This Reading Life (2)

The sage-like figure of Goethe looms over German literature like Shakespeare does over ours. This from his Italian Journey...

...knowing that life, taken as a whole, is like the Roman Carnival: unpredictable, unsatisfactory and problematic. I hope that this carefree crowd of maskers will make them [my readers] remember how valuable is every moment of joy, however fleeting and trivial it may seem to be.

Similarly, Tolstoy is the writer who towers over Russian literature. I've read Anna Karenina, but I'm ashamed to say I have yet to read War And Peace. I see I haven't noted down the origin of this Tolstoyan quotation...

Admit that human life can be guided by reason and all possibility of life is annihilated.

And while we're on Russian literature, Anton Chekhov, who penned some of the most sublime plays and short stories ever written, observed...

Every person lives his real, most interesting life under cover of secrecy.

The opening sentences of the Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography reverberate in the mind long after the book has been put down...

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I must have been subconsciously following Mark Twain's advice when I walked the Camino towards the end of last year...

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

And finally two quotes about the power of language, and its potential force for good. The first from John Berger...

One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannnot be hostile to man.

Developing this theme, the distinguished academic and Bob Dylan critic Christopher Ricks writes in his fascinating, deep and detailed book Dylan's Visions Of Sin...

Words trust, and they can keep faith. They are built upon faith, the faith that people will tell the truth - or at any rate that people may betray themselves when they are failing to do so... A language is a body of agreement, and acts of trust. A word is not a matter of fact, or matter of opinion, it is a social contract. Like all contracts, its life is a pledge and a faith. (And, like all contracts, it can be dishonest, suspect.) Songs and poems likewise keep faith alive. They "strengthen the things that remain" - words of the Book of Revelation...

As Dylan aficionados will know, Dylan quotes these Biblical words in his song When You Gonna Wake Up from the album Slow Train Coming. Unlike many, I never did turn against Dylan during his evangelical, religious phase - and some very good songs did come out of this period, for instance Precious Angel...

I've really enjoyed leafing through my old notebooks of quotations. I hope some of the sentiments struck a chord with some of you. Perhaps I'll do the same again some time...

This Reading Life (1)

For as long as I can remember during my reading life I've always kept a spiral-bound notebook next to me me in which to write down quotations and passages I've found memorable or inspirational from the books I've been reading at the time. In this way you get the really meaningful pieces which hit a personal note through one's own serendipitous exploration of books rather than the anthologized quotes which recur everywhere. I thought it might be fun to look through my notebooks today and revisit some of them...

There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain amount of light... We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things, because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine. (From E. M. Forster's A Room With A View)

I see that I have written out so many short extracts from Boris Pasternak's magnificent novel Doctor Zhivago that I can only quote a few...

Men who are not free... always idealise their bondage.

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Your nervous system isn't a fiction, it's a part of your physical body, and your soul exists in space and is inside you, like the teeth in your head. You can't keep violating it with impunity.

He realised, more vividly than ever before, that art has two constant, two unending preoccupations: it is always meditating upon death and it is always thereby creating life.

...the misfortune of having average taste is a great deal worse than that of having no taste at all.

The great but disturbing short story writer H.H.Munro ('Saki') observed this in his deliciously wicked story Filboid Studge, The Story Of a Mouse That Helped...

...people will do things from a sense of duty which they would never attempt as a pleasure.

And from Virginia Woolf's The Waves I see I have highlighted this short sentence...

I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.

Finally from Steinbeck's classic The Grapes Of Wrath...

There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say.

I know this is pure self-indulgence, and probably says far too much dark stuff about the innermost workings of my psyche.. But what the hell!

Cherry Hung With Snow

The flowering cherry is now in bloom in our garden. It will not last long.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

From A Shropshire Lad, a collection of poems by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

Did The Earth Move For You?

Early this morning at 1am the UK had its biggest earthquake for 25 years. It measured 5.2 on the Richter scale. Very minor compared with quakes in places like Japan or the American West Coast, I know. More of a little tremor really. But for our village this was quite an event. We were very near the epicentre, which was close to the Lincolnshire market town of Market Rasen.

