likely true. But it was the demonic interpretation put upon them by the Catholic inquisitors which were to lead to the death penalty. Priscillian and six of his closest followers, including Euchrotia were executed according to the Roman law.

However, Priscillianism, despite the very strict measures taken by Maximus to contain it, continued to spread in Gaul, especially on both sides of the foothills of the Pyrenees, as well as in Spain in general, and northern Spain in particular. For at least another hundred and fifty years we hear of synod after synod convened with the express purpose of dealing with the still existent Priscillianists. In 405, The Synod of Carthage, for example, endorsed use of force by the state if persuasion failed to convert the heretics. These were not exclusively Priscillianist as there were many deviations from the state religion of Roman Catholicism by this. Some simply vanished, some were absorbed into mainstream Catholicism.

Priscillian was long honored as a martyr, not as a heretic, especially in Galicia and what is now northern Portugal, where his body was reverentially returned from Trier. Prof. Chadwick and others, including myself, have made the tentative claim that the remains found in the early 9th century at the site rededicated to Saint James the Great— Santiago de Compostela - belong not to the apostle at all but to Priscillian. This, of course, is the mainstay of the historical thread of Pilgrimage to Heresy.
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The Priscillianists...

2010-10-22T20:47:00.006+02:00

The decapitation of Priscillian and some of his followers in Trier was the first case of capital punishment through the Catholic "inquisition" in the history of the Church.

Priscillian was clearly influenced by some sort of doctrine, or perhaps, as I have suggested, a book of some kind. He was visited by a woman who called herself Agape, and a man named Elpidius, who had come from Egypt. These two purportedly had become friendly with a man named Marcus of Memphis, who had connections with Gnosticism.
When I first read Professor Chadwick's book, I knew that this story was too good to remain in theological and scholastic obscurity. It was the stuff of best-sellers and I knew I would have to write it myself. The result was Pilgrimage to Heresy which has now been translated into Spanish and published as Peregrinos de la Herejia.

Priscillian gathered an immense following. His message brought men and women from all walks of life to his gnostic message of salvation, and not only from Galicia but throughout Spain, specially the north, into the south of France and even the northern states of Italy. For the Priscillianists, friendship with the world was friendship with the devil and thus enmity with God. He who called himself the Creator God was deluding himself since he had originated in a lie; however, humankind could not blame the Devil for his sins as he did retain free-will and had an obligation to extricate his soul from its earthly bondage by the practice of true Christianity and the reading and study of the Bible, `day and night`. Merely nominal Christianity was not enough. The resurrection of the body, Priscillian taught, was achieved by the realisation of the spirit. Thus, by implication, there could be no bodily resurrection of Christ in the literal sense. The material world, he wrote is `short-lived and evil`. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the true God would eventually reclaim all spirits back to his bosom and this earthly realm, and the false, blind trickster Samael would cease to be.

The Priscillianists were vegetarians, abstained from wine, and practiced voluntary poverty and celibacy. Priscillian said that men and women were equal as their spirits were equal and that slavery was horrific and must be abolished. We are talking 1700 years ago here!

Not surprisingly, he had enemies. Priscillian's most notable opponents were Hydatius of Emerita Augusta (present day Merida), and Ithacius of Ossonuba (present day Faro in the south of Portugal). Between them, they petitioned Gratian, the then Emperor (soon to be killed by Maximus “The Usurper”, who denied any involvement in Gratian’s death), and a Synod was held at Saragossa (Zaragoza in Spain) in 381. The Synod was not well attended, however, which begs the question as to whether Hydatius and Ithacius’charges were of much interest to the rest of the Iberian bishops, and neither Priscillian, nor any of his followers attended. A late message from the Pope absolved the Priscillianists of all possible charges since they had not been there to defend themselves. They were most certainly not, as I have read on the Internet, “ex-communicated” at this Synod, as was put about by Priscillian's accusers.

It was well known that Hydatius had a wife and likely one or more children. He kept himself surrounded with a mafia-like protection unit. Many of his congregation had refused to take communion with him. But he was clearly disturbed at the Priscillianist presence and wrote to his Metropolitan Ithacius to complain. After a Priscillianist delegation by Bishops Instantius and Salvianus to Hydatius in Merida was turned away - and in which, the bishops were bodily thrown out of Hydatius’ presence - they appointed Priscillian Bishop of Ávila. Appalled and likely worried for their own survival, Hydatius and Ithacius appealed to the Emperor Gratian, who issued a rescript threatening the Priscillianists with banishment. Consequently, the three Priscillian bishops went in person to Rome, to present their case before Damasus the Pope. Despite being refused an audience with either pope or emperor, some exchange of what was likely a considerable amount of money to the imperial questor secured the restoration of their churches.

Ithacius, Priscillian's main accuser, fled to Trier fearing that he would answer himself for his charges against a fellow bishop. But the die was caste. What had essentially begun as a church matter, now attracted the attention of the secular arm. It was ultimately to prove Priscillian’s downfall.

The murder of Emperor Gratian in Lyon and the accession, at Trier (Trèves, in Germany) of the usurper Magnus Maximus (383) was to cause the tide to turn against the Priscillianists. Maximus was a soldier who had no interest in church matters, but he was bound to listen to Ithacius' - who was now returned from exile - complaints. In consequence of his representations a new synod was held (384) at Bordeaux. The Priscillianists had dangerous enemies in the Aquitaine and faced a hung jury. Instantius was sent into exile in the Scilly Isles. Salvianus had died while the Priscillianists were in Rome and so was spared the questioning.

Priscillian, knowing that his protestations would meet with no sympathetic hearers, appealed directly to Maximus, but the Emperor had other concerns to deal with, not least of which building up his coffers after an expensive war.
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Priscillian...

2010-10-13T17:23:00.006+02:00

With the publication of Pilgrimage to Heresy, and before, I have been asked many times why I decided to walk the Camino de Santiago and to this day I can't give a definitive answer. I like the one given by Jack Hitt in his wonderful book Off the Road". When as he is about to get his Compostela at the cathedral he is asked his reasons for walking the Camino de Santiago he replies: "To find out my reasons for walking." I would have to say those were mine too.

Along the Way of St. James, I met a man from Salt Lake City, Utah. We walked and talked about the nature of pilgrimage in a secular age. "You know, Tracy,": he said, "the chances are that it is not St. James buried in the cathedral anyway."

I was a bit miffed. "Whad'ya'mean?" I said, stopping. "If old Santiago isn't there, why am I walking 760 kilometres to see him?"

Lance Owens, who I was later to find out was a priest of the Gnostic church as well as an M.D. and teacher of Jung at the University of Utah, mentioned this name beginning with a "Pru-" something adding that he had been written about in a scholarly book by an Oxford professor, and I can remember very clearly a sensation that said: "That's it! That's what you have been waiting for." Unfortunately, I forgot the name immediately and it wasn't until a year later that I decided to begin my investigation. I wrote to Dr. Owens.

Priscillian, he wrote back: Priscillian Bishop of Avila.

Who was Priscillian of Avila?
Very little is known about Priscillian’s life. Most of what we have comes from various Catholic sources, and not surprisingly, they are not sympathetic. Sulpicius Severus wrote about Priscillian, and also wrote the earliest biography of St. Martin of Tours. Martin, while a follower of the traditional Roman church of the time, was severely critical of the judgement meted out to Priscillian and his followers, and petitioned Maximus the Emperor to call off the inquisition sent to Spain after Priscillian’s execution. This, not surprisingly, led to accusations that Martin was secretly a Priscillianist sympathiser himself. Severus goes to great lengths to disassociate his hero from Priscillianism and from the serious charge of Manicheanism. Quite rightly as Martin of Tours was merely a concerned but sympathetic bystander, not a Priscillianist himself. Pity that Severus couldn´t have been a bit more open-minded about Priscillian himself because in many ways, even today and through the Catholic Encyclopaedia (published by the way over a 100 years ago) what you will read even today has the taste of Severus' distaste...

By far the best contemporary source of information about Priscillian’s thought and writing, and what little historical detail we do have, comes from Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church (OUP 1976) by Prof. Henry Chadwick, Regius Professor of Divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge. It is this book that Lance Owens had mentioned to me. In the last ten years, information about Priscillian has increased tenfold on the Internet although unfortunately much of it is still taken from Catholic sources such as the 1906 Catholic Encyclopaedia which is hardly sympathetic.

Pilgrimage to Heresy does not claim to give an accurate account of Priscillian’s life; it is a work of fiction written to entertain, and hopefully encourage questions. However, Priscillian’s religious views, by and large, are taken from the Wurzburg Tractates discovered by Georg Schepps in 1885 and published at the Vienna Corpus in 1886, and which are covered in some depth in Prof. Chadwick's book. More recently, Mario Conti's translation into English was published February 2010 as The Complete Works of Priscillian of Avila(OUP) and is gaining a good deal of notice as this is the first time scholars have had the chance to read Priscillian's words in anything other than Latin or German.

