Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

High up......for God only to see

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 

The cathedral is being cleaned. A five floor scaffolding has been set up in the front of the church, the octogon. Stairs for workmen, and for ordinary people like you and me. In groups of up to 8 people we have climbed the stairs....high up, where the cathedral is richly decorated. Not for human eyes. For God only!

 
Luckily I am not afraid of heights and climed the stairs the other day, with 7 other people + a guide.

 
For centuries this part of the cathedral has been closed, only opened a few times, for cleaners and cathedral artists.

Walking on sacred stones. Close to God.

 
   
It was dark up there, but the guide's flashlight revealed treasures made for the eyes of The Creator.

 

 I had my confirmation in this cathedral, I was married here. I serve here as a deacon from time to time. I attend masses, like I did again yesterday.

Sometimes I dream about being a gargoyle, a saint or an angel, high up, for Gods eyes only, to be praised, cherished, loved.......for ME, the one I am, truly. Not how I am seen by humans. Seen how I am created by God.

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Another time. Another cathedral. Nature's own:

 

Can you see the happy, raised hands? They belong to Marta, cousin Tone and Terje. I could have been with them, but somebody needed to be behind the camera.

 

Yesterday we hiked up to Preikestolen, The Pulpit Rock,an amazing mountain a couple of hours from where my father in law lives.

 

Together with 1 million tourists (false), 2 million flies (true!) and 3 million steep steps (true!!), we made it up to the top, and down again. The downhill climbing was the hardest on my knees. But I feel so absolutely proud to make this blog post, showing the world that I made it :-)

 

Between the tips of our noses and the sea - 608 meters.

 

 

It was a steep walk, and difficult to walk on the stones. I had to concentrate, and alot of the time my eyes were fixed on the stones under my feet. At one point I lamost stepped on a small ant. It was so busy, waking with her goal ahead, not seeing any of the beauty around her. As my thoughts reached this point I rised my eyes and the Preikestolen plateau was right in front of me. The beauty was so intense it sent waves down my spine. The ant kept on and saw none of this.

How often is our life like this. We look right ahead, busy with our everyday life. never time to rise our eyes to see the beauty.

 

 

Sometimes I wonder why I keep on travelling the world with all this beauty of Norway around. Then I think twice, and I know :-)

 

A bird near the river

Text and image Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
I went downtown for my weekly photo walk, or photosafari as I like to call it. The day was wet and grey. Where could I find beauty to shot?

I started down at the harbour, the fjord was so grey there was nothing to see. Continued along the canal. I love that area, love the boats there. Got some great photos.....for another day......and then continued up to my favorite spot along the river Nidelven.

 
I saw a skarv (sorry I don't know the English name) there in January last year. Got a misty photo which I love so much. And to my pleasure the skarv was there again.

 
This bird is famous up on the Lofoten islands where my brother Frode lives. Years ago there used to be an old blacksmith, quite a character, who used to make the most elegant skarvs. WE have a small collection of three of them out at our cabin.

 
The skarv stands in a tiny little island out in the river. This island can't be seen when the tide is in, the tide from the Trondheim Fjord goes up the river a little, but yesterday, when I came to search for the skarv, the island was perfect for both of us.

Can you see the iron kind of a cross out on the island? If my information is correct, this iron cross was mentioned already in the old Norse litterature written by Snorre.

The skarv, the iron cross, the tiny island, the river, the Pilegrim Center and the cathedral.

I love this photo.

December 18th. The story behind the archangel

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

It didn't take very long yesterday till people started to email me about the story of the archangel on top of the northwestern tower of Nidaros Cathedral. First I got a message on facebook from Sjur, the churchwarden of the cathedral "This angel, with the face of Bob Dylan (Knocking on Heavens Door) was modelled by the artist as a tribute to Dylans participation against the war in Vietnam"

Then I got an email from Carol (her text is about the sculptures on the western wall of the cathedral, and then some interesting information about "my" archangel:

I couldn't resist doing a search for your angels name. I came up with a paragraph on a random blog with a link to wikipedia. The paragraph is below along with the link. Do you think it could be true?

