The Goddess Cibeles, a pride of Magical Madrid

juancar347 (72)in #art • 6 years ago

Here, from my point of view, a beautiful and lonely immigrant, whose cult was brought to the Peninsula by those sworn legionnaires-Augustans, Juliocesarians or Carisians-in those janistic times when Astures and Cantabrians, settled as mountain goats in Their misty boulders from the north bellowed them with good, covered their backs by an impenetrable and brave Cantabrian sea, while in the plains of the Meseta, warded caudillos like Viriato -the Sorians say, and I believe them, who fought in Miño de Medinaceli, in a place known as 'El Fortín', where you can still see some anthropomorphic tombs carved into the rock, above the current corralades, teaching the noble arts of the Celtiberian guerrilla -arts that were perpetuated, at least, until the War of Independence - leaving in its rough palates a more bitter flavor than the sauce or garum with which they passed the salt fish of his steaming campaign hampers.

If we were disrespectful -which I do not intend to do, even if I treated the subject in a relaxed manner- and associate it with affection or by default to a football team -which, although less relevant and saving, of course, any kind of distance, has also Some history on their backs - we would have to treat it, at least, with the name of His Galactic Lordship. But it is not that vision of an involuntary follower of the quixotic wanderings of the white dove of Madrid, which by force of beauty and mystery attracts the flashes of innumerable foreign cameras, as if it were a top model, the one that really fascinates me, the dark universe that hides behind that veil, which like Isis, its relative, makes it sovereignly impenetrable.

It is said, it is said, it is rumored that his original cult comes from Pesinonte, Phrygia, where the famous hat is also originated, more or less adulterated copy that under the name of capirote, curiously the Holy Inquisition used to grant as a minor evil and sometimes even as a major evil, to all those to whom he gave the paseíllo of shame, in a retrograde, conservative and of course authoritarian to make them see the terrible mistake that is that of feeling different or try to break away from the path of the elephants where it is convenient for the obedient populace to move around holding his neighbor's trunk: badú banana, as the Book of the Jungle, by Rudyard Kipling would say. As goddess of the Underworld, her favorite abode used to be caves located in the most rugged mountains. Lonely and difficult to access places, such as the famous Mount Gargano, where the propaganda based on the golden legend of Christianity, which marketing, for a moment do not think is a modern invention, used to place, generally, the victories of its celestial champion par excellence: San Miguel. Or what is the same, whether it is pagan or Christian, where there was a coup d'état religious and the new cult replaced all the ground to the old.

It is very possible, too, that the Madrid representation of Cibeles - made by Francisco Gutiérrez, Roberto Michel and Miguel Ximénez, based on a design by Ventura Rodríguez - is based on the classic sculpture of Fidias, which obviates its original form - a stone black, of meteoric origin - represented her seated on a throne with two lions. Representation, incidentally, that is often found in numerous medieval Marian images, where if you want a good example, I recommend you take a walk through the cloister of the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos and take a look at the magnificent Virgin of March. Now, unlike the work of Phidias, Gutiérrez's sculpture lacks the original veil that covered his face -remember the words that the goddess Isis dedicated to Plutarch, among which was that of which 'no mortal had managed to discover his veil ', phrase that later became the motto of the Theosophical Society of Madame Blavatzsky, whose most relevant representative in Spain, was our prolific and esoteric writer of Extremaduran origin, Mario Roso de Luna? - but it has an interesting detail, that possibly remember the character on whom Christ founded his church: the keys. Perhaps they understand better this symbolic juxtaposition, if alluding to the famous phrase of Hermes Trismegisto, we consider 'what is above as what is below'. Cibeles has in his hand the keys of the Underworld, in the same way that later, Christianity appropriated them to grant them to Peter, as doorkeeper of the heavens.

Nor is the place it currently occupies the original, although if we drew an imaginary line, we would be surprised by the millimeter precision with which it is exactly equidistant from two other emblems of Madrid: the Plaza de la Independencia, Sabatini and that emblematic zero kilometer, represented by the Puerta del Sol and, of course, by the Bear, a precedent of whose shield - the coat of arms of Madrid - believe it, it is already represented among the damaged Romanesque paintings of the 12th century, which are located in the Chapel of the Magdalena, in the church of the emblematic Soria monastery of Santa María de Huerta.

And here, as a culmination to a story that takes place in this city of 'dieguitos and mafaldas' - as Joaquín Sabina would say - I let part of a legend fall - perhaps it is a Chinese story or one of those urban legends, which arise of the sunsuncorda of Neverjamás- that this current situation would make it stay above a subsoil where several streams converge and in which it is said that there is an island, not far from where the Bank of Spain keeps that golden cast - if it is who really came back from Moscow once-that would delight a white-gloved thief, like Goldfinger. If so, and it is clear that I do not say that it is - and I do not pretend to imitate José Mota - I would remember in part what Herodoto tells us - considered as the 'Father of History' - about the lake, the island and the labyrinth that would extend below the 'luminous horizon of Khufu', that is, of the Great Pyramid, where supposedly there is also the true sarcophagus with the mortal remains of King Khufu.

In short, friends: things and cases of a Madrid, which after all can not forget its transgressive and magical facet. And of course, Cibeles deserves more than admiration: respect.