You won't believe this, but I had a sort of dream premonition. I'd fallen asleep around midnight, but then woken abruptly in a hot sweat. I'd had a vivid and frightening nightmare about 3 gangsters breaking into the house with numerous policemen in hot pursuit. I was just drifting off to sleep again shortly before 1 o'clock, when the floor started shaking and my wife more or less fell out of bed. There was a loud, rumbling, vibrating noise. At the same time my daughter, who is staying with us at the moment, screamed downstairs. A few seconds later she burst into our bedroom.

I was already out of bed and into my dressing gown. My first thoughts were: gas explosion, chip pan fire (bizarrely - but we had been deep frying chips earlier), a car crashing into the house, or a lorry careering into the pub nearby (it's happened twice before!) My daughter - who does tend to panic anyway - recounted how she'd been watching TV when everything in the room began to shake: windows, light fittings, books on their shelves. Accompanied by the same unearthly whining vibration I'd heard upstairs.

Then my wife said 'earthquake' and everything started to add up. I rang the joined-on neighbours - to satisfy myself that their oven or dishwasher hadn't exploded putting us all in deadly peril - and was breezily informed 'Oh, we think it's just an earthquake!'

Panic over.

Interesting fact: when I walked outside a few minutes later with a torch to examine our chimney stacks for possible damage, I noticed all the birds had suddenly started singing...

The Rhythm Of Spring

Since we're all looking forward so much to springtime, I really must quote one more sonnet by Hopkins.

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring -
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look like little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. - Have, get before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Hopkins wrote in a kind of free verse he called 'sprung rhythm' - in which the 1st syllable of a foot is stressed, followed by any number of unstressed syllables. He claimed to have discovered this natural rhythm, the rhythm of natural speech, in English folk songs, oral poetry, Shakespeare and Milton.

This may seem rather surprising when we read the handful of dazzling sonnets he composed - for the brilliant linguistic artifice he creates seems at first a million miles from the organic nature and cadences of natural speech. Yet, if we concentrate on the rhythm only, rather than just being seduced by the poetic devices (of alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, assonance, rhyme etc) he employs to scorching effect, I think we can hear what he means ...

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1844-89)

The Catholic poet Gerard Manley Hopkins had a tragically short life. He died of typhoid at the age of 45. Amongst other verse and prose he wrote some of the finest sonnets ever written in the English language. This - God's Grandeur - is one of them.

The photos were taken in the Romanesque Chapelle de Guirande which lies between Decazeville and Figeac on the Chemin de Saint-Jacques. The late 14th century murals are quite amazing.

Sharing Bread (And Chocolate)

Yesterday's photo was taken in the cool, simple interior of the chapel of Saint-Jean-le-Froid (see pic) which is situated on the Chemin de Saint-Jacques above the village of Lascanbanes - about half-way between Cahors and Moissac. It's hauntingly numinous there. It lies in the old French province of Quercy. See how the simple and beautiful altar resembles a pre-Christian dolmen - I've written about this subject before here.

I suppose the figure in the chapel's stained glass window represents Saint-Jean-le-Froid himself. I don't know much about this saint - except that his name translates as 'Saint John the Cold' - which I saw translated on some French website once as 'Saint James the Refrigeration'!

There's a pilgrim register in the chapel where you can read hundreds of comments pilgrims have entered, alongside their names and nationalities.

The chapel was renovated in 1982. Next to the chapel there's a miraculous fountain. At summer solstice each year people would drink water from it just before sunrise in the hope of curing eye diseases and rheumatism.

Earlier that day, I remember, before the sun had burned off the mist, I met a French schoolteacher and her daughter who were walking part of the Chemin together. So nice for a mother and daughter to be doing this, I thought. Sadly I can't recall their names now. I should have noted down the names of everyone I met. I think it's important. We chatted easily for half-an-hour. They were lovely people - très sympa, as they say in French. They offered me some of their late breakfast - bread and chocolate!

Camino Blues

I'm missing the simple life of the Camino. What can I do about it? No doubt I should pull myself together, get a grip, and adopt the old Victorian work ethic values once again.

