Rustic Cottage in Brittany for rent

                                                           My last night in France.

My wet leathers are catching a few sun rays, 

sending up thin steam trails as several days' rain evaporates.

A sweet little house with views of trees in all directions.

Very rustic and a bit tumbling down, but with all that is necessary to unwind and relax....silence, hot water for the shower and a wood burning stove.

A perfect retreat for artists or writers.

One hour south of Roscoff.

Half an hour drive from many beautiful empty beaches.

5 minutes from Pont de Buis and supermarkets, bakeries etc.

Cheaper than cheap to rent.

01398 331 973
meganplayers@yahoo.co.uk

Fountain 59 St. Edern Lanadern 4th September

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do 

than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. 

Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”

 Mark Twain
(November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910
The American author and humorist, Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
was  better known by his pen name, Mark Twain and two of his two of his many books 
"The Adventures of Tome Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn")


I have always admired Mark Twain. 
And not simply because he invented his name by adopting the term used on the Mississippi River ,"mark twain" meaning "mark number two". This measurement indicated that the river was two fathoms, or twelve feet deep, i.e. a safe depth for a steamboat. 

He had a way with words that rocked the cornerstones of an ordinary ordered life.
Had I the ability to jump the steady ship of my Californian childhood into another, I would have been Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. 
Of course there are always trials and tribulations whatever the life. However, the romance of their barefooted freedom attracted me long before I was literate enough to read my own copy of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".

And maybe it was Mark and Tom and Huckleberry who had nurtured this deep connection that I feel to water, for I longed to sail with them down the Mississippi on a makeshift raft with fireflies flashing their lights around our heads.
Yes, this was the life for me.

            
             
                      Now, a half a century later, Louise has been my raft substitute

  as we explore the waters of France.  



St. Edern

 There were probably many St. Ederns.
The ones that I found were all linked to deer. (or cows)
The name Edern comes either from the Welsh word "edyrn", meaning big, gigantic, or from the Latin "Aeternus" meaning eternal . Which is essentially the same thing.

According to Welsh legend, Edern, who rode on a deer,  was the son of the god Nuz and one of the first lovers of Queen Guinevere, wife of King Arthur.**

Another Saint Edern was a wealthy young man (probably a warrior and/or aristocrat) who in 894 sailed the coast of Cornouaille and built a hermitage at Lanadern where he was buried.


One story tells that St. Edern gave safe refuge to a deer which was being pursued by a "gentleman" and his dogs. After this, the deer never left his side and has become a symbol for the saint. 

Another story claims that he met a deer in the evening and with him rode the boundaries of the country he had to Christianize. Yet another story, a cow story, relates that a cow was left for dead by the lord of the castle. St. Edern nurtured the animal back to health and where ever the cow grazed the wheat grew more abundantly.

Edern's feast day is celebrated in Brittany on August 26th or 30th or September 1st.
He is the saint for diseases of the eyes and many miracles have been attributed to him.

   

 And a great big gushing thank you from me too.
Louise and I have traveled nearly 3000 miles without great mishap or bodily injury.
What more could I ask for?



**King Arthur may well have been a genuine historical figure from 5th or 6th century Britain. 
He is known for his great kingdom of Camelot and the knights who sat 
in equality at the Round Table. 
 He has associations with the Holy Grail, Avalon,and the great sword 'Excalibur'.

An interesting website for more information- http://britannia.com/history/h12.html

Three useful Mark Twain quotes to live your life by:

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Fountain 58 Death and The Ankou 3rd September

DEATH

According to  http://www.deathclock.com

my death clock will chime on Tuesday April 19th 2033.

I have approximately 577, 780, 673 seconds remaining. Roughly 18 years.

If I were a smoker my last day would be Friday December 31st 2027.

This relatively small discrepancy surprises me.
Every packet of cigarettes states in over-sized font such statements as "smoking kills."

However, smokers always look like they are having more fun.
Their lives look richer with a joie de vivre that might be worth more than five abstemious years.

It seems like they party harder, laugh louder and enjoy the camaraderie of newly formed friendships as they huddle in doorways and other designated smoking areas.

If  31st December were indeed my last day, would I go to a New Year's Eve party knowing that I'd never finish the countdown to 2028, never see the fireworks, kiss the person next to me, or sing Auld Lang Syne?

I now have only 577, 779, 338 seconds left.

I can see that checking my countdown could become an obsessional activity.

 I must type faster.