Since he was, and to some extent still is, especially venerated in Galicia, and since it seems highly likely that he was brought there for burial - which of course is the main thesis of my novel - I believe that there are some grounds for claiming this part of northern Spain as his birthplace and I am by no means alone in this. That he was executed in Trier in either 385 or 386 CE is beyond doubt, although it is worth mentioning here that at a visit to the cathedral in Avila while I was researching the book, I approached a priest there and enquiring about information about Priscillian I was told that “no such person ever existed”! Now there are only two explanations for this. Either this priest was ignorant of the history of his own church, which I very much doubt, or, he was lying through his Catholic teeth.

More on Priscillian and a very tentative Cathar link to come...
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A Child´s Garden of Gnosticism, Part 2

2010-10-10T21:22:00.005+02:00

Rather than give up, I began to read the bible independently. One of the first things I encountered was the bit in Genesis where Adam and Eve slink off to the Land of Nod, procreate, struggle with their unfortunate lot, and eventually watch their children find their own wives.

Huh?

Where did they come from? Even a teenage brain can do process of elimination. a/ God created some more people? Doesn't say that anywhere, b/ Cain and Abel married their sisters? Ditto. Scandalous and forbidden too, c/ Cain and Abel went off somewhere and came back with their brides. Red light, red light...does not compute.

I began to read of a vengeful, vindictive and by his own admission "jealous" God (of whom?) who appeared to set up poor Adam and Eve - and especially Eve - right from the beginning just to make sure that they were stupid enough NOT to use the intellect he had somehow given them, and then had a temper tantrum when they did. I read of other gods... Wait a minute, haven't they been ramming down my throat that there is only one? Most of all I read that God was everywhere, all powerful, all knowing...all good.

Not the one I had been reading about.

I dropped God like a hot potato. And Jesus the revolutionary too.

Many, many years later, while working in a bookshop, I unpacked a box of books that had come in that morning. Out came a slim volume called The Gnostic Gospels. I sat back on the carpet and opened it up. I began to get the idea: Jesus actually said far more than what we had read in the New Testament. Many new "gospels" had been discovered years before and now they had only recently been translated into English. They included, Peter, Thomas, Mary even. I took the book home that night and read it from cover to cover.

Now I would like to say that my life changed from that moment, but it didn't. Pagel's book, however, did alert me to the fact that there was more to Christianity than I had so far been taught, that what was contained in these books helped to explain more about what I had rejected. In fact, Jesus DID seem to have a message that fitted in with my spiritual cravings. Like Mary Magdalene, I wanted to be the woman who knew the all.
This took me to philosophy where I learned to ask the right questions. But it wasn't enough.

I slipped back to my agnostic state. It would be a while before I met someone who challenged me to truly move forward on my spiritual quest.
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Priscillian, the Cathars and Me

2010-09-30T19:46:00.006+02:00

Hey! I'm back. Canada was wonderful and I had an opportunity to meet many old friends, some of which I haven´t seen in 20 years. I have written elsewhere that true friendship knows nothing about distance or time.

My paper at the Brock University Conference on Gnosticism was entitled "Priscillian, the Cathars and Me". If you have been following my ongoing research into the Camino de Santiago, you will know that I have written quite extensively about Priscillian of Avila in my book Pilgrimage to Heresy: Don´t Believe Everything They Tell You
But what was that "heresy"? And how does it affect today´s walkers on the Camino?

We are told that the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela houses the mortal remains of St. James. But how true is that? To find out more, I invite you to look at my blogs over the last 14 months or so.

In the meantime, I thought you might like to share in what has become a personal journey towards Gnosticism.

Here is the first part of my paper:

A Child's Garden of Gnosticism

When I was four, I dreamt I met Jesus outside of our local village pub. He was nice, but neither meek, nor mild; quite stern in fact. I remember waking up with a sense that Jesus was telling me somehow to be very wary of what I as going to be taught.

As I grew, I devoured the Narnia chronicles of CS Lewis, which were just then being published, never once considering that Lewis was providing my thirsty young mind with allegory. It didn't matter. To this day I maintain that I learned about honour, valour, love and nobility from the children in the books and their mentor, Aslan. He made more sense to me than Jesus.

Skip forward to age 12 and my first year of secondary school. In divinity class we had to write a composition about Jesus' visit to Jerusalem as a young boy. I decided to use a bit of licence and described the excitement of the young boys at the vanguard of the group of parents who followed behind. Just imagine, I thought, how they might have behaved each one vying to be the first to see the "spires" of the city. "I saw it first," says one; "No, I did," says Jesus. I was really proud if it when I handed it in and waited for the high grade I knew must come.

Now I've always written well; it comes naturally to me and so I was excited when the teacher handed back all of the compositions with the exception of mine. I can remember to this day the exact seat I was in, waiting with great anticipation to hear what a remarkable insight I had had into the everyday life of Jesus.

I was to be not only disappointed but roundly embarrassed in front of 25 other girls all of whom had their papers on the desk in front of them.

"But," said the teacher, "there is one that I simply must read out to you all," and picking up my composition began to tell my story. I was thrilled. At last, acknowledgement for my hard work and imagination.

Then she finished. And turned on me in such a fashion as I had never seen. How DARE I treat the Lord Jesus as though he were a normal child, what BLASPHEMY was this in her own class...she went on and on.

One part of me just wanted to slide under the desk and stay there for the next five years. But you know, the other part of me wanted to scream: "You are SO WRONG!"

To be continued...
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Camino Odyssey 14

2010-08-30T21:08:00.009+02:00

Conspiracy theories? Probably not. But there is no doubt that the following message was tampered with enough to make it almost unreadable. Anyway, I have fixed it up now and hope that it remains that way.

Prepare to read about the mass before the Mass...

What is the Mozarabic Rite ?
In Galicia and in fact- many parts of Spain, the Roman mass was not heard. Instead, the liturgy was the Mozarabic, Visigothic or as it is sometimes called, the Hispanic Rite. By 1085, however, it had been suppressed in fravour of the mass most of us are familiar with today, though in Latin , of course.

The term Mozarabic Christians refers to those who were living in parts of Spain occupied by the Muslims. But in fact, it dates from before the Moorish invasion to the Visigoths who occupied all of the north of Spain, Galicia included. Some scholars believe it could be even older and that it may have been one of the earliest forms of the mass. There is every possibility that it is this that Priscillian would have celebrated as Bishop of Avila. This ancient rite has its own form of chant before Gregorian chant which postdates it by at least 300 years . You can you hear it on You Tube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoriS-KvjwI&feature=related .

The visual quality isn't the best, but in some ways it adds atmosphere to the early church. .It's hauntingly beautiful, Perhaps even more so because there is almost no-where in Spain now that you can hear it. This is from the Church of the Holy Martyr Santa Eulalia in Merida.

We have the earliest evidence for the rite from Isidore of Seville who died in 636. As the “Reconquista” began to take back more and more parts of Spain. , so the Mozarabic Rite gradually was taken over by the Roman one. In fact, by the end of the 8th century, it was already used in Catalonia , But it was not until 1071 that it was adopted in Navarra and Aragon. At this time , the Cluniac order was beginning to move into Spain with these monks. In 1076, it was adopted in Leon and Castile, and when the capital of Toledo was taken by Alfonso VI in 1085, the future of the Roman mass as the only one to be used seemed almost certain.

This was not immediately accepted by everyone, and Galicia, being the most north western kingdom did not want it at all. As I mentioned earlier in these posts it´s levying on the Gallego people may have caused real rebellion and bloodshed , and most likely , the deposition of a bishop, Diego Pelaez himself .

But what Pope Gregory VII said ewhat had to be, came to be, and what had to go, went. A French archbishop was appointed to the see of Toledo by the king and henceforth , it was the Roman mass Christians were expected to make their responses to. Everywhere. Officially .Whether they liked it or not.

In the late 15th century, Cardinal Cisneros of Toledo begin to restore the Mozarabic Rite in the historical cathedral of Toledo. By the late 19th Century, there were missals containing the new rite although scholars are not in agreement on how much of the original rite is contained in these.

In Toledo Cathedral, the Visigoth Mass is celebrated in the Mozarabic Chapel every day . There are a few more churches in Spain who have been given permission to hold this ancient Hispanic mass, but few do so .

I had hoped to be lucky enough to attend this mass. My pilgrim friend, Juan Frisuelos , had applied for, and got, permission from the archbishop to hold the mass at the closed convent in Escalona just to the north east of Toledo. His cousin "Paco" was an ordained priest and invited to officiate. Many members of the association of the Friends of Santiago were looking forward to this most unique opportunity.

