Thin Places

[wayfarer]

After reading a great article by Eric Weiner and posted by WineShoppe Guy in another thread I realised that this article put into words something I have felt in several places both at home and while traveling. Having discussed these feelings with my father in law some years ago (a very wise man, now deceased) he explained it was because something good had happened in these places, or if you experienced a bad feeling or an unexplained sense of fear or dread, then something bad or evil had happened there sometime in the past. These I have experienced as well.
Have you experienced Thin Places at home or while traveling, on the Camino or otherwise, and have these places been significant to just you or others, in other words are Thin Places different for each individual.
I would love to hear your stories or opinions.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/1...out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?_r=1

 

[nellpilgrim]

The City at Shrone near Rathmore in Kerry is the site of a vey ancient pilgrimage. It's a Christian pilgrimage dedicated to the Virgin Mary now though the site has seen ritual usage for millennia. Archaeologists say that over time a massive burial cairn was likely reworked to provide a circular ritual platform encircled with wall and a ditch. If you pause from your prayers to look up and to the south from the enclosure you see 'The Paps' (in Irish Da Chich Anann=The breasts of Anu) each of their twin peaks have burial cairns located in an anatomically correct location so that from near and far the mountains resemble the breasts of a reclining woman. This was a ritual landscape dedicated to the Goddess Anu (she also gave her name to the River Danube) though even this ancient dedication may be a renaming of an even older deity. From from the top of the Paps one can see the location of all the early bronze age (2000 BC) hordes found in Kerry (the later Bronze age hordes are visible from Mount Brandon site of another now Christian pilgrimage). One could say the roots of the place run deep.
On Mays eve and May 1st (the old Celtic feast of Bealtaine held on the cusp between Spring and Summer celebrating the fertility of the coming year later morphing into a Marian feast day) local pilgrims come to The City 'to pay the pattern' -they come from town lands across the Cork Kerry county lines from places like Coolea, Ballyvourney, Millstreet, Rathmore, Barraduff and Glenflesk reflecting a collective identity much older than County boundaries and there is none of that fierce 'half in jest and whole in earnest' Cork/Kerry rivalry usually present at any cross county gathering.
You start the long series of set prayers at your own pace but gradually, as you 'follow the Pattern' walking and praying around the enclosure and weaving across it to various 'stations', you find yourself slowing down or speeding up- 'pacing' your rosaries to the landscape-so that you don't finish too soon and are left with nothing to say for 100 yards or end too late and have to 'gallop for the finish' by saying a decade over a few feet. By the time you've done a turn or two the landscape of the site has gently imposed it's tempo and cadence on you and all the other pilgrims. So at the end everyone finds themselves all walking/shuffling/slipping (well it's kerry in May so rain is not optional) around the circuit of the pattern together.
Each time I 'pay the pattern' at The City, as I do every May's eve and May day, I can see Knockanes where my Grandmother and Greatgrandmother taught school, the cleft in the mountains where my Grandfather and, as a young boy, my Father walked the old track from Glenflesk to Shrone. They came to pray, get the holy water from the well to bless their cattle and have a bit of sport (the older boys and girls did a bit of courting to!) I can see the shoulder of Crohane below which my Great grandfather and all before him farmed the shores of Lough Guitane and where I was reared and where I still have 'a bit of ground'. If I look North I see Meentoges and Banard where my younger cousins who, even though they "don't hold with all that", still wait for the holy water I'll bring them so they can bless their cow sheds (no one drives the herds up to the site to be blessed anymore) and who just happen to have a sprig of hawthorn in a vase near a small statue of the Our lady of Lourdes on their Kitchen countertops of course it's not a May bough or altar or anything like it.......... 'The City' is one of the places I know exactly where, who and why I am.......it's thin alright.

 

[wayfarer]

Beautiful, Nell.