Some statistics... I walked around 1560 km from le Puy in south-central France to Santiago in north-west Spain in 60 days (17 October - 15 December). This works out at an average of 26 km a day and includes 3 rest days. But, for me, the distance covered, in whatever time, is utterly irrelevant. The Camino is not a question of time, distance, speed, mileage, statistics and other such comforting criteria. It's a question of questioning one's life path. It's a matter of friendship. And what lies in the heart.

Come to think of it, I've also spent 60 days blogging about the Camino...

Statistics again... I met pilgrims from 18 different countries along the Way: England, Ireland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovenia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and Korea. 20 if you include Mallorca and the Basque Country... And this was at one of the quietest times of the year...

Buen Camino

Zen And The Art Of Walking

Apart from a few local walks, and a walk in Sherwood Forest, I haven't been out walking much this year. But a few weeks ago I did take a trip to the Derbyshire Peak District. I parked the car in Miller's Dale (OS Outdoor Leisure Map 24, Map Reference 142733). I went under the old railway, now a walkers' and cyclists' path called the Monsal Trail (1st pic), passed these terraced cottages (2nd pic) and turned up the riverside path by the bridge (3rd pic).

The river Wye was in spate. The going was slippery and needed concentration. In the limestone gorge of Cheedale the valley narrowed and the rocks closed in. The path disappeared beneath the water. So I scrambled steeply up the northern bank along a vague track which became fainter and fainter - then petered out. I was now high above the gorge. The lip at the top, just below a drystone wall and some farmers' fields, was the steepest bit - and treacherous too. I slipped and slid muddily on last year's leaves. I was forced to grasp branches, roots and rocks in order to pull myself up to the wall. I skirted the edge of the gorge for a while along the merest hint of a path. Reverberating explosions came from the limestone quarry in Great Rocks Dale nearby. Weary of having to concentrate so hard to prevent myself falling over, I followed a field edge which took me to a proper track and public right of way at Mosley Farm. Immediately an old pony track zigzagged back down into Cheedale.

I trudged for a time along part of the old railway trackbed of the Monsal Trail, then down to the river itself - but once again the path proved impassable. The stepping stones you would normally skip over at the foot of a hollowed-out limestone cliff were completely submerged - and I didn't fancy wet feet and legs on this cold day. I changed plan and headed south-east out of the valley towards the hamlet of Blackwell - steeply at first, then more gently. Suddenly I relaxed and started to enjoy the walk properly for the first time. The weather had been dull, cold and grey. But it hadn't rained - and now, in the early afternoon, it was even brightening up a little. I thought not for the first time how the enjoyment of a walk is really just an attitude of mind. The frustrations I'd encountered, I realized, were essential prerequisites for my enjoyment now. If you can overcome negative thoughts about dismal weather, the annoyance at having to change your route plans, tumbling over in the mud and so on, a window in your mind can suddenly open, and you may enjoy things much more than you would have thought possible on such an unpromising day. Zen and the Art of Walking?

Anyway I sailed back down to my starting point. The last section followed the minor road through Blackwell Dale. This was an easy finish - though not as easy as you might expect, as cars and vans sped by a little too close for comfort. I also noted with sadness how much litter, thrown from car windows, lay strewn by the roadside.

What About Me

I love the video What About Me by Tibetan Buddhist Lama and spoken word artist Sakyong Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FDSAAlrqAHM. His website is at http://www.mipham.com/.

Freeconomy

This is interesting. Do take a look. Saoirse (Gaelic for 'Freedom') is walking from Bristol to India without money, relying on the hospitality of strangers. His philosophy is outlined on the website.

Endings/Beginnings

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered...

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter...

We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and porpoise. In the end is my beginning.

East Coker from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from...

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Little Gidding from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets

Santiago: Field Of Stars

I wanted to place my hand on the Tree of Jesse, the central marble column of the cathedral's Portico de Gloria, the Entrance of Glory. Unfortunately it was barricaded off - presumably for renovation or repair. However I didn't really mind. It's not the time-honoured routine of pilgrim ritual that matters in the end. It's what you feel inside.

