Why the Knights Templar built this hermitage in the thirteenth century, in the deepest and longest part of this impressive natural fault, which known as the Lobos River Canyon connects two communities of ancient essence and tradition, such as the soriana and the burgundy ?.

Was the mysterious templar convent of San Juan de Otero, cited in numerous medieval chronicles, also here, without historians and researchers agreeing to this day?

Is this the geographical central point of the Iberian Peninsula, as the Magic Spain researcher, Juan García Atienza assumed, placing an imaginary Tau cross, which would link the two southernmost capes, such as Creus and Touriñán?

Is it true that in the so-called Big Cave, located a few meters from the hermitage, the Knights Templar made metaphysical initiations and even worshiped the ancient places of worship dedicated to the figure of the Great Mother Goddess?

What other types of activities, allegedly heterodox, were carried out in such a hermetic place, obeying, perhaps, to give us a clue to this end, the enigmatic theme consigned in the curious canecillos, by the stonecutters who raised the hermitage?

Was there really and according to some, there are still, 'miraculous cures' in this extraordinary place, all of them carried out through the intercession of the Virgin of Health and that apostle, a doctor by profession, it seems, that responding to Bartolome's name, it is assumed What did India evangelize, where her supposed remains rest, not far, it seems, from where tradition places Isa's important tomb, name by which Jesus was known?

Why in the early twentieth century, the parish priest of Ucero, sold the Romanesque image of the original Virgin, which was worshiped here by the Knights Templar and centuries after their disappearance, by the surrounding towns and peoples?.

All these questions hovered my thoughts yesterday Saturday, August 24, while barely dawned the dawn, I was heading towards El Burgo de Osma and about fifteen kilometers later, leaving behind the town of Ucero, to that extraordinary enclave, which is known with the significant name of Canyon of the Lobos River.

As on previous occasions, it did not surprise me at all, that only at half past nine in the morning - when I parked in my second parking lot my beaten Rover (1), preparing to save on foot, as tradition dictates, The last kilometer that separated me from the hermitage of San Bartolomé - there was already a large influx of people.

If until relatively recent times, the Lobos River Canyon was one of the most unknown places in Spain, now, and especially every August 24, it is the most frequented.

Rushing, as far as possible, to step on the so-called 'slab or stone of Health' (2) and take a good place in the first banks of the church, quite a few older people, accompanied by their relatives, ascended laboriously by the meadow, in a four touching, worth seeing and appreciating.

Miracles, that phenomenon so reviled by Science, exist. Be provoked by God, by the intercession of the Virgin of Health, by the Galen spirit of St. Bartholomew, by those Celtic 'wouivres' or telluric currents that seem to circulate through the bowels of the place or by that still unknown cerebral software, where it resides faith and perhaps something else not yet discovered, the fact is that there are sufficient reasons to think that in this place, devotion is much more real than a simple matter of traditional beatitude.

From a few years to this part, the prairie where the Templar hermitage sits, has become a verbena place. Therefore, because of that unpleasant intrusion into their environment, the vision of the huge groups of raptors and scavengers that frequent the place is almost nil.

After the second mass, at approximately one o'clock in the afternoon, he takes it out on the shoulders of the Virgin of Health and his walk around the hermitage is a really shocking spectacle. Seeing her on her hooks, surrounded by a crowd whose faith is unwavering, having this intrepid and overwhelming natural amphitheater as a backdrop, is one of the most extraordinary and rewarding spectacles she can imagine.

After Mass, it is time for celebration. The old Celtiberian spirit of joy, of desire to live, to make that Latin saying of Carpe Diem proper, to live in the moment, resurfaces and spreads through a Canyon, which for a few hours ceases to become a lonely 'magical place', to join the uproar of a people, which after all, keeps its memory in the form of a beautiful tradition.

A chronicle of @ juancar347, Soria August 24, 2019.

Notes, References and Bibliography:

(1) As informative information, I will add that I carry with it, the not insignificant amount of 400,000 kilometers for all kinds of roads, roads and trails of this picturesque and multicultural country that is the Iberian Peninsula.
(2) The 'stone of Health' is a small slab, located at the beginning of the Chapel of the Gospel (now chapel of the Virgin of Health) that represents a cross pate or kick, like those worn by the Templars in their habit , inserted in a solar circle and in whose center you can see a small six-petal or hexapétala, a symbol of rebirth that already appeared in numerous Roman and Celtic graves. Above it, on the ceiling, you can still see the hook, which was used to hang invalid people to place them barefoot on top of this place, where popular tradition asserts that there were and there are many cases of healing. Let everyone draw their own conclusions.

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NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs, as well as the video that illustrates it (except music, reproduced under YouTube license) are my exclusive intellectual property.

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[Martial, latin poet]

Ars vtinam more Animvm qve effingere. Posses pulchrior in ter. Ris nvlla tabella foret.

Arte Ojala pudieras representar. el carácter y el espíritu. No habría sobre la tierra. Imagen más bella

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