  

                                                                   
                        An Ankou clinging to the pediment of the south porch of a Breton Church.


According to  Anatole Le Braz, the 19th century Breton who collected and translated local songs and legends,

The Ankou is the henchman of Death (oberour ar maro) and he is also known as the grave yard watcher, they said that he protects the graveyard and the souls around it for some unknown reason and he collects the lost souls on his land. The last dead of the year, in each parish, becomes the Ankou of his parish for all of the following year. When there has been, in a year, more deaths than usual, one says about the Ankou:

– War ma fé, heman zo eun Anko drouk. ("On my faith, this one is a nasty Ankou.")
-The Legend of Death

 Every parish in Brittany has its own Ankou. Even if the deceased was a child, the Ankou is often depicted as a tall, haggard looking figure with long white hair, or a man with a cloak and wide brimmed hat wielding a scythe, or a skeleton whose head revolves, enabling him to see everything everywhere. Or a combination of all of the above. Sometimes the Ankou is depicted sitting on his cart with its squealing axles with which he traverses the area and stops to knock on the doors of those who are about to die.



                           

                       A very famous, world-changing death, but not Number 1 for everyone.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and of course, of the two thieves:
 the good thief who asked for forgiveness and the "bad" thief, so called,
because he didn't say those simple words,

 "I'm sorry."

http://www.ranker.com/list/99-famous-people-who-died-young/james707?format=SLIDESHOW&page=28

is a website listing 120 famous people who made an impact on the world and who died before they reached 50 years old. The creator of this website explains that the order of ranking is not hierarchical, but only in the order in which he thought of them.

Number 1- Jimi Hendrix,
 followed by Jim Morrison,
Kurt Cobain,
James Dean,
Otis Redding....
Jesus Christ ranked 28.

Most people died from a drug overdose. There were a few deaths caused by road or air accidents, a few from gun shot wounds, but there was only one death by crucifixion.

There is nothing quite like a famous person dying early to render them forever young, forever talented, forever important. How many bright stars slump into the dull, grey anonymity of middle age?  Which is more tragic?

An interesting article on this very topic-
On the Advantages of Dying Young
Jonathan David Price - 04/07/08
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=569

Fountain 57 Brasparts 1 Sept

                   Fest Noz,  Breton for "night festival" or  Fest Deiz, Breton for "day festival"

They came in troupes: little girls in pink aprons, women in severe black dresses with stiff, white lace hats perched on their heads, broad footed horses harnessed to two wheeled carts, and men puffing up their cheeks to breathe life into their bag pipes and bombarde.

The main road through Loperec was blocked for a few hours as they paraded and danced past the houses and the hoard of locals who were looking on. Their destination was a large meadow, where the crop had been harvested, leaving only the bare soil which rose up into dusty clouds as the dancers went round and round, faster and slower, their black shoes pounding and skipping across the earth.



                                          

                           
                           Women wearing modest lacy caps drive their decorated horse and cart.
                                                             (even Louise watches)

Some dancers wear taller caps, 'bigouden', made of starched embroidered linen that are tied 

under the chin.  In the past the style was a three-cornered peak, then in the 1900s 

they evolved into a tall cylindrical shape.

In the twentieth century the cap had increased in height,
reaching fifteen to twenty centimeters in the late 1920s
 and taller still after the Second World War.
Since 2000, the cap has hovered between 30 and 35 centimeters in height.

                            


Breton dancing has its roots in the middle ages, and many of the hundred or so different dances originate from this time. In rural areas the social event of a dance was very important for many reasons. The act of dancing as a group helped to bond all ages in a celebratory way, it gave the younger people a chance to eye up and meet the opposite sex, and it kept alive a traditional cultural identity.

In the past, apart from the pure physical pleasure, the dances were used to trample down the soil to make a firm earth floor for a house or agricultural structure. They were also part of the celebration of a saint's feast day. Today, especially during the summer months, Brittany is throbbing with Fest- Noz which pull the locals like bees to the honey pot, but are also quite welcoming to people with two left feet, like me.

On the 5th of December 2012, the Fest Noz was added by UNESCO to the "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity". This category really appeals to me because so much of life is intangible.
And of course, Plato argued that the intangible, e.g. such qualities as justice, temperance, knowledge etc was of more worth than the material.

             An interesting website to visit to see and hear for yourself.

 http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/RL/00707

                                                             the Fontaine of Saint Beneat

         I was shown the fountain by some English friends who have immigrated to Brittany.

