Vía De La Plata

The Camino Mozárabe or Vía de la Plata.

The route used by the Mozarabic (Christian) pilgrims during the period of Muslim domination and by all those coming from the south of Spain, including those who arrived in Seville by sea from North Africa and other parts of the Mediterranean. Also known as the Vía de la Plata as it follows the course of a Roman road of that name (but note that the name does not mean 'Silver Route': 'plata' is a corruption of an Arabic word indicating a 'broad surfaced road'). As the Camino Francés becomes ever more crowded, we are encouraging first-time pilgrims to chose the Vía de la Plata as a more peaceful, and very beautiful, alternative.

The Route. Starts in Seville and leads north via Mérida, Cáceres, Salamanca and Zamora. After that pilgrims can continue to Astorga and from there to Santiago via the Camino Francés or go there directly through Galicia via Pueblo de Sanabria and Ourense: in either case the distance is 1000 km and it takes, on average, 6 to 7 weeks to walk from Seville to Santiago. Alternatively you can begin in Granada, passing through Córdoba and joining the main route in Mérida.

Waymarking. Yellow arrows throughout, as on the Camino Francés.

Terrain. Undulating and not very taxing as far as Astorga, though the distances between towns/villages are often very long; strenuous after the border of the provinces of Zamora and the entry into Galicia, with many steep climbs and descents (for example the passes of Padornelo (1329m) and A Canda (1262m).

Weather/When to go. Definitely not July or August (i.e. in the south) though the farther north you go the cooler it gets. April - June (especially for the wild flowers) or September-October are the best times.

What to see. Much evidence of Roman Spain (especially in Mérida) and many pilgrim, St. James and other related references, art and architecture along the way.

Accommodation. Few proper refugios but somewhere to sleep (at worst) on the floor with a sleeping bag at least every 30 km. There is also plenty of hostal accommodation, at least every 25 km as far as Mérida, and between 30-35 km after that.

Distinctive features of the route. Very solitary route where you are unlikely to meet many other pilgrims even though it is becoming better known (by people who live along the way too) and better used each year.

Taken from the Confraternity of Saint James website. With thanks.

Wow, What A Stunning View!

Wonderful. Marvellous. Jaw-dropping. Spectacular. Stunning. Stupendous. Ravishing. Riveting. Spellbinding. Terrific. Fascinating. Interesting. Impressive. Astonishing. Unbelievable. Pretty. Picturesque.

Yes, we all use them more than we should, those meaningless holiday brochure adjectives, to describe views, landscape, scenery. When faced with extraordinary beauty (see, I'm at it again) we lazily and automatically reach for this well-worn stock of clichés.

I suppose we can be excused to some degree. After all, most of us aren't professional writers, are we? However, if we take a little time, and struggle a little bit harder to find a more exact, a more resonant, a more truthful and honest word, in an attempt to describe the 'indescribable', then the rewards and satisfaction gained can be great.

One reason I love the Camino pilgrimage routes so much is that they take you from A to B without any prime consideration for the difficulty or easiness of the route, its possible scenic wonders, its 'ooh, aah, what a gorgeous view' potential. Sure, there can be gorgeous views, and some incredible scenery (at it again, I'm afraid), but there are also some fairly nondescript town suburbs, examples of fascist graffiti, mouldering rubbish dumps, motorways, and long, straight, frankly boring stretches of path. It's certainly not all sylvan glades and National Parks. You have to take the rough with the smooth, the fresh with the jaded, the pristine with the polluted, the gilded with the povery-stricken - just as you have to be phlegmatic about the weather, which can be baking hot or freezing cold or anything in-between. I like this totality of experience.

The Camino gets you purposively to your physical and spiritual destination, pure and simple. That's what it's there for. That's how it's evolved over the centuries. That's why it's been walked time and time over, worn deep by the feet of countless pilgrims. It's tried and it's tested. It's not just a path through paradise landscapes and a connecting link between tourist sites and ancient monuments. It's a practical, spiritual route, not primarily a showcase of natural wonders or a museum of fossilized relics. Though there are many wonders and relics along the Way...

