Fountain 51 Rioms e Montagnes 26 August

                                         " Fountain 51.  Cantal. wishes for Ali. cold and wet."

were the only comments I made in my very weathered fountain notebook.

 And now, nearly a year later, how clear the olfactory memories are:
  fresh rain on dusty tarmac and low clouds tinged with the warm honey scent of gorse flowers.

Nevertheless, the rain had already sodden my gloves and boots hours ago.
My wet hands and feet were freezing and the intrepid explorer in me
wanted only a dry tent, a hot shower and a nice cup of tea.

 If there was a campsite nearby it was hidden in the mists of this high and remote area.

 The fuel warning light had been illuminated for quite a while, like an elbow poke, warning me something like, "no pressure but you might get stranded here, soaked to the skin with an equally wet tent in the middle of nowhere with one shriveled carrot and a half a bag of peanuts." 

Despite the thousands of miles I've driven in France, I've never been able to fully understand the French relationship to petrol stations.

Italy seems to have an unannounced petrol station every few hundred yards.

In France, I've grown to doubt the road signs for the various supermarkets with their promise of 24/7 petrol. Too many times I have driven miles off course chasing an illusive E.Leclerc or Carrefour to discover that the petrol station was shut for lunch or because it is after 7pm and my credit card is rejected by the self-service machine.

                                                                     

       Rioms' fountain was built up against the church wall which is a bit unusual.

        (I am trying to be more careful with my "never seen this before"exclamations which only prove how unobservant I really am.)

 

                         Oops sorry sorry sorry... this cute little wonky Jesus was actually in Rioms
                                       not   "Fountain 50   Roffiac    25 August"

Fountain 50 Roffiac 25 August

                                                        
                                                              The tower at Rouffiac

The weather had changed quite suddenly after a sunny morning in Le-Puy.
A white grey sky threatened a passive sort of rain as I went deeper into the misty wilds of the Cantal.

The tower at Roffiac is only a half round and it sits unassumingly at the side of the road. Had it been a full round tower, I probably wouldn't have stopped. What appeared to be "missing" was more interesting than what was present.

I wish now that I had read the signs.
Or maybe I had and have forgotten what they said.

So often in life we either misread or forget the signs and then wonder why we end up in
 awkward and uncomfortable predicaments.

Even my 24-7 guru, Wikipedia, had little to offer apart from the absolute basics.
So now I know Roffiac has 27 people per square km.
 My mostly rural county, Devon, has 169 people per square km which is slightly more than Andorra's 167 and enormously less than Macao SAR China which has 19,885 people per square km.

Fortunately, or not, depending on how you look at it, Macao has only 31.3 km.

	Crucified Jesus with many ribs
		Very cute Jesus with a curiously wonky hand and leg. The cross also includes a serpent, a sheep, two small heads and something which reminds me of Sheelanagig, the sculpture, (http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/s/sheela-na-gig.aspx) not Sheelanagig, the band from Bristol, who are also very good.
	Fountain at Roffiac

Fountain 21 The Tree of Life or p.s. something I have found right under my nose, so to speak.

Silly me.
Having said on my Fountain 21 post:

  "Dore-L'Eglise
 c. 15th-16th Century stone cross depicting baby Jesus swaddled 
and patient in anticipation

 of his ultimate crucifixion thirty-three years later.

 

I have never seen this iconography on any of the hundreds of French stone crosses that I come across in my travels.....etc etc..."


                            
                   I then found this small (10x15 cm), low relief image of the swaddled baby Jesus.

It was hanging on the wall in my bedroom where it has hung for 15 years and suddenly, in my more domestic travels with a dusting cloth, I see it afresh.

The inscription INRI, Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm  (Latin for "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews") that was mounted above Jesus' head at the time of his crucifixion by the ironic Pontius Pilate, is replaced by a little plaque inscribed with "Arbor Vitae" at his feet.


I am always fascinated by the process of communication and the power of the symbolic inferences in the words we so easily use willy-nilly.