Their young son ran ahead, thrilled to be showing me

 something he had recently discovered in the village that his mother knew nothing about.

     Newly restored, with fresh pointing and a varnished sign

did make the Fontain of St. Beneat quite easy to find if you wandered 

between the houses and were looking for a fountain.

                                                      
                                                      However, who is St. Beneat?
                      I have scoured the internet and several old books on the lives of the saints.
                                                 Wikipedia! even you have let me down.

Fountain 55 Saint-Junien 29 August

                                                       Nude Fountain on a roundabout

It feels terrible to say this, but on the surface, Saint-Junien appeared to be a 'neither here nor there' sort of place.

Usually I  just pootle along, following my nose in a general direction: south-east when going out from England and north-west when returning home. When there is the sun, this method works well for those with the greatest gift of all, after good health, the gift of plenty of time.

I was only passing through this little town on the rare occasion of having a predetermined destination.

 I still had two single men friends to make a wish for, and this nubile sculpture seemed, in a very

sexist way, I admit, a perfect fountain for them.
I knew they would appreciate the firm, fleshy thighs, the arms thrust back like swan wings as she  raised her unabashed bosom over the greenery. But then, who wouldn't appreciate this celebration of youth.

A sculpture like this towering over the cars and tractors at a busy roundabout in my rural part of Devon is unimaginable. She might cause a flood of letters to the local newspaper.  Or she would be clad in an array of graffiti tags within the week. Or possibly be the cause of serious traffic incidents as restless commuters in their Ford Focus battle with Massy Fergusons.

I admire the French attitude towards The Nude.

Some years ago in Brittany I was visiting a regional art museum where children were invited to make their own copy of a Matisse. The example they were given to work from wasn't something "safe" like a bowl of gold fish or fruit or textiles, but an odalisque.

I watch two brothers who were about six and eight years old. They drew the swirly whirly wall paper, the verticals of the bed posts, the odalisque's nose and nipples without prejudice. They set to with the rubber and corrected the angle of the pillow, added some folds to the drapery and adjusted the breast that was too far over to the left.

Then they put down their crayons, collected their super hero cuddly toys before taking their father's hand and left the room without a backwards glance.

                                               Matisse- Odalisque in Red Trousers, 1922

Fountain 56 Parthenay 31 August

Angels

Generally speaking, almost every religion recognizes Angels.

Sometimes they have wings and sometimes not.
 Sometimes they have bodies and sometimes not. 

In Christian iconography they are always beautiful, ageless and androgynous beings in gowns *,
 apart from putti, those plump and rosy toddlers,
who apparently are quite acceptable as naked little boys.

The word Angel is often translated to mean "messenger of God",
and sometimes it is defined as someone who has transcended
 above the mean pettiness of being human.

Allegedly, more people than not believe in Angels,**

especially Guardian Angels, who have helped
them in times of need.

Workmen Angels

 

An exhibition of larger than life-size photographs

 mounted on the outside walls of the market 

as part of the VI Bienale Internationale d' Arte Contemporaine de Melle.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Of course there are many unthinkable things.

And I hasten to add that I am still grateful that this particular unthinkable
thing wasn't that Louise and I had crashed and I was critically injured.

My unthinkable thing was that I lost the keys.
A small but paralysing thing to do.

On an unmarked road in the middle of nowhere

I discovered that I had lost all but one of Louise's keys.

I still had the ignition key, but without the immobiliser "key",

trying to start the engine would only activate an unstoppable and deafening siren.

I had taken this road only as a detour to find a quiet picnic spot,
which I had found, but I hadn't looked for any signs to say where I was
nor took particular notice of any houses I might have passed.

So I walked back the way I had come, anxious that 

without the wheel lock key, my most precious friend and companion
 was completely vulnerable to being wheeled away like the proverbial lamb to slaughter.

After a couple kilometers I flagged down the only passing car.
The driver listened with that familiar look of incomprehension to my story of woe
 and delivered me to the door of the Mairie who could speak English.

The Mairie and his wife were on the balcony finishing their coffee and newspapers
and leapt to my assistance.
 They drove me back to Louise and helped us freewheel down the remarkably
flat stretch of road to their house.
 The Marie trotted alongside me, smiling encouragement and
pushing whenever we ground to a halt.

