'Who goes to Santiago and not to the Savior, visits the servant but forgets the Lord ...'

Leaving aside, but not without previously recognizing the important historical debt that the pilgrimage to Santiago has with Oviedo and its monumental cathedral, dedicated to the figure of the Savior -released both to a second plane, for a calculated political, economic and social interest endorsed by the strengthening of the borders, whose immediate consequences were the variation of the destination and the original routes, those, which to avoid 'the danger of the Moor', passed through the most rugged places, geographically speaking, of Álava and Asturias- It is also true that a considerable part of those paradigms that have always accompanied the human adventure left good influences, without a doubt, in such a legendary and spectacular place.

It is true, likewise, that like all or almost all vestige of our rich, rich past, the Cathedral of San Salvador has been affected by an important amount of alterations, whose loss, surely, supposes us, in more occasions of those that we would really like, go for obligation to that poor resource, which does not stop being, after all, speculation.

Even so, nevertheless, the good observer can still see, that in the end, and as discarded pieces of what we could consider an important part of that collective unconscious that so opportunely presented us C.G. Jung - on his person, I recognize that I am inclined eventually by the informal assertion that Enrique Eskenazi made of him, when affirming that he was not so much a psychologist worried about subjects of occultism, but rather an occultist disguised as a psychologist -, in whose deep strata , the psyche hides the priceless - and generally unattainable - treasure of the Symbol.

In this regard, it is also true that we do not have an instruction manual that guides us and points out, at each step of our journey, the guidelines that we must follow at each moment, each time that we stumble on our travels. involuntarily or not, with any of its expressions.

Nor is there a manual, which can categorically state in what specific place to look, although it could be said that, at least in terms of pilgrim graffiti, the covers of access to the temples seem to constitute that imaginary bulletin board, in which usually the pilgrim recorded, not only of his passage through the place, but also of the possible spiritual or emotional motivation, related to the trip he was making.

Possibly, and based on the persistence of certain symbols, we would have to put aside personal considerations and think about the possibility of a common language. A coded language, you could say, that can vary in the modus operandi, but that remains faithful in terms of the objective to achieve.

Within that supposed language, and by a repetition more than casual, there are certain symbols that stand out from the rest, and that, in some way, seem to keep, after all, a no less close relationship: among them, the leg of oca and the cross monxoi. Both, in their own way, not only relate to the test of the labyrinth or the initiatory journey that is being followed -which basically is about that-, but also, they share the final goal of this: the encounter with Sophia . Or what is the same, said without the Gnostic supplement, with Wisdom. At least, in its allegorical sense.

As allegorical it can also be to speak of marks of recognition, be it of the type that is the nature of what could be considered as a player: guild, association, brotherhood or solitary search engine. Present, likewise, there is another mark that seems original, of time and that is easily located in numerous Romanesque temples: the capitalized a or the compass, associated, at least, with the majority of medieval stonemason's guilds and sometimes, if we refer to the field of painting in the altarpieces, substitute for the Tau in the figure of San Antón, as you can see anyone who passes a day by the church of San Martín, in Artaiz, Navarra.

Next to this, and evidently manipulated, not only appear crossed swastika type, but what could well be considered as a geometric scheme, to which the stonemasons were very given, since they also used the stone as a support for planes: a rectangle of whose approximate center part a straight line, that could indicate the plant of the enclosure in question. To the central line, more vertical lines have been added, until it forms something similar to the leg of goose.

NOTICE: Originally published in my blog TRAS LAS HUELLAS DE LOS MEDIEVALES. 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://canterosmedievales.blogspot.com/2015/10/marcas-y-graffitis-en-la-catedral-de.html