Sanctus Vesica Piscium

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Friday, September 21, 2007

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Walking from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain is a mere 777 km or 484 miles or 16 miles average per day for 30 days - for us, between October 1 to 30 October 2007. I join my sister, Susan and encourage others to join us. Ryan Air out of London or Frankfurt to Santiago or to Barritz is ridiculously cheap - cost of the entire thirty days walk with food and lodging is estimated to be about 1000 euros - about $50 per day. We will be adding photos and comments as we walk, mobile telephone may not be on full time but you can reach us a 1303 888 8099 or to garyregester(at)gmail.com - for full pilgrim certification you need do only the last 100 km on foot starting at Sarria - links to the left have all the information you will need.

I thank many for their generosity to allow the escape from real life for one entire month - Joanie and family, plus our extended home family and Silver Plume folk; Ed Ruscha and studio boys; Helga Farley and Marvin Seligman; Sharon Gittins and Laura Lankester; Ivan Holmes - our maternal uncle who may join us yet; Susan Anderson, who hopefully is minding the store; Bas and Marianne Schweitzer; Dedee Sanderson; son, Christian Regester and The North Face; SphereOne, Inc - Cindy, Michael and Paul;

From Wikipedia link below: The Way of St James has existed for over a thousand years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times. It was considered one of three pilgrimages on which all sins could be forgiven; [citation needed]the others are the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Legend holds that St. James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where they were buried on the site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela. There are some, however, who claim that the bodily remains at Santiago belong to Priscillian, the fourth-century Galician leader of an ascetic Christian sect, Priscillianism, who was one of the first Christian heretics to be executed.

There is not a single route; the Way can take one of any number of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. However a few of the routes are considered main ones. Santiago is such an important pilgrimage destination because it is considered the burial site of the apostle, James the Great. During the middle ages, the route was highly travelled. However, the Black Plague, the Protestant Reformation and political unrest in 16th- century Europe resulted in its decline. Until the 1980s, only a few pilgrims arrived in Santiago annually. However, since then, the route has attracted a growing number of modern-day pilgrims from around the globe. The route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe in October 1987; it was also named one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites in 1993. More at Wikipeadia

Friday, August 31, 2007

walking sign

We cannot walk the Camino without some sort of secret sign wagging from our packs - perhaps a young Knight Templar or Hopitaller along the Way or one of Theano's daughters - might actually know what this esoteric image is all about.

My best guess - take our blog's name - sanctus vesica piscium - which is a symbol made from two circles of the same radius, intersecting in such a way that the centre of each circle lies on the circumference of the other. The name literally means "bladder of the fish", but is probably better, the body or mouth of the fish.

The almond shaped symbol is formed in the overlap between the circles and their centers, together with the upper arcs as far as the edges of a rectangle whose sides coincide with the widest points of the almond. The resulting figure looks both like a stylised fish, and a flattened greek alpha. A vesica piscus takes the proportion of the square root of the number 3 - (which is a near relative [1.73205080 vs 1.61803399] to the golden mean and the mean's association with the greek letter - phi - Φ).

The square of 3 and the vesica piscis was used by many mystical religions, such as that of Pythagoras, who considered it a holy shape. The mathematical ratio of its height to width was considered by such groups as 153:265, this was thought of as a holy number called the measure of the fish. The number 153 appears in the Gospel of John as the exact number of fish Jesus causes to be caught in a miraculous catch of fish, and is thought by some to be a coded reference to Pythagorean beliefs. Other uses of the shape include that by some early religions of the almond shaped central area as a representation of the vulva, and in use again by early Christians under the name Ichthys - an acronym for the greek names of Jesus, Christ, Son of God, Saviour.

Then, taking our two literal Vesica Pisces bodies, we "orient" the fishies to encircle the striped column as a yin and yang taijitu - the mirrored column follows the red (female) and white (male) colors of the taijitu (that aint no barber pole - or is it?) using the scallop shells, symbol of St. James' Field of Stars (aka the Milky Way), as our captials - so our walking logo - a pictorial Φ - with allusions to balance and interrelations - some bawdy and some mystic (some say there is a difference).