Both inside and outside the traditional pilgrimage routes there are places that still, after centuries and happily unconcerned by the ineffable passing of that authentic sword of Damocles that is time, invite us to a very special kind of journey: the reflective journey.
Back, then, to the misty lands of Navarre and retracing the path that comes and goes, following the white trail of that tributary of the Ebro that is the Aragon River, the traveler retraces his steps and ends up, for the second time, in the intricate labyrinths of the castle of Javier.
Open, as always, to sensations, he once again walks through the arcane rooms, today converted into small time capsules, where, apart from artistic visions of the life of the town's favourite son, Saint Francis Xavier, he once again pauses, both anguished and suspicious, at those anonymous Flemish works of art, with hidden and intentional symbolism, which are so fascinating to him today, as fascinating have always been the profound metaphysical lessons that underlie their essence: the Holy Face, the penitent Magdalene and that 'Noli me tangere' or 'Don't touch me', after the Resurrection.
Imbued, then, with that Metaphysics, that school of occult knowledge that has always aroused so much interest in artists, both at one end and the other of the boundaries of the eras and styles, he finally ends up in that small tower that Juan de Jaso, the father of Francisco Javier, fitted out as a chapel to house the impressive image of a Gothic Christ, at the end of a century, the 15th, where this revolutionary style still retained much of its freshness, vigor and originality.
Narrow in the center and elongated at the ends, like the cover of a coffin, the solitary Calvary is accompanied by some paradigmatic scenes, which, despite having been very popular during almost the entire Middle Ages, hardly any testimonies remain today and perhaps, for that reason, among the few that exist, this Javier Chapel constitutes a surprising novelty: the Dances of Death.
Perhaps, too, it was this type of representation that inspired poets such as Jorge Manrique to write those genuine verses entitled ‘Verses on the Death of his Father’ and, the traveller cannot help thinking, it may even have been inspired by that famous sentence by the Latin poet Horace, from Carpe Diem: live, enjoy the moment because it is the only thing you have, since all hours hurt, except the last, which kills.
Death, with a smile as enigmatic as that of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, dances and rejoices because she knows that in the end she will reach us all with her scythe: without distinction, without differences, taking with her also those triumphs and those failures that have mattered so much to us in life, subject, as we are, to the vain seduction of the game of appearances.
And fortunately, thinks the traveler, before moving away meditatively, there are still places, like Javier's castle, that remind us that life is fleeting and our vanities are mere and fleeting ashes.
NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property and therefore are subject to my Copyright.