The next day, a Sunday, just before the 12 noon pilgrim mass, the west face of the cathedral looked wonderful in the sunlight. During mass the Botafumeiro, the celebrated giant incense burner, wasn't swung from its ropes and pulleys. Apparently they do that much less nowadays. I wasn't really disappointed. I met up with some of my pilgrim friends afterwards - Ezequiel, Kristin, Daniel, Hiroshi, Marlis, Sebastiane, Marco, Philippe. We all hugged. We were visibly moved. And glad to have arrived at our spiritual destination.

They were all going to eat in the bar at the Hostal Suso. But somehow I didn't feel like going with them - not at that particular moment. I wanted to be alone, to take in the particular atmosphere, to untangle the complicated thoughts and emotions which had suddenly woven themselves around my mind and heart. I stepped outside the cathedral into the cold and wintry air.

The Way Of Glory

You can't see Santiago's cathedral, the tangible goal of my 1000 mile journey, until you're almost upon it. I walked downhill from the modern statue on the Monte del Gozo, over motorway and railway, and through the suburb of San Lázaro, where there used to be a leprosy hospital in the 12th century. I scurried over the ring road and into the Rúa dos Concheiros - this name being a reference to pilgrims wearing the concha, the scallop shell symbol of Saint James. It was late in the afternoon and getting dark quickly. Minimal, tasteful Christmas decorations swung over the path. People thronged the streets. It was a Saturday. The shops and bars would be open till very late. I hurried across the tiny Praza San Pedro, Saint Peter's Square, and through the famous Porta do Camino into the old medieval city. And finally into the Praza Obradoiro, the Golden Square, which lies at the foot of Santiago Cathedral's glorious western façade. I climbed the steps up to the west door. I had arrived. I was exhausted but elated. I made some phone calls. I sent some texts. But mostly I just looked and wondered. And almost cried at the beauty of it all.

As I've written before, this final stage of the Camino, the stage between Leon and Santiago, is traditionally and mystically known as The Way Of Glory. And everything really did seem like glory to me that evening.

Mount Joy

Finally I reached the Monte del Gozo which overlooks the outskirts of Santiago. (In Galego, the Galician language, this is Mon Xoi, and means Mount Joy.) I was greeted there by Jan, a retired schoolteacher from Australia. She asked how far I'd walked. I replied: 1000 miles. She congratulated me on my achievement. We took photos of each other. It was an emotional moment.

Eucalyptus

... and in the afternoon walked through tall forests of eucalyptus trees. I crushed some eucalyptus leaves in my hand. The scent was cool and fragrant...

Santiago Dreaming

I'd spent the night of Friday 14 December in the albergue at Ribadiso. It was beautifully situated by the river bridge at the village entrance. It had received an award for its environmentally-friendly design. In the summer it must be very busy with pilgrims. That night I was the only occupant. The nearby café-bar was shut so I made do with eating leftovers from my backpack: bits of stale bread and cheese, an orange. The night was icy cold, the ink-black sky dotted with stars. I struggled to keep warm and pulled extra blankets over my sleeping bag. I could hear the sound of cats scavenging in the rubbish bins outside.

Next morning I was so keen to reach Santiago that I decided to walk the whole remaining 43 km straight off. I left in the dark, stopping in Arzúa for a café con leche. It was very cold and frosty, but as usual the sun warmed things up as the day went on. I was full of energy. I walked fast. I couldn't help it. My feet were singing. I passed more churches and wayside crosses on the way...

13 Km Marker Pillar

... until, one day, perhaps a day like the bright, sunny day of 15 December, you find there are only 13 km left to go...

The Way Ahead

The way ahead beckons and entices. You can't really get lost on the Camino. You just follow the scallop shell signs...

Here Comes The Sun

Midday sun and blue skies over the Convento de la Madalena in Sarria (1st pic)...

... and late afternoon sun just before the tiny hamlet of Ferrerios (2nd and 3rd pics).

I am reminded of how José, the hospitalero in Ruitelán, had played the Beatles song Here Comes The Sun in his albergue, though he woke us up next morning with Italian opera...

