I love the way you see the sites as moments in the longer story of landscape. The Chemin St Jacques and Cele Valley really lend themselves to this perspective. Even the modern departments are named for the river catchments. I found I had a keen understanding of the landscape units I was walking through, far more than in other Caminos
Thank you, Louise. I love your point about the departments being named for the rivers. Walking from the Haute-Loire through the Aveyron and into the Lot, you really do feel the land shifting from one watershed to the next. The Célé Valley made that especially clear for me, with the path following the river through the valley it has carved for so long.
Rome, where every old church is sitting on something older and the ground keeps giving it away. The walk between two of them explains both better than either one does inside.
Rome is a perfect example, Georges. San Clemente is the one I think of, with a medieval church sitting on an older church, which sits on a Roman house and a temple to Mithras. I like your point about the walk between 2 of them, since that is where you start to see what the ground has been holding all along.
That is the part the guidebooks cannot do, because they treat each site as its own stop. Walking the gap is what turns a list of buildings back into one city.
The Camino works that way for me too, Georges. Walking from one church to the next, the land between them ends up telling as much of the story as the buildings do.
Thank you, Cindye, and thank you for being the first to comment on this one. Once I started looking at the land first, the buildings began to make more sense to me, from where they sit to what they face. Is there a sacred place near you where you have noticed something like this?
Oh my, I no longer live in New Mexico, but this makes me think of Chaco Canyon there. After years of study, archaeologists figured out that the Anasazi people built the different structures in the canyon, miles apart, to align with each other and with the solstices and equinoxes. This helped them to know when to plant and harvest, among other things. Their connection to the land and to the heavens is reflected in the structures. It’s really fascinating!
Chaco Canyon is a wonderful example, Cindye. Buildings miles apart lined up with the solstices and equinoxes, so the land and the sky could tell people when to plant and harvest, is exactly the kind of story I hope people start to notice. It makes my own small way of marking the equinox feel very modest by comparison.
I love the way you see the sites as moments in the longer story of landscape. The Chemin St Jacques and Cele Valley really lend themselves to this perspective. Even the modern departments are named for the river catchments. I found I had a keen understanding of the landscape units I was walking through, far more than in other Caminos
Thank you, Louise. I love your point about the departments being named for the rivers. Walking from the Haute-Loire through the Aveyron and into the Lot, you really do feel the land shifting from one watershed to the next. The Célé Valley made that especially clear for me, with the path following the river through the valley it has carved for so long.
Rome, where every old church is sitting on something older and the ground keeps giving it away. The walk between two of them explains both better than either one does inside.
Rome is a perfect example, Georges. San Clemente is the one I think of, with a medieval church sitting on an older church, which sits on a Roman house and a temple to Mithras. I like your point about the walk between 2 of them, since that is where you start to see what the ground has been holding all along.
That is the part the guidebooks cannot do, because they treat each site as its own stop. Walking the gap is what turns a list of buildings back into one city.
The Camino works that way for me too, Georges. Walking from one church to the next, the land between them ends up telling as much of the story as the buildings do.
I love this concept of the building being a response to the land around it and a larger story being told.
Thank you, Cindye, and thank you for being the first to comment on this one. Once I started looking at the land first, the buildings began to make more sense to me, from where they sit to what they face. Is there a sacred place near you where you have noticed something like this?
Oh my, I no longer live in New Mexico, but this makes me think of Chaco Canyon there. After years of study, archaeologists figured out that the Anasazi people built the different structures in the canyon, miles apart, to align with each other and with the solstices and equinoxes. This helped them to know when to plant and harvest, among other things. Their connection to the land and to the heavens is reflected in the structures. It’s really fascinating!
Chaco Canyon is a wonderful example, Cindye. Buildings miles apart lined up with the solstices and equinoxes, so the land and the sky could tell people when to plant and harvest, is exactly the kind of story I hope people start to notice. It makes my own small way of marking the equinox feel very modest by comparison.