Ambulo Ergo Sum

Chapel above Digne-les-Bains (Wikimedia).

In response to the philosopher René Descartes' famous saying, Cogito ergo sum ('I think, therefore I am'), his 17th-century contemporary Pierre Gassendi replied, Ambulo ergo sum ('I walk, therefore I am.') Gassendi had a serious point: mind and body are inseparable, in Gassendi's view, whereas Descartes believed that the mind could exist separately from the body. The act of walking perfectly illustrates the intimate mind-body connection that Gassendi had in mind. Inspired by Gassendi, the Dutch artist, Hermann de Vries, constructed an installation near Digne-les-Bains, France, Gassendi's home. He created a path up a steep mountain-side, marked with gold-tipped spikes and a stone on which are painted the words, Ambulo ergo sum. De Vries wanted the path to be difficult so that the body and mind of the walker would register the effort required.

Walk 21

Digne-les-Bains, capital of the French department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, is also the site of a trail connecting a series of stone sculptures and walkers' refuges which were designed and constructed by British land artist, Andy Goldsworthy.

Part Of The Landscape

What has evolved is a project that goes beyond art as an object to be looked at, to something that is a part of a landscape to be lived in. ANDY GOLDSWORTHY

In January 1996 the nature sculptor and artist Andy Goldsworthy began work on his Cumbrian sheepfolds project. By April 2003 he had renovated or completely reconstructed forty-six Lake District sheepfolds, which had either fallen into disrepair or disappeared altogether. The sheepfold below, in Low Tilberthwaite, was the last sheepfold he worked on. It's square, and built of limestone with slate sections in the middle of each wall — a reference to Tilberthwaite's quarrying history. In the centre of each slate section is a circle of slate uprights. Various skilled local dry stone wallers helped Goldsworthy with this project.

     

Touchstone Fold, Low Tilberthwaite.

Touchstone Fold, Low Tilberthwaite.

Ferns and foxgloves beyond the fold's northern wall.

Bridge over Yewdale Beck with sycamore tree, Low Tilberthwaite.

Low Tilberthwaite.

I Walk, Therefore I Am

My work has become a simple metaphor for life. A figure walking down his road, making his mark. I am content with the vocabulary of universal and common means; walking, placing, stones, sticks, water, circles, lines, days, nights, roads. RICHARD LONG

My work really is just about being a human being living on this planet and using nature as its source. I enjoy the simple pleasures of ... eating, dreaming, happenstance, of passing through the land and sometimes leaving (memorable) traces along the way, of finding a new campsite each night. And then moving on. RICHARD LONG

What has evolved is a project that goes beyond art as an object to be looked at, to something that is a part of a landscape to be lived in. ANDY GOLDSWORTHY (Talking of his 16 year old, ongoing project of creating artworks in the Haute Provence landscape near Digne-les-Bains)

I think, therefore I am. DESCARTES

I walk, therefore I am. PIERRE GASSENDI

Cairns

This is the stone/drenched with rain/that points the way. Haiku by TANEDA SANTOKA

Wikipedia defines a cairn as "an artificial pile of stones, often in a conical form". Cairns can have a variety of uses and purposes.

They may mark a significant site, such as the summit of a mountain; or commemorate an event, such as a battle; or they may memorialize the dead (some UK Bronze Age cairns were found to contain small, square stone-built ossuaries or cists).

They may indicate a path - especially across stony, barren or featureless terrain.

They are created by Buddhists for use in religious rites; by Native Americans for cultural and sacred reasons, and for astronomical purposes; and by sculptors like Andy Goldsworthy as environmental art.

They may be formed quite simply and practically by farmers who want to clear their fields of stones (I've seen them in Wasdale in the English Lake District).

Cairns are just one of many different types of petroform. A petroform is a man-made arrangement of rocks or stones in the open air - it may be a stone circle, a dolmen or a menhir for example. The subject of petroforms and petroglyphs (carvings on rock) is a fascinating one - and one I hope to explore some time in a later post.

Between Santa Cilia and Puente la Reina (there are 2 Puente la Reinas on the Camino - this 1st one, Puente la Reina de Jaca, lies 5 km west of Santa Cilia) I passed hundreds of cairns along a path above the river Aragón (see photos) - constructed and added to over the years by pilgrims and other walkers and travellers. I felt compelled to add a few stones myself.

To what purpose? To give some concrete evidence of one's passing? To freeze in time a transient moment of one's particular Camino journey - and of one's life journey in general? To celebrate the beauty of the natural world and acknowlege its sacred nature? To express oneself by creating a primal piece of art as the early cave painters did in Lascaux and Altamira all those 10s of centuries ago? To remember and honour a significant person or event in one's life - similar to lighting a candle in a church? To build a primitive temple to the divine - a kind of spiritual vortex made of stone? I leave you to ponder...