Two Dumper Trucks/One Digger/Two Crosses

Seductive

Frosty fields and morning mist ... Portomarin lies hidden somewhere in the valley (1st pic).

Numerous wayside crosses and bell towers (2nd pic) are a continual reminder of Galicia's spiritual wealth ...

... but this place sign (3rd pic) reminds one of more sensual, earthly pleasures ...

The Green Fields Of Galicia

Does this look like Spain to you? No? These are the lush, green fields of Galicia. Although it rains frequently here - when the westerly, Atlantic winds hit the mountains - I had no rain at all during my 5 and a half days walking through this beautiful region.

Chapels On Stilts

From 11 December till my arrival in Santiago on 15 December I passed through innumerable Galician farming villages. The farmers' fields were small. Some were given over to maize, but most were grazed by cattle and sheep. I also saw pigs, geese and chickens. I took away 3 strong memories from these villages: one, the barking dogs; two, the pungent smell of cow dung; three, the horreos (see pic).

Horreos (from the Latin horreum, meaning granary) were built to dry and store grain. Some date from the 15th century. Some are even built from new today. A few you could call functionally beautiful works of vernacular architecture, made of wood and stone. Most are rather scrappy - constructed from whatever lay to hand in the farmyard: bricks, breeze blocks and suchlike.

They are raised from the ground by pillars to protect the grain against rats and damp. They are roofed against the rain. Their walls are grooved for ventilation. Nowadays most are used not as granaries but for general storage.

Before I knew what they were, I thought they were some kind of religious shrine: chapels on stilts.

A Traffic Of Love

The Scottish writer Anna (Nan) Shepherd (1893-1981) was a lecturer in English, a keen gardener and hill walker. She wrote poetry, and 3 novels - The Quarry Wood (1928), The Weatherhouse (1930) and A Pass In The Grampians (1933). Her last work, the exquisite prose meditation The Living Mountain, was written just after WWII but not published until 1977. She described the work as a traffic of love, adding but love pursued with fervour is one of the roads to knowledge. Here are the 1st 2 paragraphs of The Living Mountain:

Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge. To those who love the place, both are good, since both are part of its essential nature. And it is to know its essential nature that I am seeking here. To know, that is, with the knowledge that is a process of living. That is not done easily nor in an hour. It is a tale too slow for the impatience of our age, not of immediate enough import for its desperate problems. Yet it has its own rare value. It is, for one thing, a corrective of glib assessment: one never quite knows the mountain, nor oneself in relation to it. However often I walk on them, these hills hold astonishment for me. There is no getting accustomed to them.

The Cairngorm Mountains are a mass of granite thrust up through the schists and gneiss that form the lower surrounding hills, planed down by the ice cap, and split, shattered and scooped by frost, glaciers and the strength of running water. Their physiognomy is in the geography books - so many square miles of area, so many lochs, so many summits of over 4000 feet - but this is a pallid simulacrum of their reality, which, like every reality that matters ultimately to human beings, is a reality of the mind.

The Living Mountain - along with Shepherd's 3 novels - can be found in a volume bound up as The Grampian Quartet and published by Canongate of Edinburgh.

The Living Mountain

I believe that I now understand in some small measure why the Buddhist goes on pilgrimage to a mountain. The journey is itself part of the technique by which the god is sought. It is a journey into Being; for as I penetrate more deeply into the mountain's life, I penetrate also into my own. For an hour I am beyond desire. It is not ecstasy, that leap out of the self that makes man like a god. I am not out of myself, but in myself. I am. To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the mountain.

The closing paragraph of Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain. Quite simply one of the finest meditations on mountains (specifically the Scottish Cairngorms) ever written.

Hillside In Galicia

I have long admired the work of Polish-born artist Lydia Bauman. Her studio is in Lincoln - not far from where I live. Recovering from a virus contracted on a plane from Venice a few years ago, I had some time on my hands and wrote this poem about one of Lydia's prints, Hillside In Galicia, which was a get-well present from my wife. I wrote this before I had ever visited Galicia. Now I've been there I find it amazing how accurately Lydia has captured that special greenness of the fields, the indigo of the hills and the pinkish-purple of the trees.

