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Spain & Portugal Tour 2017 | The Way of the Traveler | Day 4

 

Madrid, Ávila, El Escorial | Spain

The morning air is brisk and refreshing as we board the bus for Ávila, Spain. The entire town of Ávila is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of the town is filled with 16th Century architecture, and the Roman-style medieval wall still surrounds the town. Upon entering you get the sense of stepping back in time. There is a love affair with Spain blossoming right before our eyes.

At the center of the town is the Cathedral of Ávila, a Gothic structure that is almost a thousand years old. This Romanesque/ Gothic building is a masterpiece of art and architecture. It was intended to be part of the wall of a fortification, which is why the apse resembles a turret. The doorways are absolutely stunning, with intricate statues and carvings all around the edge. One of the most beautiful parts of the cathedral is the stained glass windows, which date to the 1400s. The vastness of this cathedral is daunting and amazing how much goes into this architecture and how it was even built in the first place.

Next is a visit to the Convent of San Jose de Ávila where Saint Theresa founded the order of Carmelitas descalzos. The historic convent and pilgrimage destination was built over the birthplace of Saint Teresa of Avila. The convent contains the possessions and relics of both St. Teresa and her close friend St. John of the Cross in a small museum. An incredibly historic and religiously fascinating landmark, the convent offers a glimpse into the mystic and spiritually contemplative life of St. Teresa, who was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV.

Back onto the bus and heading to El Escorial. The Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial was once the residence of the monarchs of Spain. The huge complex includes two sets of buildings comprising a monastery, hospital, basilica, university, palace, pantheon, library, and a museum. Another vast, immense building that takes years and years of work to create.

Once again on the bus, and heading to Valle de Los Caldos (Valley of the Fallen). John does a beautiful blessing so stay tuned.

Then on the bus to our surprise, FLAMENCO DANCERS!! WOW, what a glorious night of dinner and enjoying Madrid’s most famous flamenco dancers. See you all tomorrow. Love to all from Spain.

Love & Light, Julie

Videos by Julie Lurie


 
 
 

Touring Photos by David Sand
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David Sand’s Column

It’s Day 4. In J-R’s delineation of the symbology of numbers, “4” is solid foundation. I said that after John’s seminar on Day 3 I guessed that the energy would be ramped up, and that was my experience on Day 4. It was also grounded and solidified. We may look like a group of tourists, but that’s not what’s going on under the surface. In my experience, as people encounter us the Spirit moves inside them. Their response to that, and how they deal with it, is a choice. We just keep moving the Spirit inside of us, and moving on. MSIA is a movement, and it’s inner, so it’s not always obvious; it’s spiritual, so it’s all-powerful and it’s everywhere all the time, but not always recognized physically or on the lower levels. And it’s awareness—so it’s everywhere, and it’s easy. All you have to do is be aware, which anybody can do. You don’t have to do anything spectacular, you can just be ordinary, which is available to everyone, and which we’re extraordinarily good at.

We take a bus to Ávila today. What a treat. We’re the Travela’ from Ávila. There’s a joyful energy all over that little town, and especially in the cathedral, where St. Teresa of Ávila hung out from the time she was a child, and this feels like the joy of a playful little kid. (Keka’s kid in the photos is having a good time too, listening on the radio.) I mention to Leigh that it’s probably the only cathedral where I’ve felt really happy, and not like I’m hanging out in an ectoplasmic soup, and she says she’s felt the same thing. She tells me the story of how St. Teresa lost her mother when she was young and in the cathedral she asked if Mary could be her mommy.

The landscape on the way looks a lot like southern California. But one thing you won’t find in California: Fresh juices and fresh baked pastries at a highway rest stop. This is Europe, and that means extraordinary food. To the Spanish this is ordinary, but ordinariness is in the eye of the beholder. How can you be in a “poor” country and be drinking fresh juices at a highway rest stop? Maybe wealth is a moving target, and it doesn’t always correlate with money.

And here’s something else extraordinary: On the way to Ávila John stops the tour guide, who’s giving us great historical information, because he wants us to be able to go out of the body to prepare for what we’re going to encounter in Ávila. Where else are you going to find that? But on the outside it looks ordinary, like a bunch of people sleeping on the bus. To me, each Traveler has his own contribution and unique kind of ordinariness on the personality level, and that’s John—it’s a big, bold energy. It doesn’t mess around. So we move on through the semi-arid, hilly landscape traveling inwardly, with maybe a bit less information, and clothed just by our spiritual awareness.

Ávila is a delight—Spirit really grounded in the material, which means a lot of joy. People often think of grounding as heaviness, but to me it’s light, it’s Spirit coming into the material level instead of hanging out above it someplace—and Spirit lightens and illuminates what it encounters. So the earth is vitalized rather than sitting and stewing in its own heaviness. It’s day 4, solid foundation—and things are moving.

In the afternoon it’s El Escorial, which has functioned as a royal residence, monastery, library, museum, etc., (“no photos inside please”). Outside we encounter the kids from a nearby school. Inside is some beautiful art and architecture, but especially after the transcendent quality of Ávila, I don’t get much of a vibe from it. A friendly, interesting political/religious/mental energy. Suits of armor and art on the walls, long sunny halls and beautiful courtyards, dead kings, old books, the look and feel of a military school run by a church—that odd mixture of army and clergy that seems to be everywhere in Spain. And then we go to the Valley of the Fallen, a monstrous, windowless underground cathedral carved deep inside a mountain, built by Franco, with gargantuan sculpture that’s a bizarre mix of mannerism, socialist realism, and art deco: intimidating, god-sized people who seem to be capable of anything. More confusion of spirituality and military, but this one has a sinister feeling that’s very different from El Escorial, where the spirituality feels genuine. To me, the Valley of the Fallen is an example of un-groundedness deep in the ground, earth and spirit separated. It feels like a bunker. No, It’s a church. No, it’s a bunker, no it’s a church…it’s a church AND a bunker! I can’t wait to get out of there, and many in the group express the same thing. Once again, no photos inside, so there are just a few photos of the exterior. Now I should say something positive about it. I remember being at the worst movie I’d ever seen with J-R, who always managed to spin everything to the positive, and coming out of there wondering how he’d ever spin this one. Somebody in our group asked him how he liked the movie, and he said, “it was very observable”. So I’ll say that there are beautiful views of the countryside from the outside.

In the evening there’s a great dinner in a crowded theater that includes a performance of what’s said to be the best flamenco in Spain. It’s the old, original style of flamenco that has a kabuki-like, dreamy, dramatic quality, combined with graceful and expressive hand gestures reminiscent of Indian dance, and a chorus of three singers encouraging the dancers to greater and greater levels of surrender. It’s a tour-de-force of precision, flow, eroticism and emotional intensity—the real groundedness, spirit meeting the earth. To me personally, it looks and sounds like people grimacing and writhing in the throes of some kind of disease, but then I’m what J-R used to call a “sano-type”—uncomfortable with extreme emotion and more at home in a position of observation. But the effect on our group is astounding. It’s a release, a chance to cut loose and pour the spirit into their bodies, to ground it in the flesh. We’re in the street laughing and yelling. You can see it in the boisterous, glowing faces in the photos at the end. It’s a perfect ending to a day of integrating the heights of the seminar the night before.

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