 

[Kennedy1]

Last year I walked the CF going to Muxia and Finisterre during May and June. I had a insulated metal water bottle attached to the waist strap on my backpack and it would hang down and rest against my leg as I walked. Most days it would just rest against my leg as I walked but there were several days at different points on the Camino the bottle would bounce up and down as if was trying to get away. Once it was jumping around so much I had to unhook it from my pack and carry it in my hand. It was a bit spooky when this happened. Another pilgrim suggested it might be caused by the earth's energy lines that flow along the Camino route.

 

[koilife]

Another pilgrim suggested it might be caused by the earth's energy lines that flow along the Camino route.

Or perhaps just a combination of terrain, subtle positioning differences of the bottle, and walking biomechanics . . .

 

[koilife]

I think the more interesting questions revolve around what makes a person more highly attuned to "thin places", or whether "thinness" is a quality reserved just to places, or also to events and persons.

If we posit the existence of "thin places" as an objective reality, then why is it apparent to only some people and only some of the time? Is it even really about the place at all, or is (mostly) about the person beholding it? Do cultural conditioning and belief systems make one more or less likely to perceive "thinness" in various places or people or events? Is the perception a physiological function? Psychological? Spiritual? Does it originate with the person, or arise outside and simply resound withing him/her?

 

[Domnall]

I have walked from Le Puy to Santiago. On a number of occasions, as I walked alone, hearing another pilgrim coming up behind me, I stepped back to let him or her pass, to find that there was no one there. I was still alone, or was I?

 

[KiwiNomad06]

I was interested to see that Nell from Ireland was the first to respond to this thread. I read this same interesting article about 'thin places' by Weiner in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/travel/thin-places-where-we-are-jolted-out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html One paragraph read: "It’s not clear who first uttered the term “thin places,” but they almost certainly spoke with an Irish brogue. The ancient pagan Celts, and later, Christians, used the term to describe mesmerizing places like the wind-swept isle of Iona (now part of Scotland) or the rocky peaks of Croagh Patrick. Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter." I have actually climbed Croagh Patrick, and would describe it as a place I found 'thin'- and Lourdes too, where it seemed to be that the prayers of so many permeated the air.

When I reflect back I think there were many places I found 'thin' along the Camino. Le-Puy-en-Velay was my first- where it seemed like the footsteps of centuries of Marian pilgrims had formed the very stones. Sil recently mentioned in a thread how the view on the Meseta above Castrojeriz of a huge expanse of crops and sky took her breath away- and it did the same for me- surely a thin place when it induces such a 'wow'. When I stood on the top of O'Cebreiro I was aware of the ancient Romans and Celts who had also been there- and somehow that made it a 'thin' place for me. Walking across medieval stone bridges always brought me memories of the many pilgrims who had walked before, and I seemed to be part of their mystical throng at such times, even though I walked alone. I know I could add many more places, and I am sure others will...
Thanks wayfarer- interesting thread idea.
Margaret

 

[StuartM]

There's a place in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland called Kilmartin Glen. It has one of the densest concentrations of ancient sites in Europe.

It is a very special place. I dont know why. I always feel in touch with... something. The history of the place is so present, so real. I've taken both of the greatest loves of my life there and both were deeply affected by the place. In a way, I feel like my own history, in an unwritten way just like my predecessors, has become intertwined with it.

A truly wonderful place. Very special, indescribable feel to it. As an atheist and secularist calling it "magic" feels wrong but I cannot describe it any other way.

A place where the curtain between two worlds is drawn very thin.

 

[amorfati1]

T

After reading a great article Eric Weiner and posted by WineShoppe Guy in another thread I realised that this article put into words something I have felt in several places both at home and while traveling. Having discussed these feelings with my father in law some years ago (a very wise man, now deceased) he explained it was because something good had happened in these places, or if you experienced a bad feeling or an unexplained sense of fear or dread, then something bad or evil had happened there sometime in the past. These I have experienced as well.
Have you experienced Thin Places at home or while traveling, on the Camino or otherwise, and have these places been significant to just you or others, in other words are Thin Places different for each individual.
I would love to hear your stories or opinions.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/1...out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?_r=1

Thank you VERY much for posting this article!
Walking in the Alps i recall many of locations this article calls "thin places".
Makes me envision to hike in the alps again....
Thanks again!