But back to those old, familiar adjectives. My New Year's resolution is to try and think a little longer, to focus a little more clearly before I use these comforting clichés. To look for the right word, the exact and telling word. To tell it how it is. Just as the Camino tells it how it is. Just as the Camino takes you through the harsh, bright realities of life, its hardships and its pleasures, its penitence and its glory...

Not Quite Free And Ready

Well, that's quite enough reflecting for a while. On to the penitential bit! God knows, I've enough to be penitential about. The glory stage seems impossibly far off as I write this, morosely cocooned in the house in the middle of Britain's Big Chill. Must get out for a walk or two in preparation for the Big Walk which I start in mid-January - the Vía de la Plata pilgrimage route from Seville to Santiago.

Talking of walking, here's what Thoreau had to say on the subject...

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks - who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived 'from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going à la Saint Terre,' to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, 'There goes a Sainte-Terrer,' a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of underlying adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, wife and child and friends, and never see them again - if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man - then you are ready for a walk.

Hmm... Better fill in that Income Tax Return and pay that gas bill as soon as I can...

1 Reflection on Love

It is love alone that gives worth to all things. ST THERESA OF AVILA

2 Reflections On Glory

The greatest glory lies not in never falling, but in rising up every time we fall. CONFUCIUS/RALPH WALDO EMERSON/NELSON MANDELA

How quickly passes away the glory of this world. THOMAS A KEMPIS

3 Reflections On Penitence

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity. LORD BYRON

Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years. HENRY WARD BEECHER

He who is penitent is almost innocent. SENECA

Anyone else surprised the 1st quote comes from Lord Byron..?

This is my 600th post. No big fanfares please. Just a short blast of the trumpet will suffice ;)

Remorse for subjecting you all to this blog over the past 599 posts? Not a bit!

4 Reflections On Reflection

Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. CHARLES DICKENS

By three methods we may learn wisdom: first by reflection, which is the noblest; second by imitation, which is the easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. CONFUCIUS

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. THOMAS MERTON

Knowing others is wisdom; knowing yourself is enlightenment. LAO TZU

5 Reflections On Walking

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. JOHN MUIR

Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. SOREN KIERKEGAARD

The civilized man has built a coach, but he has lost the use of his feet. RALPH WALDO EMERSON

My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don't need any other god. BRUCE CHATWIN

Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's study, she answered, 'Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.' HENRY DAVID THOREAU

6 Reflections On Pilgrimage

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists. ANITA BROOKNER

Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon a mystery as a summons to pilgrimage. FREDERICK BUECHNER

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. HEBREWS 11:13

Don't be fooled into thinking you are supposed to arrive at a destination. It is the going that is central, the you that is going. Your pilgrimage is really about yourself observing your own transit across the landscape. RICHARD LEVITON

A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose. PEACE PILGRIM

A pilgrimage is an embodied prayer. MARA FREEDMAN

7 Reflections on Travel

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Travelling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.' LISA ST AUBIN DE TERAN

He who would travel happily must travel light. ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

Tourists don't know where they've been; travellers don't know where they're going. PAUL THEROUX

The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. G. K. CHESTERTON

So much of who we are is where we have been. WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE

You cannot travel the path until you become the path itself. THE BUDDHA

The Country Of Beulah

Luminous scene from the Camino... (Thanks, Rita)

Now I saw in my dream, that by this time the pilgrims were got over the Enchanted Ground, and entering into the country of Beulah, whose air was very sweet and pleasant, the way lying directly through it, they solaced themselves there for a season. Yea, here they heard continually the singing of birds, and saw every day the flowers appear on the earth, and heard the voice of the turtle in the land. In this country the sun shineth night and day; wherefore this was beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also out of reach of Giant Despair, neither could they from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were within sight of the city they were going to, also here met some of the inhabitants thereof; for in this land the Shining Ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of Heaven. In this land also, the contract between the bride and the bridegroom was renewed; yea, here, 'As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so did their God rejoice over them.' Here they had no want of corn and wine; for in this place they met with abundance of what they had sought for in all their pilgrimage. John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Exile; Darkness; Rejection; Separation; Guilt; Lost and Confused; Flight; On the Road; Camino; Seeking and Searching; Wishing, Hoping, Dreaming; Longing and Yearning; Acceptance; Healing; Grace; Wonder and Revelation; Light and Illumination; Union and Transformation; Agape and Universal Love; Redemption and Rebirth.

