Putting yourself back into the shoes of the curious traveler, capable of bringing out the ostracism of that first glance, where everything is surprising and at the same time marvelous, today's adventure has as its destination the great capital of Old Castile: that essential cultural, historical, and artistic legacy, proudly captured under a sovereign name, which is none other than Burgos.
Burgos, no matter how you look at it and no matter the color of the glass through which you choose to filter your impressions, always produces the same sensation: a city moving toward the future, but without ever denying its extraordinary past.
Behind the traveler, both the sweet murmur of the sleepy waters of the Arlanza River and the imposing display of power of the monumental Saint Mary Gate remain, where doves roam freely among the stern figures of royal dynasties who made history through sacrifice and reconquest.
In the square, also dedicated to the figure of Saint Mary—the same to whom King Alfonso X the Wise dedicated an important part of the best poetry of the Middle Ages—the traveler shudders with enthusiasm upon contemplating this marvelous composition of sacred architecture, which is, without a doubt, one of the cultural beacons of the West and, by extension, of the world: its priceless cathedral.
As you well know, a cathedral is more than a meritoriously assembled set of carefully crafted stones, watered by the sweat of the brows of masons who sacrificed anonymity, embracing the glory of creating something lasting and beautiful: it is a true Time Capsule, where mystery, besides being guaranteed, is hidden, wisely collected among the chiaroscuro of its countless timeless chapels.
He also knows that, beyond the glories of illustrious figures, whose mortal remains—like those of El Cid Campeador or the most important Constables of Castile—rest beside imposing masterpieces of an art shrouded in pain and passion, but always striving for perfection, there lies a hidden symbolism that has always nourished those seekers of a lost wisdom, which was once secretly perpetuated in the nobility of stone.
Greatness, which, like that famous step, which meant a small advance for an astronaut, but a prodigious leap for Humanity, when Apollo XI landed on the surface of the moon on that meritorious day in July 1969, also means a leap in time for the traveler, always aware that each step taken from one chapel to another is a leap in time that leads him to fashions and styles, which, however, had as a common denominator, the immeasurable mission of opening, like a metaphorical quantum mechanics, the gateway to a dimension that every day seems to be more relegated from the human mind: Spirituality.
Far away in the minds of the social fly trapped in the endless cobwebs of the Digital Age, the postulates of those enigmatic masters of the 20th century seem to remain. Like that ghost of hermetic wisdom who called himself Fulcanelli, they saw in these monumental receivers of knowledge a wisdom hidden beneath the seductive appearance of symbolism, whose unknown succession of metaphors and allegories were the discordant note in a formidable equation of dangerous and therefore hidden and forbidden knowledge.
But at the same time, the traveler is also aware that this cathedral, inevitably converted into a museum of a world that still continues, like Vincent Van Gogh, shuddering before the starry nights, is an open book for anyone who, even without aspiring to find perfection—because, as Salvador Dalí said, he will never find it, not even as an artist—aspires, at least, to awaken a sensitivity that will make them see, in everything around them, that trying to find it and put it to the service of their daily lives will make them, at the very least, wiser and more observant.
NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property and are therefore subject to my copyright.