However, it seemed was not to be.

Rivalries exist everywhere, and it appeared that the local priest was not too keen on the idea and said at the last minute special permission had to be applied for. So on the day the regular Catholic mass - though pilgrim with very distinct overtones - was celebrated. I have to admit I was rather disappointed, even though I found the crisp Castillano very easy to understand. During the blessing of the Eucharist I had some sort of epiphany as I suddenly realised the Gnostic Significance of the transubstantiation of bread and the wine. But I will not write of it here .

Afterwards we - Juan and his family and priests - not one but two - and me - all trooped back to Juan´s housewhere Maria, his mother , put on a veritable feast of the best paella I have ever had, topped off with a perfect home -made flan to die for. Me, and two priests! And I behaved myself admirably . I've never had after- church lunch with the vicar before! The talk was of food and practicalities and theological discussion was not entertained. Quite right too .

We watched the TV news item from my Toledo interview and there was not a fish in sight. I think I made sense, but I had never realised that I spoke Spainish with such an appallingly English accent! Though about the Mozarabic Mass, Juan was disappointed , and knew that I was disappointed. And so the next day ( Sunday ), we decided to drive to Toledo where we would be sure to catch it .

Not.

As it was the Feast of St. James it had been decided to hold a special "pilgrim mass". And that , of course , could not include anything which was not specifically Roman Catholic, even if the Visgothic Rite predated the Catholic one by hundreds in Galicia and most of the Way in general.

We were, however, allowed to enter into an area behind the rood screen which Juan told me was not normally open to the public.

What astonished me was the message of the liturgy: Pilgrims were from "all over the world, from all religions or none , the road did not end in Santiago but continued on to Finisterre and the end of the trail , and the best of all surprises : It did not matter who was buried in the cathedral because what mattered was what in pilgrim’s hearts.

Well , knock me down with a feather !

"But of course ", I hear you saying .

But this church has never taken this line and the reason why I am pretty well persona non grata in the Cathedral is because I have written and continue to speak about this. What this elderly priest in red was saying was exactly what I had been saying in newspapers, on TV and on the radio in the days leading up to this, the 25th of July the Day of St. James, the Patron of Spain (and not, by the way, the Patron of Compostela: that is San Roque, Santa Susana whose graffiti -covered church in the Alameda park is a disgrace, abandoned and forgotten.

I cast a quizzical eye at Juan. Afterwards, He said: "It is the way of the Catholic Church Bureaucracy. They will do anything to save face. "

Well , well ...Did I touch a clerical nerve or two?

I do hope so.

This will be my last blog post for a month as I am off again on book promotion for Pilgrimage to Heresy in Canada, but I'll be back in September ready to take up again the story of how the Way came to be, so I do hope you will drop by. In the meantime there are more than 100 posts about the Camino and related items here and I am sure you will enjoy a browse.

Until then, "goodbye".
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Camino Odyssey 13

2010-08-19T21:14:00.005+02:00

Friday 23rd July: Another couple of days and then I'll be all up to date.
Then I have to leave you all for a while while I go to Canada and another book tour...

If mornings didn´t start so early, I am sure I might learn to enjoy them.

To compensate for my extra day’s stay at the monastery, I had to set my alarm at five for an early start. It was still full dark when I left at six. Having complained about Simone’s arbitrariness regarding the air con, I now found myself with ice cold feet. I was retracing the territory I drove through during the thunderstorms but although it was a green line road, I still didn’t get to see any of it.

But it doesn’t take long in northern Spain for the sun to make his appearance and the “rosy-footed dawn” over Zaragosa was simply splendid. I spent the next few hundred kilometres exhausting my stock of music – all on tape. I have a CD player (and 12 speakers!) but I play my CD’s at home, whereas the tapes rarely get an airing. You know that feeling when the DJ plays your favourite song? Even though you might have it on an old album or whatever at home, you feel like it is a special gift – just for you, and you crank the volume up. This is what I did to Pat Metheny, and Elton John, and even a bit of old folk music, since I now belong officially to the Old Folk.

At one point about 50 kilometres north east of Madrid, just as I was playing Peter Gabriel´s Solisbury Hill “Winds were blowing, time stood still; eagle flew out of the night…”, an eagle did just that. Not the night as it was a good 10:30 by now, but it flew less than a metre away alongside my window, and almost into it for a good five incredulous seconds. This is the second time I have had the same experience.

Whether we have a totem or a “daimon” or angels around our shoulders I don´t know. The older I get (oh dear, there I go again), the more I am prepared to entertain the possibility: perhaps a “good journey guide” as my friend Lance Hurst believes.

One thing I have noticed though is that I seem to attract hawks, falcons and eagles. I find them beautiful and graceful in the extreme. Creatures in a total world of their own where only they exist. For a few moments on this ever-increasingly hot summer morning, this eagle and I shared “a moment”.

Madrid is never easy to negotiate but I found my way around the ring road easily despite the weekend traffic and soon I was approachingToledo.

There are a few cities in the world which from a distance just don´t seem real. Granada is one with the high Sierras behind it, snow trimmed even on a July day. San Francisco is another, especially when it is glimpsing the Pacific out of a summer fog. Toledo is one such: a wedding cake of a city from all sides, ringed by ancient walls and the gentle (here) Tajo river. I was lucky enough to drive right into a parking spot (Goddess Gladys again) and then all I had to do was find the tourist office for directions to the radio station for my first interview of the day.

One thing I like about central Spain is that the Castellano is generally very easy to understand. I was able to respond well to the questions about Priscillian, Diego Gelmirez, the Camino de Santiago and my own retrospective trip. I haven’t the faintest idea what I said (I never do); I only remember myself rambling on as usual, and as the day wore on I was to repeat it several times.

Before the last interview I decided to pay a visit to the cathedral but balked at paying seven euros. Our holy places are little more than museums these days. I was not there for a mass, but neither was I there for a cultural visit: I wanted to experience the grandiloquence of a thousand years of Catholic might. I really should not have been such a skinflint but as I expected to be attending the Mozarabic Mass the next day, I thought I would wait until then.

Instead I fell prey to the posters around town inviting me to an “exhibition” on the Templars. This loudly-touted display consisted of a poorly-done film presentation much limited in scope, and several wall displays with little more than a bunch of propaganda and nonsense about the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem which I already knew. It was almost worth the 4 euros entry fee, however, just to see the mannequins dressed up in what someone thought would fool the public as “Templar Garb”. Shame no-one thought to check whether Templars were required to grow their beards and hair though (they were). The visit took me all of 5 minutes as the heat was enough to produce fainting spells (I wonder if that’s another thing the poor Templars were accused of, or maybe even Priscillian: Feinting Spells…but I digress).

So as the sun was turning the lovely shadows of Toledo a little longer, I met with the TV interviewer and cameraman under the clock in the main square. By this time I was so hot and exhausted that I completely forgot their names and for that I deeply apologise.
It was decided that the riverside would be a good place for the interview (for a short news item actually, though it took much longer to record). I had the sun in my eyes and the river was surprisingly noisy so I had to both squint and shout (Well Shake it Up, Baby Now…). This I handled with my, by now, professional aplomb.

However, what completely unglued me was The Man With The Fish.

Behind me at the river´s edge there was one of those long cylindrical fishing nets. You know the one: you can buy something like it at IKEA to put your kids’ teddies in. As I was speaking, a man came right behind me and pulled it out of the river. He then proceeded to plonk it down a couple of meters away from me and empty out its contents. Out flopped a couple of pretty hefty fish of some variety I didn’t know (I don’t know many!) And flop they did, covering themselves in a layer of river sand and dust. Fish Man ignored them completely while he put his nets back in the river. I tried initially to carry on as if nothing had happened, but as you can imagine, that didn´t last for long.

By the time he came back, I was helpless with giggles (a bit like Felix in Pilgrimage to Heresy) The filming, of course, had to stop as by now my total lack of control had affected both men.

Fish Man, meanwhile, took no notice of any of us, not camera, microphone nor
“star”!

Instead he simply picked his fish up out of the dirt, opened up a wooden basket, and throwing them into it wiggling away (the fish) he walked off into the sunset! This made me completely lose the plot in two languages and we had to start all over again.

Now you don´t see that every day, do you…?

I had been invited by Juan Frisuelos – who we have met before at the refugio of Acacio and Orietta—to stay at his house for a couple of days. I think I mentioned that I had met Juan through his publication El Correo Camino when I sent in a correction to an article he had picked up from syndication which had stated very wrongly that I never walked with a backpack not more than 5 kilometres a day. Juan is a member of the Amigos del Camino de Santiago de Toledo and he had arranged a special mass, a Mozarabic (Visigothic) Mass to be celebrated on the 24th in the church of a closed order of nuns in his own town, Escalona. I was very excited because the loss of the MOzarabic Mass features as a reason for rebellion in Compostela, as you will already know if you have been following my research here.

