Awakening the "Genius Loci"

(Photography by Ana Domínguez Ruiz: San Lorenzo de El Escorial in a midsummer night 2017)

Photography by Ana Domínguez Ruiz: San Lorenzo de El Escorial in a midsummer night 2017

Awakening the "Genius Loci" with your Language Coach.

Have in mind that:

1. "Genius Loci" is a latin expression that in English means "the guardian, the spirit of a place".

2. In my articles, I usually highlight the words that are commonly mispronounced by Spanish speakers, so that you can find them easily and read them out loud; sometimes I also insert phonetic exercises or charts in the middle to help you with pronunciation.

Before reading this article complete this exercise for advanced and proficient students and teachers training to pass a civil exam:Fill each of the blanks in the following passage with ONE suitable word. Send me a Word.doc with your answers to get my feedback."We do not know how art began any more than we know how language started. If we take art to mean (1)______ activities as building temples and houses, making pictures and sculptures, (2)______ weaving patterns, there are (3) ________ people without art. If, on the other (4)______ , we mean by art some kind of beautiful luxury, we must realise that (5)________ use of the word is a very recent development and that many of the (6)_______ artists of the past never (7)_________ of it. We can best understand this difference if we think of architecture. We all (8) ________ that there are beautiful buildings and that some of them are true (9)________ of art. But there is (10)________ any building (11)_______ the world which was not erected (12)_______ a particular purpose. Those (13)________ use these buildings as (14)_______ of worship or entertainment, or as dwellings, judge them 15)_______ and foremost by standards of utility. But (16)_______ from this, they may like or (17)_______ the design or proportion of the structure. In the (18)_______ the attitude to paintings and statues was often similar. We are not (19)________ to understand the art of the past if we are quite ignorant of the (20)________ it had to serve". (E. H. Gombrich’s popular volume, The Story of Art.)
Now, continue reading the article...Have you given a thought about why Shakespeare entitled one of his most famous theatre plays as "A Midsummer Night's Dream"?

The sentence that came to me in a whisper from some wind spirit after realising the connection between one of my favourite theatre plays, the town where I live and the movements in the Cosmos was: "See what you love and love what you see." I am still thinking about it.

(Go, if you please, and find William Blake's illustration of this theatre play and see the resemblance with Botticelli's painting of "the Allegory of Spring" mentioned in my video above.)

Well, I encourage you to have a second reading of this theatre play and perhaps, you will agree with me that Shakespeare in this play is basically talking about desires; about how we blindly chase them and contortion madly to get them. Till we open our eyes and see for the first time.

Outwardly, our inner sun is being reflected and received by the moon bit by bit on an everyday basis, inwardly every two years something greater happens: the morning/evening star that awakes and falls asleep with us, Venus or Titania, meets her lover, king and warrior, Mars or Oberon. They are called "the cosmic lovers" and their union is vital to success creatively in our planet Earth. (See "the Allegory of Spring" by Botticelli)

We have recently passed Saint John's night a magic time of the year to align ourselves with our desires... "and see what we love and love what we see".

In some moment of your day, take a pen in your hand and make 12 wishes, one per month, keep the list in a box with a laurel leave and do not open it till next Summer Solstice 2021.

Suddenly l feel like Puck or Robin, an earthy spirit, holding a kind of "Hypericum perforatum" over your eyelid, which by the way, in one year will surely be wide open, contemplating some beauty never seen or noticed before. The Saint John's flower can perfectly be founded bloomed in these mountains in the last days of June, as well as in many parts of Europe. Apparently, its wort tincture combats dark moods and gives you back the joy of living.

I live in San Lorenzo de El Escorial a town that was founded in the 16th century when Phillip the second reigned.

He was the one who ordered the construction of this royal place to Juan Bautista de Toledo following in appearance the Counter-Reform taste, an ideology that was moving artistic, philosophical and political actions in Europe at that time.

Nowadays, this town is still a quiet village where people from Madrid and all parts of the globe come to visit because of its Royal Monastery, which-in fact- is not only the house of Augustin monks, it encompasses a palace, a basilica, a library (the hidden gem), a museum, a royal pantheon and a school. It is very easy to find as its size is remarkably large and its Herrerian presence contrasts with the green nature of the mountains that frame it.

Inside this magnificent temple of austere but precise beauty, people can see numerous famous paintings made by Bosco, Luca Cambiasso, Greco, Diego Velázquez among others that explain perfectly in images and shapes the mindset of those times.

The name of this village comes after the first martyr of the Catholic church and it honours the blacksmiths that lived in this area, as the word "Escorial" comes from the metal splinters that remain after working on the forge.

Genius Loki 3

Maybe, that's why on the 10th of August with the meteor shower that lights up the night we celebrate the festivity of our town.

In a clear midsummer night, you can perfectly see the alignment of the planets and stars with the Monastery and its natural enclave. There is as much beauty to contemplate inside as there is outside. This earthy platonic solid with its hidden irrational numbers gives you strength enough to believe that any enterprise can be built and materialised when aligned with the spirit of monuments and sites, what in Latin was called: "Genius Loci".

Besides, this village has a lot to offer in terms of cultural activities such as seeing a theatre play in the Coliseum of Charles the third, enjoying a jazz concert in a Japanese Restaurant or doing some hiking in Abantos mountain. It takes only 50 minutes by car from Madrid City Center and you can also use the train from Atocha.

I highly recommend you come during spring or autumn which are to me the best seasons for visiting any place in Nature