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FRANCE
Puzzles and Mysteries
By Jheri St. James
If one looks at Europe
as a puzzle, France is a central piece of the coastal European
section. Although ultimately a victor
in World Wars One and Two, France suffered extensive losses
in empire, wealth, manpower and rank as a dominant nation-state.
Nevertheless,
France today is one of the most modern countries in the world
and
is a leader among European nations. Since 1958, it has constructed
a strong presidential democracy resistant to earlier parliamentary
instabilities. In recent years, its cooperation with Germany
has proven central to the economic integration of Europe,
including the introduction of the euro, in January 1999. At
present, France
is at the forefront of efforts to develop the European Union’s
military capabilities to supplement progress toward a EU foreign
policy.
The French Republic is located in Western Europe, bordered
on the north by the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel; with
the
Mediterranean Sea south, between
Italy and Spain; also between Belgium and Spain. France is mostly flat plains
or gently rolling hills in the north and west, and the remainder is mountainous,
especially the Pyrenees in the south and Alps in the east. France is the largest
West European nation. Her agricultural products include wheat, cereals, sugar
beets, potatoes, wine grapes, beef, dairy products and fish. The Eiffel Tower
is France’s most famous landmark. Built by Gustav Eiffel for the World
Exhibition of 1889, the spire was constructed with such sturdy craftsmanship
that it sways no more than 4-1/2 inches, even in the strongest of winds.
Paris is the capital of France, and home to the world’s largest museum,
the Louvre. Built in the 13th century as a fortress by Phillipe August, the building
took on a role as museum some 300 years later. The Louvre’s number one
attraction is Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” Construction
of Notre-Dame, Paris’s most famous cathedral, began in 1163 and was completed
in 1345. The south tower of Notre-Dame houses the great bell, which was fictitiously
tolled by Quasimodo, the hunchbacked literary figure created by Victor Hugo.
Since the 1500’s Paris has been a center of the olfactory art of perfume
making.
The geography and statistical data of the French Republic seems very straightforward,
but France harbors many mysteries: The labyrinth at Chartres, the Shroud of Turin,
the story of the Cathars, the French Catacombs in Paris, and the many Black Madonnas.
The labyrinth is an ancient pattern found in many cultures around the world on
pottery, tablets and tiles dating back as far as 4,000 years. Many patterns are
based on spirals from nature. In Native American culture it is called the Medicine
Wheel and Man in the Maze. The Celts described the labyrinth as the Never-Ending
Circle. It is also called the Kabala in mystical Judaism. One feature they all
share is that they have one path, which winds in a circuitous way to the center.
This pattern, once central to cathedral culture, was inlaid into the stone floor
of Chartres in 1201. Recently, the labyrinth in this famous church was opened
to the public for walking after having been covered with chairs for 250 years,
thanks to the efforts of Lauren Artress and her organization Veriditas (www.veriditas.net).
*
* *
Another puzzling French mystery has to do with the Shroud
of Turin, a piece of herringbone patterned linen with
a surface image resembling Christ on the
Cross,
which was found in the tiny village of Lirey, France in 1357. Carbon
dating in 1988 set the timeline of the shroud to
1260-1390, much too new to be
the burial
cloth of Jesus. But its haunting image of a man’s wounded body is proof
enough for true believers. Scientists have concluded that no paints, pigments,
dyes or stains have been found to make up the visible image and no painter
has been able to reproduce all the different qualities and characteristics
of the
shroud: its negativity, 3-D effect, brush strokes or directionality, perfect
anatomical details from blood stains and scourging, and the fact that the image
only penetrates about 1/500 of an inch into the cloth. 
Volckringer patterns are produced when acids from plants are
transferred to paper, as in pressed flowers and leaves in books.
This process seems to come closest to explaining the image on the
Shroud, but no one theory to date can satisfactorily explain how
the image was impressed onto the Shroud.
*
* *
The haunting armatures of ruined castles cling precariously
to hilltops in Southern France where struggles between
Cathars (also
called Albigensians)
and Catholics took place at the beginning of the 13th
century. Other castles guarded the volatile border with
Spain. Whole
communities were wiped out during the merciless campaigns
to rid the area of
the Cathar “heretics”, and later when Protestants fought
for religious freedom. Their holy book was the New Testament and
their prayer was the Lord’s Prayer. Pope Innocent the Third
in 1209 launched a crusade against the Cathars and called in Simon
de Montford to slaughter and extinguish their power, their religion.
It is always mystifying why one man’s belief requires
the extinction of another man to flourish.
*
* *
Another cryptic place in Paris is the catacombs (Denfert-Rochereau
Ossuary—the Empire of the Dead), which consist of underground
tunnels whose walls are lined with neatly stacked skulls, arm and
leg bones of five to six million people, disinterred from churchyard
graves in the 1700-1800’s.
Additionally, France is home to the eerie and beautiful Black
Madonna. Many renditions of the Black Madonna exist today,
purportedly 272
in France and 450 more over all of Europe. The Black
Virgin had her origins in the middle ages or earlier.
Most of the Black Madonnas
are found in churches, chapels and sanctuaries; some
in museums. Most are sculpted of wood, stone and one
was rendered in lead. Some
are paintings, most of them attributed to St. Luke.
There is a list of 20 countries displaying Black Madonna
icons and frescoes, including South and North American
lands. Many Black
Madonnas
have the black paint literally kissed of their
hands and feet. Most of these Madonnas hold Black Christ
child images.
Additionally,
ghostly “White
Lady” visions have been reported in the areas of Black Madonna
worship. Ron Weighell, a writer at www.innervision.com says that, “…with
the rise of patriarchal religions and wide-spread use of iron (capable
of disrupting electromagnetc fields), these white ladies were degraded
in folklore into fairies, nursery bogies, death messengers, and spirits
of air, water and trees.” White ladies and
black Madonnas . . . mysterious. But historians
recognize
that the statue
of the Egyptian
Goddess Isis holding her child Horus in her arms
was the first Madonna and Child.
One thing that can be stated categorically about
France is that spiritual and religious awareness
is a critical
part
of life there.
People
in any country with a history of warfare, death
and economic privations learn about the mysteries
of
the unseen world— black and white,
good and evil. This writer does not know Jean Pierre Moritz of rue
Bois Perron, de Gascogne, France, but his eagerness to participate
in Common Ground 191’s expression of peace by collecting sand
from the beach at Pyla sur Mer, location of the Europe’s
biggest sand dune below, marked with an X,
indicates a spiritual bent and
willingness to act upon that. We thank him
for his participation in the Common Ground
191 project.
We have described just some of the puzzles and
mysteries about France. There are many more:
Rennes-le-Chateau,
the Knights Templar treasure,
the mystery of the Holy Grail, and Nazi treasure
hunter stories. These will remain haunting
tales of wonder and
magic.
Sadly, peace is a mystery as well. The
people working for Common Ground 191 seek
to unravel
the hidden
dynamics of
peace by soil
collections, in these writings, and in
our final product, the 50’ x 50’ fresco
of these accumulated bits of each country’s secrets and historical
conundrums. We hope that by this fusion of terra firma’s
DNA, some new creation and ideal will be
forged, to inspire mankind to
create a spirit of peace on the entire
planet.
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