The Marie's wife offered to take me to where I had last used the keys and didn't balk as I grimaced
and said that it was over 35 kilometers away. After we re-enacted my movements and had searched the spot in vain, we visited the local mairie and the police.
Then we slowly returned to their house while we scanned the road,
and for a few seconds a shriveled black banana skin had raised our hopes. 

The sun was setting and the Marie's wife announced,
 "There is nothing else we can do now so you must stay the night",
and with that she showed me to my room,
pressed a fluffy toweling dressing gown into my arms and pushed me into the bathroom.
 Despite the neighbour's concern that I might kill them in their beds,
I stayed a few days: resting in a real bed after weeks of camping, eating home-made cakes, practising my French and watching English videos to practise her English.
The Mairie de-mobilised the immobiliser with worryingly simple instructions over the telephone
 and drove me many kilometers to purchase a new wheel lock.
Then it was time to go. I folded my freshly washed clothes, tucked the packed lunch which the Mairie's wife had made into my pannier and set off on the last leg of my journey.

French Angels

Brigitte, Jean and T2

Aquarius, the water bearer, the altruist and humanitarian.

A fountain in Parthenay

* Archangel Michael slaying the Devil 

Having said that most Angels wear gowns, Michael is often depicted wearing clothes more suitable for the business of slaying devils. Of course, we must remember that symbols, such as armour, spears, evil-looking horned figures are metaphorical guides used to tell a story.

Now days, slaying devils is much more complicated and subtle. 

We can, if we choose, rise above all the pettiness, greed, and short sightedness of our extremely slow to learn human nature and slay devils with wisdom and compassion.

I can't say that I have I seen any historical evidence which proves that nuclear weapons, 

machine guns, sub-machine guns, grenades, bow and arrows, rifles, machetes, land mines, 

canon balls, mortar launchers, drones etc etc etc *** have truly been successful 

as we still have all the same old problems.

*** to see how impressively busy and inventive we have been 

at not using our wisdom and compassion, visit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_weapons

** who believes in Angels?
 77% of Americans, Italians and Croatians
     between 25-33% of Danes
      36% of Britons
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/21/do-believe-in-angels.html


"You do not see angels so much as feel their presence," said Father Lavatori, adding: "They are a bit like sunlight that refracts on you through a crystal vase."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10530177/Angels-exist-but-have-no-wings-says-Catholic-angelologist.html

St. Amand and his demon or how do we know who's knocking at our door? (ps. Fountain 55)

    I had intended to finish the Saint-Junien and Fountain 55 post and move on to Fountain 56

 however a dip into Wikipedia-land has struck a chord with me.

                                             


                                           
                                                             St. Amand and his demon
                                                 

The history of the town of Saint-Junien began around AD 500.

Saint Amand, an ascetic of Hungarian origin, was visited at his cell late in the night by Junian, a young noble lad from the north of France. Amand, afraid that the knock at the door was possibly a demon, did not answer, leaving Junian no option but to spend the night outside. During the night there was a terrific blizzard, however the snow miraculously spared the young lad. The next morning Junian returned again to Armand's cell, where in the reassuring light of day, he was recognised for who he was: an earnest young man from a good family.
 Junian became a disciple of Saint Amand and lived as a hermit until his death.

Already by 593, the traffic of pilgrims to the saint's tomb had impressed the great
Gallo-Roman historian, Gregory of Tours, who mentioned it in his writings.
Soon an abbey was built and the city expanded until 866 when the Vikings
 came along and destroyed it.
In the 1200s fortified city walls were built to protect the town and in 2013 I passed through without so much as a glimpse.

However, the particular chord I am referring to is "how do we recognise who is earnest?"

In small towns the problem doesn't really present itself. However, in the city,
I am frequently entreated to put coins in grubby hats,
disfigured hands, sparkling white paper cups from McDonald's, etc. etc.
Old men with filmy eyes play accordions, young men juggle clubs on unicycles at traffic lights, mothers nurse spindly legged toddlers....who am I to trust?

And as I shake my head and avert my eyes or feebly smile and fumble for some coins,
I feel terrible.
I feel like the bad Samaritan who looked away and ignored someone in need.
I feel like a gullible fool aware that when the takings are counted it most likely will
 exceed my humble income.
I feel like part of the problem as I am supporting a corrupt and cruel system of exploitation.

Of course, I am no wiser and have no answers,
but I feel slightly comforted that I am in good company.
 Despite a life dedicated to prayer, simplicity and a trust in God, even Saint Amand wasn't sure who was knocking at his door.