Traditionally and mystically there are 3 stages of the Camino: from Roncesvalles to Burgos lies the Way of Reflection; from Burgos to Leon the Way of Penitence; from Leon to Santiago the Way of Glory. I had begun the Way of Reflection. Would I ever attain the Way of Glory? The Solitary Walker Death In The Afternoon

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. The Buddha

Christmas Day (It's Here): Must Be Santa

A very Happy Christmas to all my blogreaders out there. A lot of visitors alight for a few moments like butterflies on a buddleia bush and fly on, never to be glimpsed again. But some return from time to time - and there's a core of loyal visitors who come back regularly, either daily or several times a week. To these especially I'm truly grateful, and feel humbled and amazed that my blog can attract such a committed readership. So to everyone - but particularly to this steadfast core of readers (including 86 Subscribers on Google Reader and 41 Followers on Google Friends) - some of whom comment regularly (for which I'm very grateful) - to everyone out there in Blogland, in the vast reaches of Cyberspace, I wish again a lovely Christmas time.

Countdown To Christmas (Nearly There): Fairytales

At this time of year sentimental and schmaltzy and relentlessly jolly pop songs from Christmas Pasts drip-drip into your head, clogging up once more that corner of the brain normally reserved only for TV comedy catchphrases, radio jingles and movie theme tunes. OK, they're fine for a party or for a quick, cathartic weep after one too many glasses of Baileys - but most of the time they leave me as unmoved as a Copenhagen negotiator in front of a melting ice cap.

However here are 2 Christmas songs which, for me, stand head and shoulders above the rest - Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl (let's just pause a while and remember the wonderful Kirsty - who died in December 9 years ago...) and John and Yoko's Happy Christmas (War Is Over). John Lennon, of course, died in December too - but 29 years ago... It doesn't seem possible, does it?

I could have been someone.
Well, so could anyone...
Fairytale Of New York

War is over
If you want it...
Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

Kirsty MacColl. John Lennon. We remember you...

Countdown To Christmas (Get Set): In The Bleak Midwinter

... and this is my favourite carol...

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

(Words by Christina Rossetti; music by Gustav Holst; sung by Gloucester Cathedral Choir)

Countdown To Christmas (Get Ready): Coventry Carol

This is my 2nd favourite Christmas carol...

Lullay, lully, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lullay, lullay.
Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we do sing,
By, by, lullay, lullay.

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and sigh;
For Thy parting, neither say nor sing,
By, by, lullay, lullay.

(Sung by the Cambridge Singers)

Forsinard

To complete the account of my summer Scottish trip... From Duncansby Head I drove the east-coast road south to Wick, and then on to Helmsdale. I camped by the sea at Lothbeg. The next day, my last day in Scotland, I temporarily headed north once again, following the Helmsdale river as far as the RSPB Nature Reserve at Forsinard. I'd hoped to catch a glimpse of the rare red-throated diver, but didn't - though saw lots of skylarks and meadow pipits, hawker dragonflies, and plants like sphagnum moss and sundew, bogbean, bog asphodel and bog myrtle (which has a peppery, aromatic scent). You can see all these plants in the photos below...

I walked the short, flagstoned Dubh Lochan Trail, and then the 4 mile circular Forsinain Trail. Blanket bog stretched out as far as the eye could see. This peatland habitat has barely changed in the last 6000 years...

Countdown To Christmas (1): Redemption/Rebirth

Like many I had difficulty with Bob during his evangelizing, born-again period, but there's no doubting the power of this song...

Bob Dylan: When He Returns

The iron hand it ain't no match for the iron rod,
The strongest wall will crumble and fall to a mighty God.
For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears
It is only He who can reduce me to tears.
Don't you cry and don't you die and don't you burn
For like a thief in the night, He'll replace wrong with right
When He returns.

Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through,
He unleashed His power at an unknown hour that no one knew.
How long can I listen to the lies of prejudice?
How long can I stay drunk on fear out in the wilderness?
Can I cast it aside, all this loyalty and this pride?
Will I ever learn that there'll be no peace, that the war won't cease
Until He returns?

Surrender your crown on this blood-stained ground, take off your mask,
He sees your deeds, He knows your needs even before you ask.
How long can you falsify and deny what is real?
How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?
Of every earthly plan that be known to man, He is unconcerned,
He's got plans of His own to set up His throne
When He returns.

Countdown To Christmas (2): Agape/Universal Love

He reached down, he reached down and he touched the pain...

Iris Dement: He Reached Down

Although the exact meaning of the Greek word 'agape' has been somewhat fluid over the centuries, I'm taking it to mean here a kind of selfless, total, universal brotherly love (in contrast with 'eros', the type of love we may find easier and more familiar - personal, individual, erotic, self-regarding love).

Perhaps only a few of us - samaritans, saints, bodhisattvas - can ever attain a true state of universal love for all of nature and humanity. I know I struggle with natural phenomena like tropical storms and tsunamis - which wreck and take lives - and I struggle with loving the whole of humanity, including the cruel and the arrogant, the uncaring and the wicked. I want to reflect on all this when I begin my 3rd Camino in January.

Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, nor quick to take offence.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and its endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope and love;
but the greatest of them all is love.

Corinthians 13: 1-8

Village Life

The predicted snowfall came overnight, but only a light covering, scarcely more than 1 cm in the deepest places. But enough to give a satisfyingly crisp crunch underfoot. I put on coat, hat and scarf and took a stroll round the churchyard. This was the churchyard yesterday, slightly frosted; and this is how it looked this morning...

I like this village. I could never go back to living for long in a town or city. Life's still taken at a slower pace here. The local newsagent-cum-sweetshop is charmingly typical of the place. The window display doesn't seem to have changed much since the 1960s. There's often an overpowering smell of wet dog as soon as you enter. Newspaper accounts are kept in a little notebook (Computers? What are they?) And there's always a queue, as it takes a while for each customer to discuss the weather, the football, the state of the country etc. with the shopkeeper (and that's before the whole process of buying a lottery ticket has even begun)...

Countdown To Christmas (3): Light/Illumination

The Beatles: Here Comes The Sun

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's alright

Little darling, the smile's returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's alright

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's alright

William Wordsworth: Ode

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every comon sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream...

William Wordsworth: Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things...

Holy Bible: Old Testament: Genesis

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Countdown To Christmas (4): Union/Transformation

Upon a darkened night
the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright
I fled my house while all in quiet rest

Shrouded by the night
and by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes
while all within lay quiet as the dead

Chorus
Oh night thou was my guide
oh night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other

Upon that misty night
in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light
than that which burned so deeply in my heart

That fire t'was led me on
and shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still
it was a place where no one else could come

Chorus

Within my pounding heart
which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep
beneath the cedars all my love I gave
And by the fortress walls
the wind would brush his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand
caressed my every sense it would allow

Chorus

I lost myself to him
and laid my face upon my lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim
as in the mornings mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair

St John of the Cross (arranged and adapted by Loreena Mckennit)

May, 1993 - Stratford ... have been reading through the poetry of 15th century Spain, and I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time ... His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route to communication to his god ... I have gone over three different translations of the poem, and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation. Am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views.

