'More things you will find in the woods than in the books; the trees and the stones can make you see what the teachers will never know how to teach you. Do you think that you can not get honey from the stones, oil from the hardest rock? Could it be that the mountains do not exude sweetness ?. Could it be that the hills do not suck milk and honey? Could it be that the valleys are not full of wheat? I have so many things to say to you, that I can barely contain myself ... '.
[San Bernardo (1)]

When you have the opportunity to visit a place of the characteristics of this Monsacro, or Asturian Sacred Mountain, you have the opportunity, as well, to understand, feel and make own these beautiful words of one of the most brilliant and lucid minds of the Middle Ages: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux or, appropriately Latinized, his surname, if not his origin, of Clairvaux

In a way, San Bernardo is partly to blame for my recent adventure through Asturo lands; that, for not mentioning that mystical writer of Brazilian origin - Paulo Coelho - and also make his own personal philosophy that when you want something really, the whole Universe conspires to put it within reach.

Conspiracies and sponsorships apart, what is clear, is that my interest in the Order of the Temple, does not stop providing unusual surprises and moments of special relevance. And yet, the truth is that, leaving aside the possible templar connotations that can be ascribed to the place-untranslatable to date, although plausible to hypothetical reasoning based on some odd probabilities, which I will explore at another time and place-when one reaches the top, without breathing but aware of the great beauty that has been contemplating during the difficult ascent, his first impression, is none other than that which leads him to think that has crossed the border of another world.

Literally speaking, of course, it could be compared to those near-death experiences, in which patients whose lives have strayed from a thread, describe a mystical experience at the end of the tunnel. Because that, for me, meant the arrival at the top of this emblematic mountain; a mystical experience in which, along with the sweat of the effort -juraments included-, all signs of worldliness slipped away, to give way, plain and simple, to what could well be called the universe of the Spirit.

It is for this reason, that I would not define the Monsacro as a Place of Power; but, rather, as a Place of the Spirit. A place that, although having been Christianized already in times of the Muslim conquest -according to one of the legends, there were deposited the sacred relics brought by Saint Toribio of Jerusalem, later transferred to the cathedral of Oviedo by King Alfonso VI- was the scene symbolic and sacred of previous cultures, of which still survive, if not the dolmens that are supposed to have been, some funerary burial mounds, like the one that can be seen below where the Hermitage of La Magdalena rises.

A hermitage, perhaps less interesting for some, for not having the octagonal plant of its neighbor, the hermitage of Santiago (2), but that remembers, for its structure, that of Maderuelo, in the province of Segovia, whose dedication is none other than that of the Vera Cruz.

Going up to the Monsacro, then, regardless of the templar mood that can be lodged in the heart of each one (3), entails an exercise of spiritual self-satisfaction, in which little or nothing matters the origin of the hand that raised both temples, but rather the reason why he elevated them.

And a curious fact to keep in mind: only those who come from outside say climb the Monsacro; those of the place and those of the surrounding villages, always say: go up to La Madalena, as it sounds, with that lack of spelling that so upsets that remarkable figure that is your pastor, the dear friend Don Miguel Ángel García Bueno .

Notes, References and Bibliography:

(1) Bernardo de Claraval: 'Epistle 106'.
(2) Formerly under the invocation of Our Lady of Monsacro.
(3) On July 25, 2011, the newspaper La Nueva España highlighted the intention of the mayor of Santa Eulalia de Morcín, to put 12,000 euros available to archeologists of the University of Oviedo to demonstrate the Templar provenance of both hermitages .

NOTICE: originally posted on my blog MEMORIES OF A PILGRIM. Both the text and the photographs that accompany it are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry, where you can check the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://jc347.blogspot.com/2011/08/monsacro-aventura-en-el-monte-sagrado.html