February 13, 2003

• Last night after my incredibly frustrating attempt to catch up on my reading and post a new log, I went to bed.  If I had been lucky I would have slept, as it was my mind started drifting.  Down, down, down into late night weirdness.  While in Spain we took a day trip to Burgos, after ten years have past and I had completely forgotten most of the details this came to mind on the cusp of sleep and wakefulness.

  
  

  Burgos has one of the largest cathedrals I’ve ever seen, even by Spanish Catholic standards.  It took around 300 years to finish and covers city blocks.  I remember we walked around it for hours gawking at the statuary, and spires.  The gargoyles, and saints.  It seems like every corner you turn, every step you take there’s something fantastic.  Gothic in the truest sense of the word.  Eventually we made our way inside and decided to take the standard guided tour.  It was what we saw on the tour that kept me awake last night.  Two things, the first grotesque, the second breathtakingly beautiful.

  
  

  The crucified Christ has to be in every cathedral in the world, made of wood, ivory, marble, more things than I can think of here.  In Burgos, about 125 miles North of Madrid, they proudly display a crucified Christ covered in skin.  It’s so old that even with testing they’re not completely certain what type of skin, they think that it’s buffalo of all things.  When you stand there staring at this thing they venerate as a holy artifact, your close enough to see that it looks human.  It looks like the dried corpse of Jesus.  It looks grotesque in it’s corner of the church.  The scent of the flowers left in offerings start to overpower everything else.  Heat from the myriad of tiny votive’s surrounding the cross heat up the space that a few minutes ago seemed immense.  In my logical mind I hear the guide, I hear him and his explanations, but I can’t take my eyes off the cross with poor dead Jesus.  It was like driving past a car accident and trying not to rubberneck, you can do it but damn it’s hard.  It was my two chattering girls that broke the spell and brought me back from my fascination with death and resurrection.  On with the tour.

  
  

  After you’ve walked miles thru endless naves, crypts, and private chapels you’re usually done, this time the church conviently ended the tour at a little gift shop right in the church.  I started to browse only because of the old man running the shop.  He was so proud of the cathedral that you could tell he felt it was his private domain.  He hadn’t worked in there for years, he worked there for decades.  I knew he could tell tales if only he would.  After he practiced his English on us and we practiced our Spanish on him, he motioned me to a dark corner at the end of the counter.  There was a plain wooden cupboard hanging on the wall, he unlocked the doors with great ceremony and anticipation on his face.  Inside was the most incredible work of art I have ever seen.  Mary Magdalene in all her beauty.  Her skin glowed, her hair looked like a breeze might lift a curl any moment.  Her eyes were full of the mysteries of life.  If she had turned her head and spoke to me I wouldn’t have flinched or been surprised.  Helen of Troy had nothing on this woman.  When I asked the shopkeeper why they put this of all the art in the cathedral in a dingy little cupboard in an out of the way corner he explained that while it was attributed to Da Vinci it wasn’t proven to be truly his work, therefore it is much less venerated than some that have been authenticated, even though they are of lesser quality or maybe the artist is not as well known.  It didn’t matter to me.  I bought the little book he had written to raise money for the church.  I had to…you see it has pictures of both 

  
  

   Ultimate ugliness and ultimate beauty both seen in the space of a day.

  • 11:51 pm
  • 3 Comments