Loreena McKennit

The secret stair

In a monastery, and St. John of the Cross probably lived in one, there is generally a night staircase, used by the monks to go to church at night from where they sleep (the dormitory), and in this way a monk could easily get out of the monastery at night. My first guess was that the poem refers to this night staircase and doorway with "secret stair". But fra. Emiel Abalahin, a Carmelite like John of the Cross, explained that the meaning is deeper:
"Dark Night of the Soul," like much of John's poetry, is based on "Song of Songs" from the Biblical Old Testament, and also on much of the romantic poetry and lyrics of Spanish popular balladry of that time, i.e., 16th century. The "secret stair" has less to do with a staircase in a monastery, and more to do with the popular theme of lovers meeting for a late night romantic tryst. In order for this to be possible, the young maiden of the song or poem would have to sneak out of the house, by the "secret stair."
John uses this as a metaphor for the soul in prayer who, by means of contemplation, steals away from the world unnoticed, to meet in loving relationship with God. The dark night refers to the soul's search for God, beyond the confines of the human definitions we have put upon God.
There is much more I could say, but John has written two whole treatises on it in his books Ascent of Mount Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul.

Loreena McKennit

It is love alone that gives worth to all things. St Theresa of Avila

Love flies, runs, and rejoices; it is free and nothing can hold it back. Thomas à Kempis

Countdown To Christmas (5): Wonder/Revelation

Louis Armstrong: What A Wonderful World

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

Walt Whitman: Miracles

Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love–or sleep in the bed at night with
any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds–or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down–or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring...

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same...

To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim–the rocks–the motion of the waves–the ships,
with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

Gospel of Thomas v. 5

Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

Countdown To Christmas (6): Grace

Grace of God, grace of the world...

I know that I'm forgiven, but I don't know how I know. Leonard Cohen

When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be -- I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. Wendell Berry

Countdown To Christmas (7): Healing

H - ontanas and the Meseta (the Way of Penitence)

E - unate (a special place of deep spirituality)

A - uvergne (silence, tears and healing in South-West France)

L - adder to a lancet window (prayers and supplications in a lonely place)

M - anjarin (high expectations and a cryptic farewell)

E - xile (apartness, togetherness, alienation, humility, respect and other things)

Please click on the links.

Countdown To Christmas (8): Acceptance

On the Buddhist path from 'dukkha' (pain, suffering, anger, conflict, craving and other afflictive states)) to 'nirvana' (peace of mind, freedom from 'dukkha') you arrive at a stage of acceptance...

... acceptance of the mystery, of the unanswerable questions...

Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be...

Iris Dement: Let The Mystery Be

... and acceptance of the self (which goes hand in hand with knowledge of the self)...

One finds that no matter how sincere one's intention to be attentive and aware, the mind rebels against such instructions and races off to indulge in all manner of distractions, memories and fantasies....The comforting illusion of personal coherence and continuity is ripped away to expose only fragmentary islands of consciousness separated by yawning gulfs of unawareness....The first step in this practice of mindful awareness is radical self-acceptance.

Such self-acceptance, however, does not operate in an ethical vacuum, where no moral assessment is made of one's emotional states. The training in mindful awareness is part of a Buddhist path with values and goals. Emotional states are evaluated according to whether they increase or decrease the potential for suffering. If an emotion, such as hatred or envy, is judged to be destructive, then it is simply recognized as such. It is neither expressed through violent thoughts, words or deeds, nor is it suppressed or denied as incompatiable with a 'spiritual' life. In seeing it for what it is - a transient emotional state - one mindfully observes it follow its own nature: to arise, abide for a while, and then pass away.

Stephen Batchelor: The Awakening Of The West

... and Taoism teaches us awareness and acceptance of the all-encompassing, inexpressible unity of the Tao...

The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.

It is hidden but always present.
I don't know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.

Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching

Countdown To Christmas (9): Longing And Yearning

Is the place you long and yearn for... a chimerical place?

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can't I?

Eva Cassidy: Over The Rainbow

Is the person you long and yearn for... really the person you long and yearn for?

The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you...

Bob Dylan: I Want You

Sometimes the longing and yearning for justice, equality and freedom can stride far along the road to fulfilment...

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Martin Luther King: I Have A Dream

Countdown To Christmas (10): Wishing, Hoping, Dreaming

Wishes, hopes and dreams - from the personal to the political, from the intensely individual to the universally communal...

My Father taught me how to sing.
He sang that dreams were everything,
Can't be bought and can't be sold,
More than silver,more than gold...

June Tabor: The Cloud Factory

We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, some day.

Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day.