I arrived at Juan’s hot and sticky and tired. It was lovely to see Juan again and he wanted us to eat straightway; but Maria, his mother, understood that women have priorities which men don’t always place first. “She wants a shower first,” she said and hustled me off to her bathroom, towel in hand. Bless her.

I was a bit nervous to begin with. After 14 years in Spain I have still only been invited into a Spanish home three times. It is not that the Spanish are anti-social, far from it. It just isn’t the custom here to entertain, other than family, at home. You meet friends away from the house in a bar or restaurant either on the coast (a “chiringuito”) or inland (a “venta”) in Andalucia, or probably in the Plaza in most parts of Spain.

So this was a new experience for me, and the bullfight on the TV didn’t do anything to make me feel many more at home initially. Juan explained that his mother loved the corrida and that in this part of Spain it was a very much ingrained part of the tradition. He even had ancestors who were famous matadors. I decided that it was OK as long as I kept my back to the telly and soon Juan’s friend Maite arrived from Madríd, so I had someone I could talk with. I liked her immediately. Here was someone with the same sense of fun as my own.

Dinner was wonderful Spanish fayre, the mattress was latex, the night was quiet, the fan was welcomed. After my sunrise start and all the excitement, I slept like a baby.

How on earth does Angelina Jolie do it?
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Camino Odyssey 12

2010-08-19T12:31:00.007+02:00

I was so enchanted with the peace and quiet of the Monastery of Leyre that I couldn’t quite decide whether I should stay another night. It wasn’t expensive (42.50 for a single with bath is a bargain for such a lovely spot) and even though the menu de la noche was a bit disappointing (for 16.50), the Rumanian waiter was very friendly and I even learned to say Note Boona, or something like it.

So I said: “Go for it. You deserve it.”

The next morning, of course, was pouring with rain. In fact the thunderstorms in which I had arrived had been circulating ever since. Never mind. A good day to catch up with my diary and explore a little. I took the “tour” at 3 o´clock (in Spanish) and saw the crypt, Virila´s burial place, and the interesting story of how this monastery was abandoned in 1937 only to come back to life just a few years ago. I even learned that Diego Pelaez, (see earlier blogs for lots about him) had been present at the consecration of the monastery church in 1098, which was only a few years after he was released from Alfonso VI’s prison, and just a few before his death.

Then, the clouds having receded and the sun venturing a glipse through, I decided I would follow the marked trail to find the Holy Fuente of San Virila.
It was lovely; every now and then there would be a rock with a bible verse or something similar. But it was also farther than I had thought, and when I finally got there I almost missed it: a little dribble out of the mountains high above the monastery.

And then I lost the trail on the way down!

Normally, if you do up a mountain, then down is the obvious way back and this was the direction I took. But the foliage was so thick that at many points I thought the only thing to do was to turn around and try to climb back. That didn´t look too easy either. No wonder Virila disappeared for 300 years. For a while, as the sound of distant thunder added to my dilemma, I had visions of turning up at the bottom of the hill to nothing but ruins of an old monastery, and the far-rusted remains of what looked vaguely like a Volvo C70!

And then I got to the bottom, exactly where I had climbed up. A woman with a child asked me if the spring was very far. “Yes,” I said, and wanted to say “about 300 years!”

I had picked some lavender along the way. The woman decided to take my word for it and turned back towards the herb garden. I noticed that she was accompanied by a child of perhaps eight with Down´s Syndrome. I said hello and was greeted with a delighted and delightful smile. I gave him my lavender which he put immediately to his nose and smelled it, laughing because he said it tickled. I was to see them later in church at the 7 o´clock service. The child was fast asleep on his father’s shoulder. After Laudes, I plucked up the courage and asked if I could sing. The couple and the child were still there (I usually wait til everyone has gone). The child slept right through, but the parents thanked me and asked me if I were professional.

“No,” I said. “I am just an acoustic collector!”

And these echoed with 900 years of faith and mystery.

What a lovely spot.
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Camino Odyssey 11

2010-08-16T18:57:00.011+02:00

Once upon a time (because all the best stories start that way) there lived a man whose name was Virila. Virila was a holy man, but a curious one. His holiness had made him the Abbot of the monastery of Leyre high in the mountain; but his curiosity sometimes led him to question parts of the bible where his fellow monks simply accepted them as God’s word and then went back to their work.

One fine spring morning, Virila was pondering the words of the 89th psalm which says that God is ever-lasting and his Glory transcends even time. Virila set out to walk in the herb gardens but while he was wondering how it could be that one day in the presence could seem like a thousand years, he found himself some way from the monastery in the orchard. As he continued walking up the mountain he began to think: “Wouldn’t someone get bored with such a long stay?”, and the idea of celestial eternity tired his brain so much that he sat down on a rock by a natural spring to ponder on it, twirling his ring round and round on his finger as he contemplated temporal infinity.

Just then, a nightingale flew into the orchard and settled on a tree just above the aged abbot. Virila paused to listen to the bird’s song and became so entranced that time seemed to pass without him ever noticing it at all.

When he finally realised where he was, it occurred to him that the day was well past and he had walked here after Matins.

“I had better get back,” thought Virila anxiously, “The monks will be worried about me.”

And he began to make his way carefully back down the mountain.

But when he arrived back at the monastery, everything seemed to look different. Some parts of the building looked as though they were in need of some repair, and others were new and not something Virila had ever seen before!

A man came out of the main door. He was wearing the black robes of the Benedictine Friars, Virila’s own order. But his face was unknown to the abbot.

“Good evening, Father,” said the monk. “You have come far today I think, and you are welcome here.”

“Who are you?” said Virila, rather pointedly. “I don’t remember news of any new novices arriving today.”

“Novice!” said the other, “Perhaps you have not noticed. I am no novice; I am the Abbot of the Monastery of Leyre and have been for nigh on 50 years now following my master the old abbot.”

“That is nonsense,” snapped Virila, “because I am Virila, the Abbot of Leyre. And I have never met you before in my life!”

By this time, a group of monks had gathered to find out what all the fuss was about. One monk, old and grey-bearded with barely any hair on his head suddenly said:

“Wait a minute…there once was an abbot called Virila here. When I was but a young lad fresh from the seminary, the oldest monks remembered a story about him because the strangest thing happened. One morning, after Matins, this abbot went out on the mountainside to take the air, and was never seen nor heard from again!”

“Surely not!” said the “new” abbot. “And when was this fairy tale supposed to have taken place?”

“Three hundred years ago, Father.”

At this, all the other monks laughed and turning prepared to get back to their work.

And then something special happened. Out of the sunset there flew a nightingale. He swooped low over Virila and dropped something at his feet. The new abbot bent down and picked it up.

It was an abbatial ring, the very ring missing from Virila’s finger.

“Forgive me, father, for doubting you!” the new abbot said. “Please come and join us. We have a lot to tell you about this great monastery. Are you hungry?”

St. Virila carefully placed the ring back on his finger as the nightingale flew back into the dying sun:

“After 300 years, I should think so,” he said.

This is my version of the St. Virila story. I heard it years ago and it was a joy to stay at the monastery where the great saint lived and died. There are versions of this story all over Europe. I love it.

For more information about the Monastery of Leyre this is a good site to visit
http://www.spain.info/es/conoce/monumentos/navarra/monasterio_de_leyre.html
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Camino Odyssey 10

2010-08-13T23:47:00.008+02:00

Like all camping folks, I woke up early, to find myself not in a tent by a mountain lake - as was planned for this part of the trip - but very stiffly propped up in the passenger seat, with my feet on a backpack in the "foot bit" part of my car. Huh?. Stretch and ..oh my God... Don't you think you are getting a wee bit old for this type of thing?

Ok Where the %&$=& am I this time?

The dreadful message on the gate from last night gives no signs of monks.In fact, there is no sign of anything at all. The building looks completely deserted. I make an attempt to hide myself behind Simone's door for a call of nature and then take a better look at the building behind the gates. Finally, and it takes a while at this time of the morning, it dawns on me.

I am in the wrong place.

This a hotel; waymarked Monastery de Leyre, but it is something else evilly disguised for disoriented pilgrims to find and have to reject in the darkened night, and, in the light of day, following the torment of the night, an obvious metaphor for the .....

¡Oye!Tracy! Get back to the story!

Sorry...

Now in the cold light of dawn (obvious cliche; it was actually quite warm)the answer is clear. This is the remains of what was intended to impress and endorse pilgrims in the late 12th century. They did as they were told to do.They had no other option. People who opposed the King died. They had land taken away from themselves and their descendants - forever. Is it it any surprise they capitulated?

