Sagrado

I am here in Burgos, one of the big, beautiful cities of the Leon region and spent about an hour at the grand Burgos Cathedral, a pretty stunning piece of art and architecture from the 13th and 14th centuries.

I continue to spend a lot of time in churches on this trip and haven´t tired of strolling through those gargantuan, thick wooden doors and having a twenty-five foot tall, gilded altar revealed to me.



You know, I´m not Catholic, though I was baptized as far as I know (Dad, Sharron, Rebecca?)...so my appeal to these places is not steeped in some sort of religious fervor. I think I´ve mentioned how familiar all this is to me, as if I´ve been in that time period, seeing it through the eyes of a 13th century being and being appropriately struck by it.

But as I was taking a gander at all the various chapels in the Cathedral, checking out the stained glass and trying to peer into tombs, it occured to me that it´s not just this time period that feels familiar.

I get the same sense when I sit in meditation in a Buddhist Temple, or hear Black spirituals, or see wheat sway in a warm breeze. To touch the bark of old oak or the soft, new needles of a fir tree. To feel my feet upon the shoreline of the ocean.



It´s the sacredness of these things that stir me more than perhaps the thing itself. And maybe it´s not that I´ve been here before, in another body, but that the soul itself appreciates what others have found sacred throughout time.

Hard to say of course, and I don´t want to pick it apart too much. Why question to death why one loves anything? Some may argue that my appreciation of this particular religious art negates the historical fact that so many nasty things were done in the name of said faith. Especially here in Spain.

To that I suppose I would say that there you are, human nature at its finest. Doing evil in the name of love.

I was walking a bit with my friend Angel the other day (we had to say goodbye yesterday, sadly...he was fun) and he was asking me why I like sleeping out in the woods. I told him I like being that close to God (he didn´t speak any English, so I didn´t get into my Goddess/Pagan proclivity...no need, the point was made). He said, "Dios es en su corazon. En el arbols, en el cielo, en la terra, si; pero, es muy importante que Dios es en su corazon."


If I spoke better Spanish I would have kidded with him that I lose my connection with my higher power when I have to sleep in a room with twenty snoring people, and that´s another reason I sleep outside...but we left it with our simple conversation. And it gave me something to think about for a time.

Sometimes I think I know what´s sacred and that it´ll always be that way. And then I´ll have a little comeuppance and have to recall the mistake of absolutes.

One of the things I do believe is true is when I get that sense of familiarity, of warmth or of joy in an object, or a vision that these things generally come out of nowhere. They happen in an instance, a little sneak attack of the spirit. And that´s when I know it´s real, that I´ve been touched. If there´s one thing I´ve learned about the Divine it´s that She likes to surprise you.