Mary Magdalene's Feast Day from Llanes to Vézelay

Today honors the energy of the divine and feminine grace of Mary Magdalene. Having just come from making the pilgrimage to Vézelay in Burgundy, France, where her basilica honors the highest point of that ancient Gallo-Roman hilltop village, I am even more appreciative of her beauty.

This spring I hiked to Vézelay from Avallon on a day that was threatening heavy rain throughout. As much as I love to hike into wild and unknown territory, I resisted starting. I resisted and resisted and then I knew deep down that if I let the rain stop me, I would regret it for the rest of my life. I forged forward through my resistance. 

As soon as I set one foot before the other—finding my way down the steep fortified hillside of Avallon toward the Cousin river and into the Morvan forest—that magic took hold that every pilgrim knows: The road began to show me signs and my way was clear, one step at a time. Prior rains had washed out parts of the trail. I lost it. I found it. I lost it again, but always found it again. Song birds punctuated my triumphs, my mind taking their song as a victory dance. White Burgundian cows munching on lemon yellow mustard flowers sauntered over to greet me, making me pause to see where to pick up the trail across the field. Once, was that a snake that slithered loudly to the right, making me notice the trail marker I'd missed painted on a leaf-covered rock? Even the threatening weather ceased. Grace punctuated every turn, no matter how trying some turns were. The expected heavy rains did not arrive. The storm clouds literally parted and dramatic striated rays of sun shined through.

It took eight hours through the forest and the rising and falling vine and mustard covered hills of Burgundy to arrive in Vézelay. First, the hill appeared, the highest in the vicinity, and grew as I walked. Then, the towers of the basilica became apparent. Finally, the scorpion shape of the hill—as one book described it—upon which the church sat revealed the pathway from the scorpion's tail at the foot to its crowning head at the top. The pilgrim’s path to the basilica was like walking along a rising spine, some ancient kundalini that the stonemasons and monks must have known implicitly.

And when I finally entered into the nave of striated light-play from the high arches of bicolored stone, Vespers was about to begin. Sound and light in perfect harmony swirled up and down the basilica and entered into the crown of my head. 

An active monastic community of nuns and monks live in Vézelay and carry on the sacred traditions within this medieval Romanesque church dedicated to this Lady of Grace. Her crypt is beneath the nave, built of the stone carved out of the hill. The small chamber allows visitors to sit and meditate undisturbed. 

The strongest feeling, one that recurred each time I entered the basilica, was balance. It is a place of harmony and balance, between male and female, heaven and earth, god and mortal, sound and light.

Another church that I love, that is also dedicated to Mary Magdalene, is in the heart of the fishing town of Llanes, along the northern Spanish coast in Asturias. On a smaller but no less powerful scale, it also offers the experience of harmony and balance. 

Here, I love how this photo of its altar captured a fleeting streak of light.

To read more about Llanes and the surviving expressions of the ancient feminine divine that holds foot in northern Spain, as well as into southern France, the fabled territory where Mary Magdalene may have lived during her later years, please read my piece for Perceptive Travel, The Goddess Still Lives Here and also see my book, The Spiritual Traveler Spain.

Stepping away from routine and into magic

Complacency and routine seem to be the kiss of death to a fully present life. Pilgrimage has taught me this. Rather than focusing the life force on fear and the fruits of fear (having enough, having the things everyone thinks everyone needs to have, seeking comfort as the first order of life…) it has taught me to focus on what to do next to grow, what to look for, to savor beauty, and to expand.

I think such a routine-busting focus makes amazing things occur, so much so that the frightening things that forced a person into complacency and routine in the first place are no longer an issue; a person learns to be ever at the ready for the next step, the next unexpected adventure, the next cosmic gift that wants nothing better than to give itself to her or him.

A pilgrimage teaches this magic by example, by giving the walker-seeker a gift each day as soon as his or her focus shifts to the growth side of life.

Each step becomes a step into the unknown and into real magic.

My most recent encounter with this constant lesson was on a recent pilgrimage I made to Vezèlay, one of the four major pilgrim starting points in France along the Way of Saint James to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. I wanted to arrive at this sacred site on foot, from a point east. I wanted to feel what it was like to see the enchanted hilltop village with its basilica dedicated to Mary Magdalene appear on the horizon at the walking pace.

The Esoteric Camino to Santiago de Compostela through France and Spain

Jaca’s cathedral in Aragón has a basilisk that seems to come from some pre-Christian Pyrenean past. 