Hillside In Galicia

Galicia: independent, Celtic-proud,

deeply rural, depopulated,

mainly untouched by package tourism,

unfrequented by medallion man,

mountains, rivers and rias, centuries-old

pilgrim trails, deep ancient roots.

Lessons of perspective, of photography,

once learnt, can be shelved, then reapplied

in a new way, freed from the realistic

or conceptual yoke, from the tender bonds

of art history: Claude Lorraine, Van Gogh

and Braque - absorbed, not brushed aside.

Vibrant swathes of colour, rough flat planes,

organic textures, scratchy surfaces.

Light pulses from within, from a pure essence

of apple-green fields, rainwashed and layered

beneath indigo hills glistening with rain...

And the white house - I'm glad it's there -

a lonely icon of the human, of settlement

and cultivation, in this glowing landscape,

animating and humanizing it, suggesting

a strong hope for us under glowering skies.

Plumb upper centre, its grey pitched roof

merges with a cleft in grey hills beyond...

A progression of fields, an array of trees.

Abstract, but not abstract like Nash.

Transfigurative, but not like Spencer.

Uncanny, but not uncanny like Friedrich.

Not symbolic or gravely mystical like Palmer.

But secretive, understated. Unsettling. And familiar.

A mediated, meditated, reflecting

and reflected inner land, or outer

inscape, or the borderland between,

evoking the Celtic sabbat of Beltane

when the border's most transparent,

the veil between worlds the thinnest.

Fluidity of shape and colour and form -

and feeling. Yes! Pure feeling above all!

Emotion is what draws you to this painting,

the way you feel it, ordinary yet numinous,

as shafts of light plumb your own deep self,

illuminating what you already knew...

The Book Of Ezekiel

In the church at O'Cebreiro pilgrim Ezequiel points to his eponymous book in the Bible.

Calvary With Hat

Didn't Paul Young once sing a song called Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home?

I think a pilgrim must have drunk rather too many glasses of lunchtime wine in Sarria...

Anyhow, looks like the iconoclastic spirit of Salvador Dali is still alive in north-west Spain!

Beauty Is Truth

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms...

The opening lines of Endymion by JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

A Gift From The Gods

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line/Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine... BOB DYLAN Shelter From The Storm from Blood On The Tracks

The natural world so readily accessed but so difficult to really touch in spirit... JOHN HEE from his blog Walkabout In The UK

For days now I've been pondering John Hee's line. Of course he's right. Despite the split infinitive! We can buy the right gear, the right maps. We can plan our route. We can walk to pretty places. We can even walk to desolate, wild and remote places. We can watch wildlife. But to 'touch in spirit'? That is a different order of things. Perhaps we can only hope for those occasional mystic moments which come at us from out of the blue, overwhelm us momentarily when we're least expecting it. I experienced some of those moments in Galicia. Beautiful Galicia! This was the best landscape since the Pyrenees. I 'crossed the line' just before O'Cebreiro. There was a marker stone. The seasons reversed. I walked from winter into autumn.

I suppose Galicia's a bit like Celtic Cornwall or Brittany, but bigger, hillier and more wooded. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous all the way to Tricastela and on to Sarria, Ferrerios and Portomarin. The weather continued to be good - sun on the tops and mist in the valleys. I walked in a dreamlike state. My feet followed the twisting paths and tracks easily and automatically. Climbing hills seemed effortless. My conscious mind - my rational, route-finding mind - switched off, and I absorbed the stillness, the silence, the beauty of my surroundings. By that I mean beauty in the Keatsian sense of beauty is truth.

Beauty walks a razor's edge. It's difficult to touch in spirit. But when you touch it, it's genuinely a gift from the gods.