Protest song interpreted by Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen amongst others. Famously sung by Joan Baez and a crowd of 300,000 people in August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D. C. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Countdown To Christmas (11): Seeking And Searching

I've looked under chairs
I've looked under tables
I've tried to find the key
To fifty million fables

They call me The Seeker
I've been searching low and high
I won't get to get what I'm after
Till the day I die

I asked Bobby Dylan
I asked The Beatles
I asked Timothy Leary
But he couldn't help me either...

The Who: The Seeker

You’ve been looking to what’s just around the corner
Living for another day
You’ve been looking to the distant skyline
Looking like you lost your way
You’ve been looking so hard for something
Your eyes are getting sore
You’ve been looking so hard
You just don’t know what you are looking for

Karine Polwart: What Are You Waiting For?

I've been walking through the middle of nowhere
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door...

Bob Dylan: Tryin' To Get To Heaven

Is the seeking itself the goal? Is the search the answer?

Countdown To Christmas (12): Camino

A good traveller has no fixed plan and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware. Martin Buber

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. Anatole France

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller

The longest journey a man must take is the eighteen inches from his head to his heart. Unknown

Not all those who wander are lost. J. R. R. Tolkien

The only thing I knew how to do / Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew... Bob Dylan

Countdown To Christmas (13): On The Road

I been warped by the rain, driven by the snow
I'm drunk and dirty, don't ya know,
And I'm still willin'
Out on the road late last night,
Seen my pretty Alice in every head light
Alice, Dallas Alice

I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonapah
Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
I've driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed
If you give me: weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign
I'll be willin' to be movin'

I've been kicked by the wind, robbed by the sleet
Had my head stoved in, but I'm still on my feet
And I'm still willin'
Now I smuggled some smokes and folks from Mexico
Baked by the sun, every time I go to Mexico
And I been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonapah
I've driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
I've driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed
And if you give me: weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign I'll be willin' to be movin'

Little Feat: Willin'

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell... Bob Dylan

The road is life. Jack Kerouac

Countdown To Christmas (14): Flight

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on...

Joni Mitchell: River

Greedy people take what's mine
I can leave them all behind
And they can never cross that line
When I get to the border

Saw-bones standin' at the door
Waiting till I hit the floor
He won't find me anymore
When I get to the border

Monday morning, Monday morning
Closing in on me
I'm packin' up and I'm a-runnin' away
To where nobody thinks of me

If you see a box of pine
With a name that looks like mine
Say I drowned in a barrel of wine
When I got to the border...

Richard Thompson: When I Get To The Border

But if you got to go,
It's all right.
But if you got to go, go now,
Or else you gotta stay all night...

Bob Dylan: If You Gotta Go, Go Now

Countdown To Christmas (15): Lost And Confused

I'm a rollin' stone all alone and lost
For a life of sin I have paid the cost
When I pass by all the people say
Just another guy on the lost highway...

Hank Williams: Lost Highway

I got mixed up confusion
Man, it's a-killin' me
Well, there's too many people
And they're all too hard to please

Well, my hat's in my hand
Babe, I'm walkin' down the line
An' I'm lookin' for a woman
Whose head's mixed up like mine

Well, my head's full of questions
My temp'rature's risin' fast
Well, I'm lookin' for some answers
But I don't know who to ask

But I'm walkin' and wonderin'
And my poor feet don't ever stop
Seein' my reflection
I'm hung over, hung down, hung up!

Bob Dylan: Mixed Up Confusion

Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Bob Dylan: Chimes Of Freedom

Countdown To Christmas (16): Guilt

Dixie Chicks: Not Ready To Make Nice

'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.' Bob Dylan (and others)

'The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.' Victor Hugo

Countdown To Christmas (17): Separation

Bob Dylan: If You See Her, Say Hello

Another day. I follow another path,
Enter the leafing woodland, visit the spring
Or the rocks where the roses bloom
Or search from a look-out, but nowhere

Love are you to be seen in the light of day
And down the wind go the words of our once so
Beneficent conversation...

