Friday, February 11: Time for a lunch-time walk along the hilly trail that Saint Ivan Rilski followed out of what is now the town of Rila. At the spot where he discovered a spring, water still runs, and a picnic site has recently been added. Except that we didn’t bring lunch… A little further east another sign tells of the legend that local residents prayed six centuries ago that a boulder would hide their church from the view of the incoming Turks,
only to wake up the next morning to find their church…hidden from view by a boulder. Now there is a little chapel in the name of the same saint, Saint Nedelya, at the side of the road just east of Rila. Also along this path are some of the most interesting – and potentially unstable – rock formations in the region, several types of power poles (currently in use and no longer in use), and on this day – after a week of sunny weather and non-freezing daytime temperatures – only a few patches of ice and unmelted snow. 
Sunday, February 13: Today our good friend Susan braved Bulgarian buses with her younger daughter (Ivy, 8 months old) to join us for an afternoon in Rila and at the Rila Monastery. Ivy is the dream baby, and she and her mom clearly have everything worked out so that things like pacifiers and crying seem to be entirely unnecessary! In fact theirs is that deeper, more elemental kind of daughter-mother understanding that looks so effortless and eternal to the occasional observer (me) that I come away convinced that it is just that, allowing myself to forget about the experience and wisdom, the daily discipline and devotion, that lie beneath the surface of this picture-perfect relationship.
We took the rarely-traveled route through Smochevo to give Susan a sense of the 360-degree panoramic view encompassing Rila, Pirin, plus Vitosha and the Macedonian mountains that would have been perfect if the clear skies had held over through the weekend, getting to the monastery after the rush of Sunday visitors had subsided. I was pleased that the monastery's museum stayed open long enough for Susan to see the double-sided wooden cross that a monk named Raphael finished early in the 19th century. The monastery website describes Raphael’s Cross as “a unique work of art…made of a whole piece of wood (81cm x 43cm) ... The monk used fine chisels, small knives and magnifying lens to carve 104 religious scenes and 650 small figures into the cross. The cross was finished in 1802 after the monk worked on it for no less than 12 years, losing his sight upon completion.
For me, seeing the real thing, in all of its intricate three-dimensional detail, for the first time 17 or 18 years ago was a powerful and lasting experience. This cross wasn’t just creative expression for Raphael, it was his personal form of daily communion, his way of nurturing his religious devotion and giving it an outward form. And this astonishing cross makes that devotion seem to me so effortless, eternal…
Geoff, I'm not able to fathom the meaning of your statement, "And this astonishing cross makes that devotion seem to me so effortless, eternal…," given (1) that the carving-chiseling work involved was manifestly painstaking, and (2) that the monk's enterprise happened in real time, he went blind, then he died (so where does eternity come into it--other than perhaps by way of the fact that he is going to be dead for a real long time?).
ReplyDeleteYou're a beautiful writer, Geoffrey. Thanks for the nice post and for a really lovely day. I look forward to more...
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I hadn't seen any of your Feb. posts until today. Enjoyed them all. I recall the cross and the Rila Monastery. I think looking at that cross again would take my remaining eyesight.
ReplyDeleteGeoff, I hope that my question about your statement about the "astonishing cross" didn't come off as impertinent or otherwise offensive. I do of course have a point of view on devotion and other religious practices, but I really was seeking first to understand what you meant (before I might comment further, or not).
ReplyDeleteHey Moristotle, sorry I haven't responded. Not much time for blogging lately. Honestly, when I wrote about the cross I had the urge to write much more, but didn't have time to do that properly, so I wrapped it up quickly with the second reference to effortless, eternal. What I really had wanted to express was how I feel about that cross as something that lives on past its creator's death, something that symbolizes or at least offers clues to the monk's outlook on life, his religious faith expressed through work that was creative and yet probably as systematic as saying the daily prayers. I imagine the monk as having fulfilled a personal mission, and being satisfied with the result that, ironically, he couldn't really see, and I envy him that satisfaction. He took this 12-year Biblical journey without leaving the monastery -- there's part of the effortlessness -- he didn't physically go anywhere. But the effort, the element of sacrifice, is (are) there too. The choice (if he had a choice) to become a monk, adding the crafting of this cross to a limited set of activities, then going blind. I'm not sure where i'm going with this, but there's a story here -- in the cross, its creation, about Raphael himself -- or many possible stories, that I feel moved to imagine whenever I think about the cross.
ReplyDeleteGeoff, I just discovered (almost four months to the day later) that I had not read your reply to my last comment. I guess I should have "subscribed by email" (as I see a link for that below, as I write this), and I'll do that now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for "unwrapping" what you'd said hurriedly and cryptically in the post. I appreciate that.
And I continue to hope, fervently, that you'll return to post to this blog soon!
I sure miss your posts! If I knew you weren't doing them because you were working on your thesis, I'd feel a lot better about there not being any.
ReplyDeleteApparently, though, according to what you told us in Vermont, it hasn't been doctoral dissertation work keeping you from blogging, but other activities.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you haven't been blogging lately partly because you got out of the habit of blogging? For a while there anyway, you were blogging often enough to give the impression that it was a regularly scheduled routine. And you seemed to be really enjoying it.
I hope that you can re-establish that routine and recapture the enjoyment, not only for your readers, but also for yourself.