 

[mspath]

Santa Maria de Eunate in the moonlight October 18, 2011, was true perfection.
Nestled into the rolling countryside this small, circular structure is more than 1000 years old and may be based on the plan of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Protected within the dim interior one senses the deep peace of eternity. ... In 2011 four other pilgrims and I shared warm hospitality in the adjacent albergue (now unfortunately closed) and held a simple candlelit prayer service in the mystic church giving thanks for our caminos, our lives and our loves.

Afterwards as I sat alone in the moonlit cloister all seemed timeless; here pilgrims have worshiped for one thousand years. The memory of their past presence weighed that extraordinary night; the shadows were heavy with their history.

For me, as for those multitudes, Eunate is close to paradise on earth. May peace in this beloved place reign another thousand years.

Margaret Meredith

 

[wayfarer]

I think the more interesting questions revolve around what makes a person more highly attuned to "thin places", or whether "thinness" is a quality reserved just to places, or also to events and persons.

If we posit the existence of "thin places" as an objective reality, then why is it apparent to only some people and only some of the time? Is it even really about the place at all, or is (mostly) about the person beholding it? Do cultural conditioning and belief systems make one more or less likely to perceive "thinness" in various places or people or events? Is the perception a physiological function? Psychological? Spiritual? Does it originate with the person, or arise outside and simply resound within him/her?

For me the answer to that question is openness of mind. Whether we like to believe it or not we are all conditioned as we grow to follow one belief or another and if that conditioning or belief tells you that this is the right belief and all others are not, then that closes ones mind to many other things in the world and universe IMO. Young children have open minds and they are probably more open to Thin Places. One of my own kids, when he was four, made the hair stand on the back of my neck when he told us he had been before to a place we were visiting for the first time. When questioned he said, a long time ago when I was old I used to fish here with my friends and sometimes I would share the fish with them if they didn't catch any. Further questioning provided no more information, he was back to being a four year old again.

 

[Kanga]

Every time I visit the Cathedral in Leon the tears form. It's those windows and the light. And something more. The place is heavy with the presence of those who lifted the pieces of window into place.

Thirty years ago, in the Yorkshire Dales, I was wandering along in a reverie and came unexpectedly across a section of Roman road. It stopped me in my tracks. To this day I don't know if I really heard the sound of horses hooves and chariot wheels.

My prosaic spouse says I probably hadn't eaten enough breakfast.

 

[koilife]

For me the answer to that question is openness of mind. Whether we like to believe it or not we are all conditioned as we grow to follow one belief or another and if that conditioning or belief tells you that this is the right belief and all others are not, then that closes ones mind to many other things in the world and universe IMO. Young children have open minds and they are probably more open to Thin Places. One of my own kids, when he was four, made the hair stand on the back of my neck when he told us he had been before to a place we were visiting for the first time. When questioned he said, a long time ago when I was old I used to fish here with my friends and sometimes I would share the fish with them if they didn't catch any. Further questioning provided no more information, he was back to being a four year old again.

I think too that the very conditioning that closes a mind in one direction can also open it wider in others. As I have grown in my faith (Catholicism), I find that I am far more sensitive to "thinness" in sacred spaces and in the sacraments, but probably less so to oak groves and fairy rings (I have those on the brain right now because I had dinner two nights ago with a young man majoring in Irish Studies and the Irish language).

Also, I find the age of things to increase the experiences of thinness. It is mind-boggling, as an American, walking through villages along the Camino where the newest building predates the founding of our country, and most of the churches along the way predate the discovery of our continent. I suspect it has to do with recognition of just how small I am in the great scheme of things. I have similar experiences at the old Mayan and Aztec ruins of Central America and various Native American sites in my own country.

 

[Tincatinker]

Avebury and its vast complex of neolithic structures does it for me. Walking the Avenue from the Sanctuary on Overton Hill up to the great South Circle its easy to slip out of time to where there is no traffic noises, no 'planes in the sky and to feel the mounting excitement of the throng.