This for those of you who failed your English High School Exams, is known as a Rhetorical Question: no answer is needed. There is no charge for this service...

Having realised this, I heave my sleeping back into the back seat and get Simone pointed a bit more mountainward. Only 2 klms as it turns out.

A few turns upwards, the Monastery - sans storm - is pretty bloody obvious. In the daylight that is.

But not yet open for visitors.

It is 6:45.

I decide to explore.

The last thing I expected was for the abbey church to be open but it is. The portico is gorgeous - loads of detail: some supicious and some salacious -and I remember reading that it may have been the work of Esteban who left Santiago with the expulsion of his patron, Bishop Diego Pelaez (remember him?). If not you'll have to go back a few months or you will have "lost the plot" entirely!)(Go on. It's worth it. Are you a seeker after truth or...?), and went to work on the cathedral at Pamplona with the blessing of the King of Navarre, (no friend to Castilla or Leon), only a short distance away from Leyre. (Diego Pelaez was present at the consecration of the Abbey in 1098). Just for you purists.(Otherwise too many hated parentheses!)

Strangled by early morning parentheses at this point, I wander into the church.

It is far larger than I had expected and the one feature which really stands out - visually certainly - is the statue of the virgin, outlined, slightly off-centre, against the opaque window. What I see is simply stunning. It is early morning, and I am all alone.

I track back to the doorway. The mist is still coming up from the valley below and continues to cling to the mountains above, as though afraid to move the day forward. There is a space in between which shows the clarity of the cliffs which surround this eagle's refuge. I imagine that I must dwell in this space as there really is no other.

I am drawn back in to the abbey church. I sit on the end of a row at the very back.
I had not anticpitated what followed as, at that surreal point, I felt that all of it belonged to me. I was alone, among shadows, remember...

First, a door opened on my far right and five men in normal clothing walked through to settle themselves on the front pews. Then 19 monks, all dressed in black robes with hoods attached, made their way through, Noah's Arc fashion, to seat themselves on either side of the choir.

I was transfixed at this point way back, at the back by the door and the sun's tiny sliver of appearance.It was too occupied with what lay to the east and down below at the reservoir...

The monks began to sing. This is Gregorian Mass. This is no ordinary singing. This is for the glory of God and none other, and it was just by coincidence that one other - namely me - had the immense good fortune (see how bad fortune - the storm and an uncomfortable night - can result in good fortune? Life is a question of getting the perspective right)to be able to participate in their worship in a peripheral, and entirely hidden way. But I was at the back. This is a big church.

The light is in semi-darkness. I am completely hidden, forgotten,unimportant:unncessary. I recognised some but not much. It was clearly a Gregorian Mass. And for whom? Not themselves. Not me. Only God.

One of them got up to speak. I was too far away and too awe-struck anyway so I missed all.

Then they all rose, and in the same fashion as they had entered, they left. Through the same door, with the followers coming lately.

I ended as I began. Alone. But with a look of complete beatification and stupistification on my face. Not a single one of them had noticed that I was there. I had witnessed a secret, of sorts.

I love secrets.

Bet you do too.

Just think. Clear now? Think again.If you devote your life to this, it will follow. It will.

Eight o'clock (to be kind to the receptionist), I checked in. I was told not until 12. Ok. I'll be back then.

My plan on this trip was, at the very least, Somport to Finisterre, or vice versa. Circumstances had made me opt for Vice Versa, I headed for Somport, the former border post high in the Pyrennees (and stunningly beautiful) on the lesser known Camino Aragones, and where I started my second Camino in 2000.

I took photos of Simone going into France then I took photos of Simone coming back into Spain. Beyond these photos are stunning views of the pass between France and Spain - not always visible as I have found out before.

Then I went for an incredibly expensive breakfast at the only restaurant at the border - how much? Oh come on...! - and photographed myself in the window, in the cold, and the wind. Not the best but all for aesthetic atmosphere - Belgians love it (joke!).

After this all the day has to be an anticlimax. But my room turned out to be a bargain with this atmopsphere. Recommended. Certainly would go back.

The room has a great view of the mountains and is recently simply furnished in beige and white. I set up my computer and books: I open the window to the courtyard. I am at home.

Dinner was a bit of a disappointment, in that the ordinary and not very well-cooked fayre relied perhaps too much on the atmosphere. But Nicky, my waiter from Romania, was everything a waiter should be: it could not have been better.

He was Sartre's Pierre. The last time I met him he was in a remote spot in Cuba in 1987.

I met with Claudia: she is a German studying at Simon Fraser Univ. We talked about Europe, Canada, and then we agreed to meet for breakfast in their motorhome next day.

Now, anyone who knows me will know that I was born under the sign of the turtle, and that the motorhome is my totum. This was not just any motorhome. It was Buckingham Palace. But it made me realise how big my modest apartment was, and how I would love something to drive like this but something unimpressive and perhaps with 4-wheel drive so that I could hitch my wagon to any star down whatever beach road I took a fancy to, no matter how small.

Honestly, in the great scheme of things: am I really asking to much of whoever is in charge of Logistics up there? The rest I will take care of by myself...

I am in Sophie's World but making Sophie's Choice: but what do I REALLY want?

Galicia and my pilgrim destiny or... Benahavis and my wonderful view; Malaga and my gorgeous granddaughter? Maybe there are ways to incorporate both? I think - I hope..... I have five years to think about it.
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Camino Odyssey 9

2010-08-12T01:04:00.008+02:00

I am trying to bring this up to date so that I can get back to good old Diego Gelmirez before I go to Canada. I have been invited to be the keynote speaker at a conference on Gnosticism at my old university, Brock University, in St.Catharines, Ontario. I don't know really what I am going to speak about as my brief so far is "Why do you like Gnosticism?" I likened this to why do you like vanilla ice cream?

Watch this space...

Anyway, the date is July 20th, a Thursday. It is time to leave Acacio's, but before I do I have a promise to keep.

I told Sandra last night that if she wanted me to, I would be happy to drive her on to where she thought her friends might be. Some purists might consider this "cheating". It isn't. In Sandra's case it is an extension of "listening to the Camino". By doing so - and I guess I have to claim a small part of this - she has decided to press on.

Sandra is noticably more positive than she was yesterday at the same time. I drive her to Belorado. We say goodbye and I leave her with my internet address and hope she will be in touch. She may not be. That's OK. I do not ask for hers. She will have many more adventures before she arrives in Santiago in perhaps three weeks time.

Upon my arrival back at Acacio's (he is seated in front of the computer in his trademark black baseball cap) I remark that one has to be especially careful on the Camino to only encourage but not interfere. Perhaps it is my training as a therapist which dictates this. Perhaps it is the "Prime Directive". He agrees. But I think in encouraging Sandra I have done the right thing.

Just before I am packing to leave, several pilgrims enter and all are worth mentioning. First of all, there was Pamela. She is an American woman who is about to defend her doctoral thesis in October. The theme is Metaphor and Foregn Language Learning. I have a Master's myself in Applied Linguistics and so we get to talking. She is about my age. I really enjoy talking to her and take some photos. I say I will send them. "Promise?" she says. Yes, of course I say. Three weeks have gone but now I am in a position to do so and I hope she will forgive the time gap. She is someone I know I could make a friend of.

Another person, with whom Pamela engages in an animated conversation, is a Finnish photographer. He shows us some of his work. It is of an obvious professional standard and I am not surprised when he says shyly that he is "well known" in Finland. His name is Ville and he tells us he is currently living in Los Angeles but that he dislikes it and misses his homeland. I write down his e-mail too.

Just before I leave a young man walks in with a few others. He is noticeable because he has on a string around his neck, a tea box. In the tea box is a baby bird. He is from Austria and he tells me that he found the bird by the roadside the day before and that it is more animated today. Privately I think it is unlilkely that the bird will live. I share this with Pamela and she agrees. But his face has such innocence and the bird is so important to him that we decide that no matter what happens, both will benefit: "Austrian Bird" and its carrier.

Then there is Gerardo, from Mexico. He hands Ville and me a piece of paper offering to do foot massage. I look up and see a face I have known for centuries. It really takes me back. "I know you, " I say, "How do I know you?" His sweet face smiles and he shrugs. It dawns on me. "You have taken a vow if silence," I say. He nods. I take a photo, and ask him to write his name. Then he passes on.

This meeting still haunts me.

"St. James."

Sharing love and Caring. All part of the Camino and life. As is loss. And Mystery.

Once I leave I realise that I have to make up for "lost" time. It's been fun but I am on a sort of self-imposed schedule now and I have promised myself a couple of nights at the Monastery of Leyre in Navarra. I need some "down time".

Never make plans, especially upon the Camino.