O'Cebreiro

Time passes slowly up here in the mountains/We sit beside bridges and walk beside fountains/Catch the wild fishes that float through the streams/Time passes slowly when you're lost in a dream BOB DYLAN Time Passes Slowly from New Morning

The next 2 days, 11 and 12 December, were magical days. We climbed steeply from Ruitelán up to O'Cebreiro - Paul, Ezequiel and I. It was cold and frosty. There were blue skies. The sun illuminated distant misty valleys and fold upon fold of hills (1st pic). O'Cebreiro was a very special place, a high point of the journey both physically and emotionally. We entered the old, grey-stone church of Santa Maria Real. I had my credencial or pilgrim passport stamped. An organ softly played. We sat down for a while. I must have prayed in a vague sort of way. Unspecific thoughts and feelings hovered like ghosts on the border of my conscious and unconscious mind. Then I lit candles in memory of my mother and sister. I took a photo of a pilgrim statue (2nd pic). And outside took a photo of 2 more pilgrims (3rd pic).

Ponferrada to Ruitelán

It was hard to miss the Camino exhibition in the basilica at Ponferrada (1st pic).

It was 9 December and I was feeling very tired, so after walking only half a day I turned in early at the Hostal La Gallega in Cacabelos. The next day I felt fine - it's amazing what a good night's sleep will do. I set out in good spirits, passing through the isolated village of Valtuille de Arriba (the 2nd pic shows some of its tumbledown houses) and arriving in picturesque Villafranca del Bierzo, which nestled in a sheltered valley. A rainbow arced over slopes of vines.

From there it was up into the mountains again, along a path which shadowed the valley road and the rio Valcarce. I climbed higher and higher, and eventually reached the albergue at Ruitelán, where I was welcomed by José, the hospitalero. Later 2 more pilgrims arrived - Paul from Belgium and Ezequiel from Palencia in Spain.

Mountain Day

I'd really enjoyed that morning in the mountains, climbing from Rabanal through the remote mountain villages of Foncebadon and Manjarin. From the Pass of Irago, and the Iron Cross, it was then gradually downhill to the further villages of Acebo and Riego de Ambros. The construction of the village houses was quite different from anything I'd seen earlier in Spain. Their overhanging slate roofs and wooden balconies reminded me of the Pyrenees (1st pic). Though the path never strayed too far away from the road, the road was quiet (2nd pic). Beyond Riego I saw a shepherd counting his flock. Here the path did head away from the road for a while, down to an idyllic dip in the hills, complete with trees, a stream - and a handy bench. It was perfect. Many pilgrims must have paused there in the past to contemplate the beauties of nature - or the state of their feet.

Then it was down to the valley of the rio Manuelo and the small town of Molinaseca. The 3rd and 4th pics are of its church and medieval bridge. Unfortunately I had to hurry through here to make Ponferrada before nightfall. Ponferrada (Iron Bridge) is a substantial town with a hugely impressive 12th century Templar castle - the Castillo de los Templarios - overlooking the river. Facing a delightful square (Plaza Virgen de la Encina) stood the 16th century basilica (Basilica de la Encina) in which a hearteningly busy exhibition told the story of the Camino. Many ornate treasures and paintings were on display. Encina is the Spanish word for the holm oak. I'd seen quite a few of these evergreen trees. In the past this whole area had been densely covered with them.

Knights Templar

[A Templar Knight] is a truly fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armour of faith, just as his body is protected by the armour of steel. He is thus doubly-armed, and need fear neither demons nor men. BERNARD DE CLAIRVAUX

There are many places associated with the Knights Templar along the Camino.

This order of knights was formed to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land after Jerusalem's conquest in the 1st Crusade of 1096. The knights wore white robes emblazoned with red crosses. (The red cross was a symbol of martyrdom.) They were fearless in battle. The order was structured very much like a monastic order - but with complex secret rituals and initiation rites. The knights pledged to give up all wealth and worldly goods, and took vows of poverty, chastity, piety and obedience.

Over the centuries many legends and stories have risen up round the Knights Templar. Some romanticists have thought that, amongst their religious relics, they carried the Holy Grail or a piece of the True Cross. Historical books and novels, films and computer games, have all added to the myth.

For reasons too complicated to go into here, the Knights Templar fell out of favour in the 14th century, and were condemned both by the Pope and the French king. They were tortured in order to extract false confessions. Then burnt at the stake.