 

[nellpilgrim]

"I was interested to see that Nell from Ireland was the first to respond to this thread. I read this same interesting article about 'thin places' by Weiner in the New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/travel/thin-places-where-we-are-jolted-out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html One paragraph read: "It’s not clear who first uttered the term “thin places,” but they almost certainly spoke with an Irish brogue. The ancient pagan Celts, and later, Christians, used the term to describe mesmerizing places like the wind-swept isle of Iona (now part of Scotland) or the rocky peaks of Croagh Patrick. Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter." I have actually climbed Croagh Patrick, and would describe it as a place I found 'thin'- and Lourdes too, where it seemed to be that the prayers of so many permeated the air". KiwiNomad06

Margaret I think that it's true but only in the way it seems that the Irish haven't yet completely 'forgotten' that sense of visceral connectedness to others past and present. Actually I think this is common in all communities but that somehow it get's lost in busy modern lives. That sense seems to comes with 'eye and ear' for any human signatures left behind -however ephemeral- an old field system, a place name, the trace of an old path or even just a feeling.
I notice in the way that I, and other Irish people I've observed, actively (perhaps even sometimes intrusively?) strive for connection with people and keep drilling down until we find at least one thing-however tenuous-that makes 'the connect' for us. Uncovering 'the thin place' between us and the 'other' is one way of integrating them into our group and visa versa I guess. The individual is important of course (perhaps increasingly so in modern Ireland) but it's still the web of connections between individuals, both past and present, that make up our community. Which is why you can never just make friends with one Irish person but are expected to take on our extended family and friends......and God bless you that includes the ancestors to.....

 

[Former member 19626]

This is the last paragraph from the "ThinPlaces" article by Weiner that drove home for me the essential point.

"Yet, ultimately, an inherent contradiction trips up any spiritual walkabout: The divine supposedly transcends time and space, yet we seek it in very specific places and at very specific times. If God (however defined) is everywhere and “everywhen,” as the Australian aboriginals put it so wonderfully, then why are some places thin and others not? Why isn’t the whole world thin?

Maybe it is but we’re too thick to recognize it. Maybe thin places offer glimpses not of heaven but of earth as it really is, unencumbered. Unmasked."

Buen Camino, indeed!

 

[wayfarer]

I think too that the very conditioning that closes a mind in one direction can also open it wider in others. As I have grown in my faith (Catholicism), I find that I am far more sensitive to "thinness" in sacred spaces and in the sacraments, but probably less so to oak groves and fairy rings (I have those on the brain right now because I had dinner two nights ago with a young man majoring in Irish Studies and the Irish language).

Also, I find the age of things to increase the experiences of thinness. It is mind-boggling, as an American, walking through villages along the Camino where the newest building predates the founding of our country, and most of the churches along the way predate the discovery of our continent. I suspect it has to do with recognition of just how small I am in the great scheme of things. I have similar experiences at the old Mayan and Aztec ruins of Central America and various Native American sites in my own country.

Well put koilife, thats the beauty of a good discussion, you learn something new and get another perspective on the issues.

 

[LiesbethSA]

After reading a great article Eric Weiner and posted by WineShoppe Guy in another thread I realised that this article put into words something I have felt in several places both at home and while traveling. Having discussed these feelings with my father in law some years ago (a very wise man, now deceased) he explained it was because something good had happened in these places, or if you experienced a bad feeling or an unexplained sense of fear or dread, then something bad or evil had happened there sometime in the past. These I have experienced as well.
Have you experienced Thin Places at home or while traveling, on the Camino or otherwise, and have these places been significant to just you or others, in other words are Thin Places different for each individual.
I would love to hear your stories or opinions.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/1...out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?_r=1

Wayfarer thanks for the NY Times link, and, yes, I am also " drawn to places that beguile and inspire, sedate and stir, places where, for a few blissful moments I loosen my death grip on life, and can breathe again ... locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine" I experienched "thiness" at the Château de Cillon near Montreux : Byrons poem on Bonivard, Sian Ka'an in Mexico where "the sky is born" the eastern Escarpment in South Africa and every night the Crux and Milky Way just up here!! Looking forward to experience the Meseta - hope it will be another thin experience!!