Eunate’s church in Navarra has a sacred flutist possibly harkening to a Sufi influence, not to mention its ring of thirty-three external arches that are akin to Islamic prayer beads, acting as a meditation upon the ninety-nine names of God—three times around, and entering the hundredth door, as the Sufis call it. Eunate in Basque actually means 100 doors. 

 

Nearly 500 kilometers further along the Camino, Santo Tomas de las Ollas in León possesses nine horseshoe arches in its apse that form an eleven-sided polygon. Another mediation on 99, not to mention on the interfaith nature of the sacred road?

Even St. James’ tomb in Santiago de Compostela may instead contain the bones of another beheaded martyr, the Galician Priscillian, a monk, hermit, and local leader from the 4^th century who wove many locally beloved pagan ideas into his rendering of Christianity.

Throughout the sacred pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela, the Camino, many churches are infused with a sacred geometry that only makes fuller sense if the pagan, the Classical, the Judaic, the Christian, and the Islamic traditions are considered together. Moreover, all along the corridor spanned by the Camino there are dolmens, menhirs, engraved stones and cave walls, and holy springs that also speak of a prehistoric past that saw this corridor as equally sacred.

The Camino—the many roads across Europe and across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela—has many layers; the Christian layer is only the most recent and evident.

I have recently published a multi-layered travel guide on the Camino, The Esoteric Camino France & Spain, as an application download for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch. (An eBook is forthcoming.) Based on over 25 years of exploring, walking, and studying the Camino as a pilgrim, anthropologist, and writer, this app carries in it explorations into the many layers of this sacred road, from prehistory to the present.

The Esoteric Camino France & Spain complements other Camino guides, the more numerous practical how-to guides, and does something no one of them does in one place: offer the deep layers of ancestry and the less obvious lineages and symbols of the places along the Camino. It is rich in esoteric lore, regional folklore, and sacred geometry.

Moreover, as I continue my treks, I will continue to explore stretches of the many Caminos in Europe. As I do so, I will expand the entries in the app. 

The current edition of The Esoteric Camino France & Spain covers the French Road, the Camino Francés, from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, to Finisterre, Spain. The current app also covers the Camino Aragonés from the Somport Pass to Puente la Reina, Spain, as well as parts of the road that begin in Le-Puy-en-Velay in France. 

The Esoteric Camino France & Spain is available through Sutro Media on iTunes and on Android.

Buen Camino!

Hike, Eat, Drink, and Contemplate the Pyrenees near Lourdes, France

There is no question that Lourdes in southern France, on the edge of the Pyrenees, is a powerful spot. Indeed, the entire stretch of mountains, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, possesses several mystical spots, many associated with Mary.

I have traversed several of them, and also a few in northern Spain. All are remote places in overwhelmingly beautiful natural vistas of mountain, ocean, or forested valleys.

Maybe because of this, on my pilgrimage to Lourdes, I felt overwhelmed by the number of other visitors. After paying my respects to Our Lady, I sought to return to the quieter contemplation of the pilgrim’s road.

The tourist office in Lourdes had just the answer. The voie verte, the green hiker’s and biker’s path, from Lourdes south, went right into the Pyrenees. I could take it from the town edge or I could catch a local bus and pick it up deeper into the mountains. I opted for the local bus so that I could start in the midst of the wild and then trek back into Lourdes on my own foot power.

I now realize that the two activities are the perfect balance for the sacred traveler who wants both to pay a visit to one of the world’s great shrines and to partake of the landscape that Saint Bernadette herself would have seen as more familiar than the Lourdes of today. It is a landscape that still inspires transcendent experience.

To take to the path, visit the tourist office for a good map and advice, asking for La Voie Verte des Gaves, the name of the walking and cycling route south of Lourdes.

Culinary Miracles: Hidden in those hills is a culinary miracle, the restaurant Le Viscos in the village of St-Savin (http://www.hotel-leviscos.com/en/hotel-le-viscos-saint-savin-table.php). I dare say, hiking will never be the same after resting my feet and ordering chef Jean-Pierre Saint-Martin’s shorter—five course instead of seven course—walker’s menu, Le Menu de Retour Balade.

Other Marian Routes: If you are interested in powerful but little known Marian sites along coastal northern Spain, fishermen’s shrines dedicated to Mary, please see Chapter 9—San Vicente de la Barquera to Navia in The Spiritual Traveler Spain (http://www.beebesfeast.com/book-flier.html)