Sometimes optics, a ray of the sun and a suitable moment - casual or causal - offer us the opportunity to contemplate, in situ, what, metaphorically or comparatively speaking, could be defined as the unfolding of an archetype. Some years ago I had the opportunity to discover it, playing with the camera and perspective, in a place that in addition to attracting attention by the fascinating beauty of its natural environment, we should add the genius of a Romanesque hermitage of the thirteenth century that pointed and Gothic manners, as well as the aura media of mystery and legend that surrounds always everything related to an order of medieval chivalry of warrior-monks, who wrote glorious pages in history under the name of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Salomón: the hermitage of San Bartolomé, in the Cañon del Río Lobos.
The archetype in question, present in practically every sacred place -objectively and intentionally in sight, or hidden in that geometric dimension in which spaces, volumes, dimensions, design, myths and rites are conjugated-, is none other than the pentacle, or star pentalfa Remphan, whose archetypical significance has generated numerous references and associations over time, constituting an interesting part of all primary symbol, which -recojo shaped ornament on this part of the valuable opinions Titus Burckhart- end up integrating into popular folklore.
From this point of view, it is precisely this folklore, rich and varied, that offers us, at least, a dual vision, which includes those two opposite but complementary extremes, since it would be unthinkable to suppose the existence of one without the other, being basically the central pillars of every myth: good and bad, positive and negative, black and white, up and down, etc.
From this perspective, and as a positive symbol, this primitive archetype - which in some European countries is called the foot of a druid, and which some sources also identify as the symbol of recognition that God granted Cain to respect his life, after to consummate the murder of his brother Abel, being used as a distinctive by the Pythagoreans or followers of Pythagoras, has had a widespread association, not only with the idea of perfection, but also, with vitality and health or magicum perpetuum.
One of the great geniuses of the Renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci, used it to represent, in his so-called Vitruvian Man, the idea of the Universal Man, although it is true that the same design - more primitive, obviously, but perhaps with the same sense and purpose-, it served, surprisingly, as a creative part of the ornamentation of a Romanesque portal from the 12th century that, changed from its original location, can now be seen in the church of the Assumption, located in the Navarre town of Leache.
As negative counterpart, its association with witchcraft and black magic, depending on the investment of its central pole, has distorted completely its image, serving, himself and in medieval times, to indicate the miser and the Jewish (1) in the same way that other primordial symbols, such as the leg of goose or rune of life, were used to indicate, for clearly discriminatory purposes, a very particular group of the Baztán Valley: the exhausts.
Curiously, the medieval Arthurian literature -considered, but at the same time quite discredited by the ecclesial orthodoxy for its rich abundance in pagan symbols- used it, as the hallmark of one of its best knights, Sir Gawain, as it is narrated in the adventure of the Green Knight
Little less than unique in its genre - the pentaculum of San Bartolomé, is made up of intertwined hearts - it is a symbol that located on both sides of the transept of the nave, opens and closes two significant chapels: the Virgen de la Salud and the of the Holy Christ of the Agony.
It is assumed that during the winter solstice, a ray penetrates precisely by the star located on the south side of the transept and illuminates a floor slab, at the foot of the Chapel of the Virgin of Health, marked with a cross kick. A center that would indicate a telluric focus of great intensity, where people usually take off their shoes to benefit from their supposed beneficial effects and where, apparently, the sick, including the paralytics, who were hanging on a pulley, were also placed in the past. located on the roof.
At present, said pulley is hanging down and hidden behind the altarpiece of the Virgin. Located at this point, is where you get the effect with the camera, much better and more defined than if it is done from the opposite side, that is, from the foot of the chapel of the Holy Christ of the Agony. The peculiarity lies in that, although the stonecutter made the pentacle with the main tip facing down towards the earth, the optical effect, through the camera, allows it to be perfectly defined, as seen in the video, pointing towards up, towards the sky.
That is, as it is above, so is it below. Snakes on earth, dragons in the sky. It is possible to suppose, therefore, an intentionality worthy of a work of art.
Notes:
(1) This suggestion was made to me in 2010 by Laura Alberich and Manuel Gila, friends of the Salud y Románico group, contemplating one of the magnificent capitals inside the church of San Martín, in Frómista, Palencia.
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NOTICE: originally published, among some other of my blogs, on my blog ARTE, MITOS Y ARQUETIPOS. Both the text, as the photographs, and the video (except music, reproduced under a YouTube license), are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry, where you can check the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://artemitosyarquetipos.blogspot.com/2016/04/cuando-un-arquetipo-se-desdobla.html
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