 

[Tia Valeria]

@Tincatinker: - Avebury - Yes. Also Carnac in a light mist; St James, Lancaut; and many places along the Camino Primitivo, so much so that you can feel when you have strayed or been diverted off the old Way.

 

[robertt]

I walked with a group of French geobiologists who were very hard-headed types in the main but who took holidays together to check out geo-bio energies and lines. Dangling pendulums in churches was their big thing. They didn't seem to mind anybody's skepticism - one permanent member was a complete skeptic - and I found them to be great company. The strangest thing they told me was that the Cathedral in Santiago had no energies, having lost its "Jordan", for some reason. That's what they said! Like Kanga, I got a special feel from the interior of Burgos Cathedral. Who knows?

I wrote about my geo-bio mates here:
http://slowcamino.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/the-dawdler-meets-the-danglers/
http://slowcamino.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/pimbo-and-the-pendulums/

 

[Tincatinker]

@Tincatinker: - Avebury - Yes. Also Carnac in a light mist; St James, Lancaut; and many places along the Camino Primitivo, so much so that you can feel when you have strayed or been diverted off the old Way.

Tia, thanks. I am really looking forward to the Primitivo. There seems to be almost innumerable sites and structures that point to a route from way, way, back. Castro is high on my list of must sees.

 

[musicagl]

I finished my Camino this past Friday, 13 June and spent a considerable amount of time in the Cathedral in Santiago. More than any other place on the Camino, I felt that the Cathedral was a "thin place." The curtain between reality and the divine seemed gossamer thin in the Cathedral and I was blown away by my reaction to the space.

 

[C3 to Camino]

I should have known the Camino community would be discussing thin places! This only happen to me when I'm at peace and quiet with myself, serene. It's happened quite a few times in various places, both historic and not.

Close to the Camino, when we were in Galicia last July we went to the Castro de Barona. I had to be careful walking on a trail (I'm told it's about a mile long) as it's quite rocky and I still haven't recovered my strength and stamina. One guide describes the trail as follows: "Additionally, expect the worse path you have ever encountered, it is truly appalling and highly dangerous and, without trying to cause further alarm, we crossed two areas splattered with blood, no doubt from recent falls."

When I finally stopped and looked up my heart stopped - I could just see the Castro through the trees (pic attached). Crossing the narrow causeway, passing around the defensive walls, up the stairs... and just sitting there surrounded by round houses, with the sound of the waves crashing below. Thinking of raising children there (!) a couple of thousand years ago, of being attached and defending my community, of worshiping wind and sea and sun and moon. It just seemed as if I could see and smell and hear it all.

 

[TerryB]

Have you experienced Thin Places at home or while traveling, on the Camino or otherwise, and have these places been significant to just you or others, in other words are Thin Places different for each individual.
I would love to hear your stories or opinions.

After one of our local walks here in the U.K. I wrote the following. This "feeling" also came a number of times on various Caminos.

Across the field and down between steep banks
This ancient trackway runs. A way worn deep
Into the very bedrock of the land
By many iron shod hoofs and wheels and feet.

Who knows but what there may have passed this way,
The Celtic warrior armed with shield and spear,
Leaving behind his loved ones safe at home
Within the castle dike on hilltop near.

Who knows how many of the folk of old
Briton and Roman, Angle, Saxon, Dane:
With horse and hound, chariot, cart and sledge
Helped form this treasure of a country lane.

The ruined longhouse, roofless now, lies near
Above the river, in its valley green.
Once men and women, children, all lived here
Made tears and laughter part of this dear scene.

All, all are gone now, silence reigns within
The woodland copse and by the riverside.
Here can I stand and listen for the past
To speak to me with voices time can't hide.

