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Chartres Cathedral in France
Poet Mary Oliver said “Do what brings you joy and then write about it.” Often writing about joyful or blissful times are as difficult as writing about those times where we suffered some misjustice or harm. When describing joyful events, we don’t want to sound sentimental or corny so how to express the often-inexpressible feelings we experience during blissful times?
Music allows us to access those moments of bliss and joy, whether we’re composing, performing, listening or singing. Memoir writers are encouraged to play music from whatever period of time they’re writing about as music can take us right to those moments and what we were feeling, much as smell can do.
I recently joined Maui Choral Choir where we are practicing for a December Christmas concert. The director has sent us links to online recordings of the songs so that we can practice at home as well as at weekly rehearsals. While scrolling through other YouTube music videos, I came across one of my favorites: Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, one of the last symphony’s he wrote. In spite of almost being completely deaf, Beethoven spent almost a year trying to figure out how to introduce words into the final movement. Influenced by the poetry of Friedrich Schiller and his poem “Ode to Joy” that celebrated freedom and the ideas of the Enlightenment, Beethoven wanted to set Shiller’s words to music. It would be the first time any composer had ever woven lyric poetry or words into a symphony.
Click HERE to hear an amazing re-creation of “Ode to Joy” by Ukrainian composer/conductor Victoria Vita Poleva.
This musical recreation is the closest piece of music I’ve heard that puts me in the frame of mind that I experienced during my first visit to Chartres Cathedral in France when I lived in Paris. Enjoy the music and this short excerpt from my memoir A Southern Belle in Paris.
Today’s Excerpt from A Southern Belle in Paris:
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL & A BLACK MADONNA
Black Madonna & Child at Chartres Cathedral
Before entering the church, we stopped at a souvenir shop near the entrance filled with rows of statues, rosary beads, ashtrays, and postcards lining the walls. Card after card showed the same image of a Black Madonna holding a child. Although there were no images or statues of a Madonna and child inside the Baptist church where I’d grown up, I had seen countless paintings and icons of mother and child in museums, art books and churches throughout Europe. But never a Black Madonna and child. How totally curious, I thought, picking up one of the cards, paying the cashier two francs, and sticking it in my handbag where I’d forget about it for years to come, unaware that the Once and Future Goddess, the Divine Feminine, had just reached out and placed a symbol of Herself directly inside my purse for my future self.
Inside the cathedral we signed up for a tour with a British guide named Malcolm Andrews, internationally recognized for his knowledge and expertise on Chartres and in particular on the Black Madonna whose mysterious energy said to reside inside the cathedral he’d helped to perpetuate through careful research and talks he’d given to tens of thousands of tourists over the years.“I came to Chartres to do research many years ago,” Andrews began by saying to our small tour group,” and stayed on because of the energy of the Black Virgin of Chartres, one of the many mysteries belonging to this sacred place. How could such a magnificent building have been built during the twelfth century? Who were its architects? Who had knowledge and skills necessary to design and construct such a great work? It was,” Andrews declared with authority, “none other than the famous knights of the cross, the Knights Templar!”
Labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral
“Follow me,” Andrews said as he guided our group to a stone carving of two knights on horseback wearing shirts that bore the symbol of a cross. As we stared up at one of the many history lessons said to be carved in stone throughout the cathedral, he explained, “During the Crusades, the Knights Templar were monks who took up the sword to defend the thousands of pilgrims traveling the roads to the Holy Land of Jerusalem against the infidels who lay in wait to attack them and steal their belongings. Once Jerusalem was taken back from the infidels by the Christians, the Knights Templar were given housing for themselves and their horses on the very spot where Solomon’s temple was reputed to have stood. It was there, so myth has it…and by the way, myths are not mere idle or made-up stories but are the repositories of ancient wisdom … the Knights began to dig for the famed Arc of the Covenant, thought to contain not only the tablets of law God gave to Moses, but also something else that was unknown to the general public: the Arc of the Covenant also contained sacred tools of measurement used to build the amazing Chartres cathedral and all the other Gothic wonders in stone.”
“When can we eat mommy?” Marie asked, pulling at my dress to get my attention.
“We’re hungry,” Alex chimed in, “and this is boring.”
“Just a little longer,” I whispered. “We’ll eat once Mr. Andrews has finished, ok?”
“Go walk the circle in the back,” Saren suggested to the children, motioning towards the beautiful labyrinth at the back of the cathedral.
Vaulted Ceiling of Chartres Cathedral
We followed Andrews around the cathedral like a group of excited school children on a field trip to a dinosaur museum. We were intensely focused on his presentation filled with strange ideas that made no sense. “There’s an unexplainable energy which emanates from a dark-faced statue of the Virgin Mary found decades ago in an underground chamber of the cathedral and is kept beneath the alar of the church. She is a living presence.”
No one said a word as we continued to follow Andrews who had now paused underneath the transept window from the 12th century called the Rose Window, a massive circular window with a geometrical pattern of roses, like flower petals made of thousands of pieces of stained glass.
We gawked at the magnificent Rose Window and the other stained-glass windows so immense and profound in their beauty. The beauty of the windows set among the huge stones were like the bones of the cathedral. Andrew’s weaving of amazing stories of the mysteries of Chartres drew us into an unseen and unscripted mystery of our own, one that seemed to emanate from the very stones themselves, seizing and holding us captive as we stood wrapped inside the cathedral’s beauty and many mysteries.
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Wild Women Write: Reconnecting with the Wild Feminine
Wild Women Write takes you to the core of your instinctual feminine essence by familiarizing you with tales & stories of women who walked in their power, providing archetypal models to reclaim & reconnect to that sacred place within ourselves that is both wild and powerful. Writing & art exercises help you to dive deep into your own unique self & to express what you find there!
Writes of Passage: Writing Through the Seasons of Your Life
Have you been wanting to write your memoir… tell your life story but don’t know where to start? Writes of Passage is the perfect book to help you get started. For each of the four phases of your life: childhood, young adult, mature adult, & elder, there are writing & art exercises that will give you all the material you’ll need to begin your memoir!
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Aloha! Marjorie