I go to check out the pilgrims in Azofra only to find that the tiny refuge I visited - and in which Miranda and Alex in Pilgrimage to Heresy shelter from the thunderstorms - has been closed and superceded by what looks to be a true 5 star albergue. When I arrive there are pilgrims laid out beside the foot pool. Wow! Things have changed. Not only that but there are 60 bunks on offer. I get into conversation with good-looking Sebastian, a fellow hypnotherapist from Denmark (may God help me: if I were only 20 years younger!) and he tells me what I have expected: get up early, wait for places, or go private. I have heard this all the way along the Camino Frances.

And then on to Puente la Reina. Even before I enter the Church of El Salvador, I can see the storm clouds gathering and after I exit (having had my feet washed!) I can hear the thunder getting closer. For me it is like Azofra 1999 once again. I stay in the church portico and take atmospheric photos as it seems to recede. But I have a good memory. I know it will be back.

Just after Eunate at the beginning of the Camino Aragones, my suspicions are realised and it really begins to chuck it down. This is very dramatic in the foothills of the Pyrenees and I enjoy the challenge of the drive until I take a wrong turn and end up somewhere down the road to a quarry.

With the storm, the night has come on early and I know I must get to close to Sanguesa and simply follow signs. The problem is that Sanguaesa, being a town with medieval roots and roads to match, has a complicated one way sytstem and by the time I have been one way twice going in the wrong direction I am beginning to get worried! By now it is past 10:00 at night and I can't see three feet in front of Simone for the rain!

Then there it is. A Sign! Right, off the road: "Monasterio de Leyre". Yeah!
Um...no. There is nothing right of the exit but a quagmire.

Now what?

Luckily I just about spot - on the other side of the road (which I can barely make out anyway) there is an equal sign: "Monasterio de Leyre". In other words, for those of you not familiar with Spain's odd but effective way of crossing from one side to the other - the road to the Monastery was actually on the other side of the road from where I was.

Got it?

I crossed gingerly as it was impossible to see where the road began or ended, or if anyone was foollish enough to be out on a night such as this (ah hem...).
Once across, one of the first things I saw was a darkened, ecclesiastical looking building. Or at least at 11 at night, that's what it looked like: the lights were out, but there was an impressive looking gate. Finally! The Monasterio de Leyre!
I pulled up to the gate. There were no lights but you don't expect monks to have lights at 11 at night. I wondered if they would let me in: a poor pilgrim, lost, scared, wet...laid small by the forces of Nature.

There was a sign on the gate. "Cerrado por Reformas". If you read Spanish you will already know what it said.

If not:

"Closed for Restauration".

Well, what do you do in a situation like that?.

You have to laugh.

I laughed until I cried, and then - I laughed some more.

Then, I said "Screw it", and slept in the car!
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Camino Odyssey 8

2010-08-10T22:34:00.006+02:00

I thought I had plenty of time to drive from Viloria to Logroño for my first interview at 1:15. That is until Begoña from the publishers called and said she had one more - at 12:30, a live interview on a radio show: a "phone in".

Naturally I ran into traffic and road works. So as it was I was only just entering the city when my phone rang. There was nothing for it. I took a swift right into the first parking place I saw.

It was a bus stop.

There were people waiting at the bus stop.

Too late: I was already "En directo"!

Now doing phone in interviews in a language which is not your own is never easy, especially live ones.

But from a bus stop? With a bus pulling in behind you and a line of irate Spaniards cursing your Malaga licence plates!

Stress!

The rest of the day went well although it was very hot. I managed to find both the radio station and the television station although they were not as close together as I had been led to believe. And, I wore the wrong shoes. To this day I have no idea what I said on the TV magazine show, but I know I got quite passionate about the Camino and in my attempt to find the right words, I looked at the floor a lot.

I don't think you are supposed to do that on TV...

I think I said something about the Camino de Santiago being a metaphor for life, with past, present and future being backwards - where you won't go; staying still, which you can't do for long; and moving forward, and making decisions about where and how.

It was all very Buddhist really.

Back to Acacio's and spent some time after dinner talking to Sandra from Switzerland. She had let her Camino friends go on this morning because there was only one place and she had decided to stay. She said that she had seriously thought of stopping because she wasn't getting that "Camino feeling" that everyone talked about. I suggested that if she was trying to walk someone else's Camino I was not surpised; that the real joys of the Camino are the ones that we least expect.

And tomorrow I have to go in search of my own, once again.
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Camino Odyssey 7

2010-08-08T11:10:00.009+02:00

From Moratinos to Viloria de la Rioja, one has to drive from one side of the Meseta to the other. On the highway this is a two hour drive, tops. It took me all day.

Kim and I discover that we have something fundamental in common while I am having breakfast this morning. We both spend our lives suspended between adventurer and hermit. Perhaps that is where the Camino takes on a special function. For Kim at the present time, Moratinos is a special sanctuary and she need not venture out too much.

She is affected by “noisy energy” and retreats sometimes to her studio. She has no immediate plans to move on and is clearly a very necessary and loved part of the life at the Peaceable.

I very much like Patrick. He is, in that lovely English word, a “curmudgeon”. Or that’s how he likes to portray himself. He has exchanged his Fleet Street life for a fly-blown pueblo on the Meseta and he seems very much a happy man. I find myself wanting his respect. I think I have it. Patrick believes that Pascal´s wager promises only hell or nothing; I disagree. Pascal said that you might as well live a good life because if Heaven exists you have a first class ticket. I have always seen this as very optimistic: live a good life; but Patrick thinks that it is a threat. I guess I am such an optimist that I have never considered this side of the equation!

It is time to leave the Peaceable Kingdom and I do so very reluctantly. I want to stay, like Kim, peel potatoes and weed the garden. Lulu the greyhound seems much better today and Patrick is much relieved. I say goodbye to Una the three legged dog (Rebekah made a pilgrimage from Ourense last year in promise of a pledge she made about Una’s necessary operation), Murphy the cat, Tim the Love Dog and all my new friends in Moratinos. I tell Patrick that next time I come back we will engage in more philosophical discussion.

And then I am on my way.

I am trying as much as I can to follow the Camino but this proves to be more difficult than I anticipated. I miss Fromista altogether and, realising it, I double back on a road so little used it has grass growing up through the middle. One thing I am learning on this Camino is to truly listen to inner promptings. I am actually not very good at this yet but improving daily. I spot a little village and an impressive Romanesque church. “Go there,” the voice says and I turn off the road.

The church, of course, is closed. But I become fascinated at the whistling of the swifts as they dart up against the tower. A voice behind me says: “Si usted quiere visitar a la Iglesia, tengo las llaves” (if you want to see the church, I have the keys). I tell her I would be delighted; that I am enchanted by the sound the birds make and their agility.

And so I have the delightful experience of meeting Socorro, which means “help” in Castellano.

Socorro (she pronounces it as Shocorro)is about my age, perhaps a little younger. She shows me the church’s treasures. I ask her about the village. There are 12 people in the winter and likely not that many more in the summer. In the church part of the stone struts has collapsed, paintings are in dire need of protection. The Paroquia has no money, Socorro explains. We discuss the vast wealth of the Catholic church and the money to be spent on the upcoming celebrations in Santiago; but Requena de Campos is slightly off the Camino route. No Jacobeo money will be coming here to the plains of Castilla.

Nevertheless, the church contains a lot of love. Socorro tells me she has written a book. Up to this point I have said nothing about mine. It isn’t appropriate. She says she has written a book about the village life and the people left in it. “I will get you a copy,” she says and disappears. While she is gone I take the opportunity to do something I do in empty churches. I sing. This time a Kyrie from Hadyn. The acoustics are wonderful but I hope I don’t shake down any more “nervios” (struts) from the “boveda” (roof).

When Socorro returns I tell her I too have written a book and I would like to give her a copy. I tell her that it suggests an alternative story to St. James and that, if she is very religious, she might not like it. Then Socorro surprises me: she repeats back to me what I could easily have described as my own attitude to organised religion, and my own belief in God. I am astonished. Here we are, two women “of a certain age”, with completely different places of birth and life histories, who meet in the middle of “nowhere” (forgive me Socorro – it’s only an expression) and we find that we have something most fundamental in common.

We walk back to the car and I pull a copy of Peregrinos de la Herejía from the trunk. We each write a dedication to the other on the flyleaf. I notice she underlines her signature with a flourish. I do the same. Her book is called “Donde la Soledad se viste la Luz”. I prepare to say goodbye but just before I do I turn her book over. There on the back is a quote. It is a line by Rabindranath Tagore.

My favourite poet.