The track worn down with countless wheels and feet,
The fallen walls, the ford across the stream.
The life once lived here lives again for me,
And modern life becomes the unreal dream.

©Tio Tel 2012



Blessings
Tio Tel

 

[Pelegrin]

Terry I had the same "feeling" in front of the Roman gold mine "A Freita" in Hospitales (Camino Primitivo).

I "heard" Latin words spoken by the people in charge of the mine. Celtic/indoeuropean languages spoken by Galaic and Astur workers (different from each other), the bereber language spoken by workers brought from North Africa. And maybe Britonic from Britain, Germanic, Dacian, etc. spoken by Roman soldiers.

In other words, this route "Hospitales" has heard different languages in History. Now that tradition is continued by the Camino.

 

[AJ]

The various pilgrimage routes are a string of thin places, like a string of pearls. But their thinness is not perceptible to everyone, nor all the time. Nevertheless they have their effect on all pilgrims and when those pilgrims come together, at Santiago say, the effect is magnified.

 

[maggiec]

After reading a great article Eric Weiner and posted by WineShoppe Guy in another thread I realised that this article put into words something I have felt in several places both at home and while traveling. Having discussed these feelings with my father in law some years ago (a very wise man, now deceased) he explained it was because something good had happened in these places, or if you experienced a bad feeling or an unexplained sense of fear or dread, then something bad or evil had happened there sometime in the past. These I have experienced as well.
Have you experienced Thin Places at home or while traveling, on the Camino or otherwise, and have these places been significant to just you or others, in other words are Thin Places different for each individual.
I would love to hear your stories or opinions.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/1...out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?_r=1

Just stumbled across this thread and I am so excited. I had a huge experience of thin spaces on the Camino and it changed my life. I wrote about it in my blog, not knowing what it was, but later discovered that I had tipped over into a thin space. Everything was silent, I was in a state of euphoria and peace, and I even wondered if I was dead! I was frozen on the spot and could feel the pulse of the earth coming up through my feet. The atmosphere was ‘breathing’. It sounds so weird but I was very relieved to find that I was not going crazy. This was on the meseta.
I came home and wrote a book about my experience! Thank you for endorsing my experience

 

[LesBrass]

Hello... I'd never heard of thin places until my lovely walking buddy on the VdlP told me about them. Oddly I talked about this just recently for international woman's day... I read them this extract from my blog and almost sobbed my way through... even reading it again now makes me emotional.

https://caminobrassblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/04/sally-and-the-thin-space/

 

[Anamiri]

What a wonderful concept. For me Rabanal to Molineseca felt 'thin' a lot of the time. And again at OCebreiro looking down across the mist filled valleys.

 

[Purky]

In this light it is curious that the recently deceased Stephen Hawking, not your run of the mill intellectual pushover, spent his final time on earth studying the possibility of multiple parallel universes. I am a practical man, and for the most part skeptical about transcendence, mainly because I feel I don't need the divine or the Infinite Whatever to grasp the wonder and maybe even miracle of our existence and consciousness.

But, and it's a big but, I also had quite a lot of experiences like the ones described in this thread that defied my practicality and skepticism. So I remain open and respectful about these things. And frankly I hope these experiences will keep happening to me, because they really get my blood going.

 

[Abigail Kelly]

After reading a great article by Eric Weiner and posted by WineShoppe Guy in another thread I realised that this article put into words something I have felt in several places both at home and while traveling. Having discussed these feelings with my father in law some years ago (a very wise man, now deceased) he explained it was because something good had happened in these places, or if you experienced a bad feeling or an unexplained sense of fear or dread, then something bad or evil had happened there sometime in the past. These I have experienced as well.
Have you experienced Thin Places at home or while traveling, on the Camino or otherwise, and have these places been significant to just you or others, in other words are Thin Places different for each individual.
I would love to hear your stories or opinions.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/1...out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?_r=1

It's something that I have never felt until I did the spirt way on Camino. Thin places never gave to much thought until now!