COMPOSTELA.
I went pilgrim to Compostela grace abounding and grace seeking and what I found was the big night, angels on the rocks and stonecasted gargoyles sprouting over spires, unbelievable arches and bell cranks, the grey of rain, falling down the centuries, gutter poundering the conveyance of water. Rain in Spain. Lluvia de Compostela. Did I find the pulp of my faith or the the addle myth of empty superstition?
Outside Lugo, where is the throne of the goddess Lupa, I lunched oysters in a nice restaurant and before seeing with these eyes of mine, prospective fodder to the vermine of tombs, the Gozo Mound I made love to a beautiful negresse from Cuba, she was sweet and understanding.
Santiago la bella que nunca la ves hasta que estás encima della.
Then drinks, coffee bars and taverns alongside Azabachería. There were the abodes of the jet merchants. Succinum nígrum. They dealt on piedras negras. To embrace the Apostle I couldn´t. It was after hours, well past night o´clock on a Friday. Sextons had gone home or were drinking “medios”at the pubs nearby Plaza del Obradoiro. Canons at the cathedral were through with Vespers, the iron gates with its railings like spears were closing down, only could I see the big perron leading to the magic towers, La Puerta del Perdón in the Porch of Glory, the best representation of glory and rank ever conceived over the line of the stroke of the burin (burilada) with all the figures escorting the Pantocrator Christ in reverence and majesty sitting as judge appearing with all the pageantry in the court of saints and martyrs, the nine grades of angels touring his see, the mystic almond, simulating the external orifice of a vulva. Escathology, Theology, biology, a chant to the everlasting cell represented under the disguise of the mystic body which symbols an egg.
And there good Jack was, the son of Zebedeo and María Salomé, like a thunder in peace with himself warden of his own tomb over the centuries venerated. Kisses and tears shed over his grave have flagellated his chest like a tinderbox(yesquero). Crowds and hoards of the faithful have deposited on the shrine like a hoque (la robla y el alboroque de santidad) their osculation wishes. From here to eternity. Santiago is not a real city like Jerusalem. Overwhelms. In order to quell the panting oppression sensation it conveys ( la abofellada) on the visitor, you have to recur to most menial sources. Riveiro is a good wine if you take it in moderation.
That night I couldn´t either. Santiago was too much. I felt its bruising prophetic atmosphere all over me. That is why I got drunk and on my way home at the first junction leading the way to Asturias a civil Guard asked me to pull, they made me to blow the alcoholic test and I was unable to pass. A fine of 75000 pesetas, three months without driving licence. It was the curse of the apostle. Galicia is the only region of Spain where you could see gnomes and witches walking along the country side or climbing the branches of the big oaks. its cemeteries (composita) are a variegated motley. A culture of death. Galicians believe in apparitions. The ghost stroll walk-side of the hamlets with barns and haystack at dawn: Sancta Compaña, the irreal peg of almas en pena, visions of hobgoblins in midnight processions, somebody toll the bells of belfries of churches in ruins, the bells commence to peal, the bones for long time hidden at the bottom of the lake corpses of people who drowned back again on the march. We have in Iberia our particular Ireland of Saints. And there I was immersed in a labyrinth dismal and frail
However Santiago is a drab city like Jerusalem. Drinking is allowed and womanizing tolerated but extramuros. The scarce half an hour I spent with my mulata was worth much more than the whole pilgrimage.
However one has de duty to live and abide by legends and myths.
La Santa Compaña is a myth in the same way as the Stone Barge with the mortal remains of Boanerges, a pill hard ro swallow, belongs to the realms of allegorical fiction where religion crossbreeds superstition.
These mingled ingredients conduct us in spite of all to the triumphant scenery of the art of moldering flagstones of Portico de la Gloria. There the chisel full of inspiration and devotion of Maestro Mateo has the last words. Yo no soy más que un cintero de la inmensa poesía que guarda el arte cristiano.
But Compostela keeps the esoteric profile of the Gnosis founded in the New Scriptures. Gnosis comes from the Island of Cnosos (Crete) that evokes the cavities leading to the labyrinth, we are surrounded by the maze framing our mortal lives. The great support of the gnostic knowledge, another approach to God, is the Fourth Godspell. John writes in a divine in comprehensive way. He was the disciple whom loved Jesus, the another son of thunder, brother of Jack.
That is part of the mysteries unveiled by Santiago: its johannic connections. With its shells or merelles, veneiras, the stock, the burjaca, bordón, the pumpkin, cape and the long robe. Compostela means a wedge between heaven and earth molded by the last of the evangelist. Compus stellae, the graveyard of the star glowing mysteries and the key of our essence and existence.
Pilgrim is part of our way of live. The Prussian yurodivi filed the route of the Volga with the fourth book of the new testament in their leather bag (bujarca). Morral de devoción. And that line of demarch was spiritual, and symbolic, a certain allegiance to the book of glory. Steps in the direction of eternal life and apocalypses. A book set the whole Europe on the move. The West and the East.
I drove all the way from Canterbury. My compass was a star (lizarra) and I went astray at that brothel in the motorway I know but that was not a big sin.
Jaca is Jack, the town of Wisdom, the sister of Compostela. Located at the initial of the track leading to the stars over Finisterre. There was three ways in Europe which leads to the lands end: from Canterbury to Cornwall and the Stonehenge; from Chartres to the Armorica or Mont Saint Michelle. And I have done all the walk from Canterbury step by step per pedes apostolorum