The Tree of Life can mean many things, sacred and profane, to many people:

• Mesoamerican world tree
• Tree of life (biblical), a tree in the Garden of Eden
• Tree of life (Kabbalah), a mystical concept within the Kabbalah of Judaism
• Tree of Life (Latter-day Saints), described in the Book of Mormon
• Tree of life vision, a more detailed description of Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life contained in the Book of Mormon
• Etz Chaim, a religious Hebrew term for "Tree of Life"
• Yggdrasil, the world tree in Norse mythology

                        

• Tree of life (biology), a metaphor describing the interrelatedness of living things through evolution
• Tree of Life Web Project, a collaborative project providing information about the diversity and phylogeny of life on Earth
• Arborvitae (Latin for "tree of life"), Thuja, a genus of coniferous trees
• Arbor vitae (anatomy) (Latin for "tree of life"), the cerebellar white matter, named for its branched, tree-like appearance
• Baobabs (sometimes called the "tree of life"), a genus of African tree
•  arbor vitæ uteri, a part of the canal of the cervix
   

• The Tree of Life, English version of Geedka nolosha (1988), a short film from Somali writer and director Abdulkadir Ahmed Said
• Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life, a 2009 BBC documentary
• T.o.L. ("Trees of Life"), is the collective name for the creators of the film Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
• The Tree of Life (film), a 2011 film directed by Terrence Malick
•  

• The Tree of Life, novel by Chava Rosenfarb 1972
• The Tree of Life, novel by Hugh Nissenson 1985
• The Tree of Life (Bernice Summerfield), a 2005 Dr Who novel by Mark Michalowski
• The Tree of Life, an exposition of magick written by Israel Regardie in 1932
• Tree-of-Life, a plot device in the Known Space science fiction stories

==Sculpture==*Wrap Sculptures series, Edenic collapsed-volume wrap sculpture "Trees Of Life" installations developed by Peter G Pereira, New York City

• Metaphor: The Tree of Utah, a sculpture in the Utah desert also known as the "Tree of Life"
• Tree of Life (craft) a clay sculpture style associated with Metepec, Mexico State
• Tree of Life (Kester) a Mozambican sculpture now in the British Museum
• Tree of Life (White), a sculpture at Mitchell Boulevard Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

• The Tree of Life (Cecil Taylor album), a 1998 album by Cecil Taylor
• The Tree of Life (soundtrack), a 2011 album by Alexandre Desplat; in association with film directed by Terrence Malick
• Tree of Life (Lila Downs album), album by Lila Downs
 

• The Tree of Life (Disney), the icon of Disney's Animal Kingdom
• The Tree of Life (module), an accessory for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game
• Tree of Life Christian Schools, a private school system in and near Columbus, Ohio
• Tree of Life, Bahrain, a solitary tree in the desert of Bahrain
• Árbol del Tule, a huge tree in Mexico also known as the "Tree of Life"
• The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center run by Gabriel Cousens

Wikipedia, again I bow down to you as a starting point and an ending point and all the points in between for the information/misinformation you so generously give.

Fountain 49 at the base of St Michel d' Aiguilhe Le Puy-en-Valey

I have already written about this visit in Le-Puy-en-Valey August 25, 2013
however, I am in my own personal and generally mistaken way, thorough and methodical,
and Fountain 49 comes after Fountain 48.

                                          The fountain at the base of St. Michael d' Aiguile

           

    Detail of the fountain with the Archangel Michael stamping down Satan, a fallen angel.

Interestingly, in these days of accusation, disharmony and divide between Christians (a term used very loosely because although being Christian is not fashionable, celebrating Christmas and Easter is ubiquitous) Jews and Muslims is an important commonality. 

All three religions believe that Archangel Michael is a leading angel 

who fights evil with the power of good.

He is the only angel mentioned by name in all three of the major sacred texts of the world's religions: the Torah (Judaism), the Bible (Christianity), and the Qur'an (Islam). 

If everyone is "believing" the same thing 

why are there so many problems with world peace and all that stuff?

Ok, hands up those who don't believe.

Fallen man is not allowed.

                
                                       Trefoil arch above the entrance to St. Michael's Church

The reliefs within this curious arch depict the Lamb of God (labeled with AGNUS DEI) 

in the center and four Elders of the Apocalypse hold vials on either side. 

Above the arch are elaborate vines populated with birds and two human figures

 with "Green Men" under their feet.

Below the arch are vines which issue from the mouths of large human heads 

and contain birds pecking at grapes.

The lintel is carved with two mermaids: one with a snake's tail and one with the tail of a fish.

I frequently come across these charming creatures in France and Italy.

And if my eyes were more open, I might find them more often in England.

Something I hadn't mentioned in my first writing about the history of St. Michael's Chapel:

There are three great stones, considered to be the remains of a prehistoric dolmen built 

at the top of the rock, that have been incorporated into St. Michael's Chapel.

Then later the Romans worshiped Mercury, the swift messenger god

 with his winged shoes at the site. 

When the area was eventually converted to Christianity the rock was consecrated

 to St. Michael the Archangel, the patron of high places.