I meet so many lovely people today that I can’t remember all of their names. Amongst them was Agripina the guardian of another lost church to wait for visitors who must seldom come and this at 3 in the afternoon. There was Juan who lives next door to the refugio in Hontanas who insisted on taking all of my bookmarks after the hospitalera (clearly not a pilgrim) refused to take them once she saw the title and shrinking from them as she would from the Devil himself said she did not want “propaganda” in the albergue. Juan and I sat talking for a while about the Fuego de San Anton, a terrible disease that had afflicted the convent in the Middle Ages. I had just visited the convent expecting to see the ruin I passed through in 1999. Now it is a most atmospheric – though admittedly rustic –pilgrim refuge with the Tau as a central theme. I was told it had been that way since 2003 and I am glad it has been put to this use. If I ever were to volunteer as hospitalera, this is the one I would choose. Anyway, Juan turns out to be a sympathetic listener and tells me of the hospitalera “She will be gone tomorrow”.

So I arrived at the Refugio of Acacio da Paz with only half an hour to go before dinner for a much needed shower. (My air conditioning works when it feels like it. Yet another of the delightful quirks of Simone Volvo.) Orietta reminds me sharply that the refuge is run on “Pilgrim Rules” and I have to remind myself that here I am a very special type of guest: a pilgrim.

There is a ring set in the walls above my bed amongst the perhaps 12 others some of which are bunks. It is to tie animals too and I wonder if donkeys are also welcome. Certainly everybody else is.

Acacio, I am to learn, was once a very successful and wealthy business man. But he walked away from it 10 years ago. In an interview he said: “I wanted to find out what it was like to be poor”. He certainly succeeded by spending three years moving from one albergue to another: “I saw 80,000 pilgrims pass through,” he says. It changed his life.

Today, with his Italian partner Orietta, whom he met on the Camino, Acacio runs one of the most atmospheric refugios you will find anywhere. It manages to combine the efficiency of a well-run hospice with the atmosphere you would find at Fernanda’s home in Portugual. Posters of Paolo Coelho – who is a close friend- and artwok by Coelho’s wife Christina Oiticica, decorate the walls along with hundreds of photos including one of Pedro, the man from Barcelona whom I met last year in front of the cathedral and who made the necklace I am wearing. Look at last July and August and you will read a remarkable story of coincidence. Pedro, I am told, is "on his way". I am to hear this again. It becomes like: "Aslan is on the move".

Eight o’clock brings two things. The first is Juan Frisuelos from Toledo. It is he who has arranged this meeting between himself, Acacio and me. I will be talking much more about Juan later. The second is dinner.

There is a special ceremony which takes place at the refugio just before everyone digs in to Orietta’s great cooking. Acacio invites everyone to introduce themselves and tell a little about their reasons for being there that night... in their own language. "Everyone knows what is being said," he says. I realise that this is a truth perhaps only known by pilgrims. Since Spanish/Brazilian seems to be the Lingua Franca, I find myself explaining at length in Castellano. It doesn’t seem to be a simple story. As I am telling it, I realise that I have been talking so much today. I feel the need for quiet.

But I am not going to get it tomorrow. Begoña has lined up lots of newspaper interviews for me, and radio, and…television.

Oh boy! Where is my make up? My public awaits!!!
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Camino Odyssey 6

2010-08-08T00:27:00.006+02:00

A long post about a thoroughly nice day.

The pilgrims are still leaving Ave Fenix. I have just passed lines of them on my way from Das Animas to Villafranca del Bierzo along the river road. This refugio is special to me. It was where I finished my pilgrimage in 1999 to fulfil a promise I should not have made. It was also the place from which I walked during Easter week 2000 to fulfil the promise I had made to myself.

Manu greets me at the door like an old friend. We actually have met before but I doubt he remembers me. That doesn’t deter him and before long I have a coffee in my hands. I comment on the changes: lots of new building gone on since I was here last. Manu tells me that he is “el brazo de los sueños de Jesus Jato” (I am the arm of the desires of Jesus – it sounds better in English.) He points to the new toilets, the new bunkhouse overflow. “He say: Manu… done!” I notice that this is Manu’s way of speaking: without sentences and actually virtually without verbs! He tells me he was a fisherman in Barcelona and that he has been there at Ave Fenix 14 years. He hugs me so hard that I fear for my poor cracked ribs!

Maria disappears with the copy of the book I have brought for Jesus Jato (Ave Fenix and especially the Iglesia de Santiago in Villafranca are mentioned in some detail in Pilgrimage to Heresy.) She tells me that Jesus has just taken the backpacks up to O Cebrero and she calls him to tell him I am here. “He will be here in an hour,” she tells me. I sit down to wait.

By now the barriers are down, it is 12 o’clock, and there is a line up at the door. Ave Fenix is famous. The lady who is inspecting Credentiales suddenly turns from her work and says: “Are you Tracy Saunders?” I admit that yes, indeed I am.

“I´m Louisa,” she says, “I loved your book!”and I realise that this is the person with whom I have exchanged more than one e-mail. We sit down to talk a while, Louisa’s shift being over for the time being. She is volunteering to help out the Ave Fenix crew and has been walking herself.

Jesus Jato arrives and all is business. A cash box which was thought to contain 70 euros appears to be empty. No-one knows anything about it: it would seem that someone pretending to be a pilgrim has helped him or herself. I find this very sad. JJ is not happy, but after a coffee we begin to talk. I am delighted to find that he is in full agreement with me that not only is St. James not buried in Compostela, but that there is “no doubt”, he says, that the remains are those of Priscillian. This is a man who knows the history of the Compostela pilgrimage inside and out.

I go into the church. This is the waystage where, by papal dispensation in the 13th century, pilgrims who were too ill to continue to Compostela could enter by the Puerto del Perdon and receive all the same indulgences they would have had they finished their journey at the burial site of the apostle. I have yet to see this door open! The very helpful lady in the church tells me that it is only opened on December 31st, Holy Year or no. It seems I am a lucky girl to have made it all the way 3 times…

On to Manjarin to see if I can talk with Tomas the “Last Templar”. Once again he is not there, but Angel is and he remembers me from last year. I ask where Tomas has gone this time. He looks as angelic as his name and says: “El es un espiritu. Está in todos partes.” (Trans: he’s a spirit. He is everywhere.)

I stay and chat for a while. Lots of curious pilgrims and “lots of tourists” Angel tells me. No-one seems to be up for lunch. So then I continue on to Foncebadon and Enrique Notario at the Gaia restaurant. Enrique was the first to set out to revitalise this once abandoned village (it was derelict when I passed through 11 years ago). He believes that it is the Old Way, the way of the Celts and the Meigas which is important: The Via Lactea. I have some great seafood soup, leave a pile of bookmarks, and am off again, following the Camino de Santiago. I am really enjoying myself. I could do this forever.

After a quick stop off at the Municipal Albergue in Rabanal (I’m never sure of my reception at the Confraternity one – me being a happy heretic ‘n all), I decide on one more refugio before I have to make a concerted effort to get to Moratinos sometime this century. I decide on Puente de Orbigo and the old albergue with the pretty courtyard and the wall painting. I am introduced to Pascual “como la leche”. Pascual decides that I am a genuine celebrity and then introduces me to everyone else. He is bubbling over with energy and it’s infectious. I meet with Juan who with two others is enjoying something very garlicky around the tiny table. Juan, I learn, is on his sixteenth Camino! He has a cartoon book of the life of St. James and he presents me with it. This is so typical of the way I have been received on this trip. People’s generosity just humbles me and after the reception I have had here, I probably need a bit of humbling.

I drive round and round Leon looking for the road to Sahagun. I find the atmosphere a bit threatening and realise that I felt exactly the same the last two times I have been here. I can’t quite put my finger on why. The centre of Leon is very atmospheric and of course the cathedral and Gaudi’s bishop’s palace are simply stunning. Maybe I am having one of my “past lives” flashbacks!!!

Finally, through Sahagun and to The Peaceable Kingdom. Although we have never met, I feel as though I know Rebekah from her posts on the Camino de Santiago forum and from the few times I have visited her blog. She warns me that her two greyhounds – strays that very cleverly found their way to her and her husband, Patrick – are still very frightened of strangers. I make a point not to make eye contact (dogs don’t like this when they don’t know you: they see it as a challenge).

The Peaceable Kingdom lives up to its name. Rebekah asks me if I like burritos (you betcha); Patrick is reading the paper and comments that he is worried about Lulu one of the greyhounds as she has remained very still. Paddy loves his animals. Kim, who is a long-term guest is pottering and later appears to show me to “my room”.

Wow! What a beautiful house this is. So much love has gone into making it a true pilgrim refuge. Over my bed (double – with sheets and everything!) is a woodcut which reminds me so much of my Matthew Weir ones at home that I do a double take. They are not Weir’s work but that of an American artist, Elizabeth something I think. The theme is of St. Francis and the animals and I am happy to sleep beneath its peace.