Your beloved face has gone beyond my sight,
The music of your life is dying away
Beyond my hearing and all the songs
That worked a miracle of peace once on

My heart, where are they now? It was long ago,
So long and the youth I was has aged nor is
Even the earth that smiled at me then
The same. Farewell. Live with that word always.

For the soul goes from me to return to you
Day after day and my eyes shed tears that they
Cannot look over to where you are
And see you clearly ever again.

Friedrich Hölderlin

Countdown To Christmas (18): Rejection

Lucinda Williams: If Wishes Were Horses

If I think of 'chicks with guitars' I think of Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde - and Lucinda Williams. I first started listening to Lucinda Williams in 1998 when her CD 'Car Wheels On A Gravel Road' came out. Her voice has been likened to whisky laced with gravel. Her laid-back, no bullshit, unsentimental style appeals to me. Quite simply, she rocks.

PS If you're not familiar with Lucinda Williams, you may know her song 'Passionate Kisses' - which Mary Chapin Carpenter made popular.

Countdown To Christmas (19): Darkness

I fought against the bottle
But I had to do it drunk
Took my diamond to the pawnshop
But that don’t make it junk...

Too late to fix another drink
The lights are going out
I’ll listen to the darkness sing
I know what that’s about...

Leonard Cohen: That Don't Make It Junk

Countdown To Christmas (20): Exile

I was just about nineteen
When I landed on their shore
With my eyes big as headlights
Like the thousands and thousands who came before
I was going to be something...

There's a crowd says I'm alright
Say they like my turn of phrase
Take me round to their parties
Like some dressed up monkey in a cage
And I play my accordion
Oh! but when the wine seeps through the facade
It's nothing but the same old story...

Paul Brady: Nothing But The Same Old Story

The Last House

My time in Scotland was nearly over. I had to get back for work by mid-August. So I hurried along the northern coast, edging from Sutherland into Caithness. Caithness, in the north-east corner of Scotland, rapidly became another of my favourite counties. Gradually I left the bare, isolated mountains of the far north-west and entered the flatter landscape of the Flow Country, Europe's largest blanket bog. Though much of the interior was desolate peatland, the cliffed coastline was constantly interesting. Along the coast and in shallow, sheltered valleys were square fields neatly dotted with big, round bales of freshly-cut hay. I passed grey and black, turreted castles guarding bleak, windswept settlements.

I skirted the nuclear power plant at Dounreay, looked down over Scrabster harbour (a ferry sails from here to the Orkney Islands), then stopped for a while in the tidy little sea-town of Thurso. This whole area was colonised by the Vikings, and Scandinavian influence still remains strong today. I spent a couple of absorbing hours in Thurso's brilliant new museum, Caithness Horizons, housed in the old Town Hall and Library building. On the ground floor you can see the Skinnet and Ulbster standing stones with their mysterious Pictish carvings; and on an upper floor there's a fascinating display dedicated to local geologist and botanist, Robert Dick.

Just east of Thurso, and beyond Dunnet Bay, stands the lighthouse at Dunnet Head, the most northely point of the Scottish mainland (see top pic). From here you can gaze out across the Pentland Firth at the Orkney Isles. You can identify quite clearly the Old Man Of Hoy (the famous rock stack much beloved of climbers) just off Hoy, Orkney's south-westerly island; and the entrance to Scapa Flow, that great natural harbour used by the Vikings more than a thousand years ago and more recently by British fleets during both World Wars.

It's not much further to John o' Groats, journey's end for most tourists and coach trippers, with its cafés, fast food stalls and souvenir shops, and its Last House in Scotland...

It's much more rewarding to make your way out to wildly beautiful Duncansby Head, just a few miles north-east of John o' Groats. From the cliff-top path you can approach nesting fulmars, their nests perched precariously on near-vertical cliff faces; the chicks, seeming almost bigger than their parents, were huge, grey-white balls of fluffy down. In some of the rocky bays seals trod water, basking - heads up - in the sun. Kittiwakes shrieked, gannets dived, and a small raft of 8 eider ducks floated close to shore.

These are the striking, needle-pointed sea stacks at Duncansby...