Burritos and salad appear under the mosquito net in the garden. The other greyhound joins us (and Tim the Love Dog who mistakes me for a dog lover and I do nothing to set him straight). Some good wine is drunk and the conversation is equally good. Kim asks me lots of questions about myself. Oddly, I am not overly comfortable with talking about me in a situation like this. I can do it for the press but this seems an imposition: what I mean is me talking about myself in this place where everything is equal. Paddy tells me that Rebekah is working on a book about returning home after the Camino. I mention that Sue is doing something similar; I ask Rebekah – who once had a career as a journalist; so did Patrick – if she would like to tell me about it, but she says not yet. “It’s in my head.” I can understand this.

“The lion shall lie down with the lamb – and a little child shall lead them.” Rebekah and I stay up late talking and I find she is a fellow admirer of CS Lewis. We share the experience of knocking on the back of wardrobes when young. Rebekah, it seems, has found her Narnia. I am yet to recognise mine.

And so to bed.

What a delightful day!
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Camino Odyssey 5

2010-08-05T23:05:00.005+02:00

The road to Hell, my mother used to tell me, is paved with good intentions. I was probably a trial. The road back along the Camino appears to be equally paved. The date was the 15th and I should have been long gone, but I was having too good a time in Santiago and the promise of a free concert of the Monastery of San Francisco proved to be too much of a pull.

As it turned out, Sue and I almost didn’t get a ticket. But Sue is good at this type of thing and managed to finagle a couple of the last ones. “It cost me a book, but so what?” she said; and so we settled down in that wonderful courtyard listening to the Galician Symphony Orchestra playing Haydn and Mozart, and afterwards piled back to Sue’s temporary home for toast and cheese and rosé. I slept on a mattress on the floor and dreamt about the nearby river bridge, in Spanish.

And while we are playing with clichés, all good things must come to an end. Today is Friday 16th and I really must leave but not before seeing the Os Porteros exhibition at the Parador. This is the temporary exhibit of Cristina, Paolo Coelho’s wife’s paintings. At first I didn’t like then very much as they seemed a bit lightweight. But on the second pass I began to see things that I had missed the first time; things that showed that the artist did indeed know the Camino well.

And then I drove to Pico Sacro. I had been here two years ago but the top was so shrouded in mist that I could barely see where I was let alone what was below. Today I had a splendid view of Santiago in the distance: perhaps it was a view such as this which greeted pilgrims at the Monte do Gozo in days long past (as opposed to that awful albergue about which I have written much before). Pico Sacro is very important to the Saint James story, ansd so, from my point of view, quite possibly to the Priscillian story. It certainly is in the right place as this area was completely Priscillianist, as, in fact, was all of Galicia and many more places in the north of Spain, even into France. But the mountain is a sacred one and dates well back beyond the Christian era. It has been the subject of pagan rites for many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years and Doubtful Deeds have been enacted upon its top. Needless to say, I love this idea.

I had wanted to follow the Camino as far as Ourense as I would love to walk this one day, perhaps next year. Lots of fragrant eucalyptus and pine and that Eau de Galicia smell I adore. At Lalin I turned north to go to visit the albergue, maybe drop off some bookmarks, ask a few pilgrims how the route was.

There wasn’t a soul there and the gates were padlocked, well after a fashion. I pushed my way in and looked through the windows. Again, no-one. This might just be the Camino for the solitary walker who wants to remain solitary. (Rebekah of Moratinos was to tell me that no-one uses it because it is too far out of Lalin.)

Anyway, having deviated off the path I decided to continue on northwards to join the Camino at Melide. This was a mistake. Within ten minutes I was flagged down by a most officious Guardia Civil officer who looked at my papers and told me my safety check was overdue. I showed him a piece of paper that had my appointment on it. Oh no. Not enough. “I could have your car towed away”, he said.

I admit it. At that point I pulled the pilgrim card. I know. It wasn´t honest of me but I really do LOVE my car. He passed me over to another officer who was very sweet and apologetic as he handed me my 200 euro fine.

And to think I could have gone the other way! Oh well.

I stopped in to as many albergues along the Camino Frances as I could and most pilgrims told me the same thing: it was hot work, they had to leave very early to get a place, most of the time they had to wait because most albergues opened long alter they arrived.

If there is a logic here it continues to defy me. I wrote at length about this problem last year on the Galician part of the Portuguese route. Where the hospitaleros are “government workers” there seems to be a misguided attempt to save on their wages by making them work the minimum possible number of hours. And yet there are dozens of ex-pilgrims who would jump at the chance to volunteer in Galicia.

Boggles the mind.

I drove on through to O Cebreiro and compared to the sleepy little rundown village I stayed at in 2000, this was unrecognisable! Tour bus groups mingled with pilgrims and the restaurant prices were as steep as the mountainsides this once isolated village stood on. I handed out bookmarks. I have long since gotten over my temerity since everyone is delighted at having one as a souvenir, and they really are nice. (Should be one or two left in the Tourist Office in S de C if you are there.) Outside a souvenir shop, in slippers, sitting, is a man who has a semi-permanent air about him. I hand a bookmark to a pilgrim. Slipper man whistles and I turn round. He is looking very aggrieved and pointing to himself. “What about me?” I apologise profusely and profoundly and then he tells me to wait, and then reappears with a younger clone. “My son!” Here, have a bookmark. Then I am taken by the hand into the shop and introduced to the rest of the family. By now, I seem to have attracted attention and people are following me, ASKING for bookmarks.

What fun!

On the way down I decide to stop in to the refugio in Ambasmestas. Two or three years ago I did actually consider buying it as it was for sale, but realised that my destiny was in serving pilgrims in other ways (perhaps yet to be discovered). The hospitalero looked different from the one I remembered. From him I discovered that the owners had finally made the decision to sell (I know that they hadn’t really wanted to), and here was the new owner, Angel. I realised that it could have been me.

“Where are you staying tonight?” he asked. It was late and I hadn’t decided. “Stay here,” he said, “There’s no-one here tonight.”

And so I had a delightful, clean, and atmospheric albergue all to myself.
Well, me and the Siamese cat who slept on the bottom of my bunk that is.

Home Sweet Home!
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Camino Odyssey 4

2010-08-04T16:45:00.007+02:00

July 14th, a Wednesday. I like Wednesdays though I don´t know why.

Sue Kenney likes breakfast. I am more of a midnight snack sort of person myself, but Sue has found a café which serves coffee, toast or croissants with butter,cheese and mermelada, and orange juice for only 3 euros so I decide to join her at the 25 de Julio Café which turns out to live up to its reputation, especially the cheese. We meet Danish Michael and his girlfriend who is from Venezuela. Michael is an economist and he has just spent 3 months in South America “giving something back” to the people. “Their destiny was decided for them 300 years ago,” he says. He speaks articulately and convincingly and he leaves an impression on both Sue and me.

Later I decide to spend some time looking around the Corticela. This little chapel at the north east corner of the cathedral often goes unnoticed and I have never really given it much time. For some reason I feel obliged to sit in the back corner. I tell myself that it is because there is a Visigothic tomb there, but it seems more than that. I take a few pictures and one rather sneaky one of a pilgrim who has sat with his head in his hands since I came in. Then for some reason I decide to examine the bench I am sitting on more closely and I see that there is something tucked down inside the back. It is wrapped in a plastic file folder. It is a picture of an elderly man and it clearly wasn’t meant to be found. I wonder about him: who is he and why has his photo been placed here? I wonder what his name is and decide to call him Benito because it is a Gallego name and it suits him. I light a candle for him and then carefully put his photo back where I found it making sure that it is no more visible than it was before. This whole incident touches me very deeply.

They are putting a new rope on the Botefumeiro. I spent ages watching the workers balanced high above the nave and felt a vicarious vertigo. They must have been a hundred feet in the air!

I love this cathedral!

I decided to go shopping for a few little gifts to take back with me and a silver medallion to add to my collection (Sue Kenney has one of these necklaces too!) And so I met with Marcelino. He sees me looking at the novel La Casa de Troya which was written at the turn of the 20th century and is set in Santiago. “You should buy it,” he says. “It is the second most read book in the whole of Spanish literature.” I tell him that I have never finished Don Quixote and he tut tuts. He is in his 70´s I would guess and has an incredible head full of curly grey hair; laughter lines decorate his bright eyes and he has a little goatee. I find him quite attractive and tell him he must be a ladies man. He denies this vociferously: “I am un hombre sincero,” he explains, “very formal and serious. I have been married to the same woman for 53 years.” I ask him his secret. He doesn’t hesitate. “Mutual respect,” he tells me.

Later I stopped in at the Hostal Suso for some of their excellent pimientos de Padron and got “home” to the Alameda quite late.

At some point in the night I woke up to the sound of doves outside my open window, but I couldn’t see them. Then it dawned on me it was a gentle snoring from the room next door! Well, I guess that’s one way to deal with it…
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