 

Carol

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The two lower rows of sculpture, proposed by Professor Oluf Kolsrud in 1928, are based on the engraving by Jacob Maschius. Kolsrud was an historical adviser on the church's restoration, and prepared an iconography for the sculptures. His proposal to place statues on the "royal floor" – although without evidence of historical precedent – was approved in 1935. It was assumed that the medieval sculptures were based on living models, and to a large extent, this concept is applied to the new sculptures. Thus the sculpture of Bishop Sigurd borrowed features from the poet Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, and Kristofer Leirdal's statue of the Archangel Michael on the top of the northwest tower was based, according to the sculptor, on the face of Bob Dylan – inspired by Dylan's opposition to the Vietnam War.^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidaros_Cathedral_West_Front

Every Friday at 2pm we have a cup of coffee at work. Yesterday I told about my angel revelation while having coffee with my colleagues, and then most of them could tell me back that of course they knew this story, about Bob Dylan and the Vietnam War. And I was told more........Some years ago, when Dylan was in Trondheim for a concert, those responsible for the concert wanted to give Dylan a photo of the archangels face. A lot of effort was being made to make this and a beautiful, huge framed photo was handed Dylan when the concert was over.

You say you want to know what happened to the photo? Well, that's quite another story, and not mine to tell.......

December 17th. The angel on top of the cathedral tower

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
Can you see the angel on top of the cathedral tower? I pass this angel every day. I always look up to see that he is there. I think it is the archangel Michael. But I am not sure.

 
I am reading a huge, and I mean really huge, book about Nidaros Cathedral written by Gunnar Danbolt. I've tried to find information about the angel on top of the tower. There must be information about him somewhere, I evern know I have heard stories......a story about the likeness in the angels face.......but did I find anything? Do I remember?

It must be my age.......or.......

Anyway, I continue to search for stories. I continue to look up every day when I pass the tower. I continue to live in the great belief that there are angels in my life!

December 14th. Capture the Light

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

The days are short and I miss the sun. It snowed all week-end, on Sunday I wasn't even out of doors once.

Then during lunch break yesterday when I looked out of the windows, I saw that the low midday sun was playing hide and seek on the old medieval walls. I drank my coffee in a hasted and almost ran out to play along.

When you live close to the Arctic Circle, when your winter is dark and cold, you soon enough learn hom inportant daylight is. How essential the sun is.

And you learn, well I learn, to take care of the sunny moments.

To capture the light.

 

Sunday morning

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

Early Sunday morning in the cathedral. Before mass.

In a side chapel preparations are being made for the children's Sunday school.

In the vestry prayers are prayed.

Out in the church the choir is doing their last practice.

It is Sunday morning and I am in the cathedral.

Home to a golden world of everydays.

Leaving a sunny Paris we arrived home Monday night to a dark, cold, wet world. No more travels ahead, instead a long winter. How would I manage? Then I woke Tuesday morning with a jubilant feeling "I am back home, this is my world, my family, my home, my job, my city". The feeling stayed with me all day. From the early morning walk in and near the cathedral park, through my hours in the office, grocery shopping on my way home, making dinner, eating with Marta and Terje, finishing the unpacking, coffee and Paris macarons while watching the news. catching up on emails, writing a letter, picking out my next read after finishing the old book, "chatting" through emails with a good friend in Italy, finishing my travel diary from Bosnia and Croatia (finally) watching the documentary about Eva Joly, the Norwegian woman who wants to be the next president in France, going to bed with prayers for the mine workers in Chile.

I have my travel memories to live on for years. I have my everyday life in The House in the Woods to live for years, hopefully.

Welcome to share my golden morning walk.

 
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Postcards:

Marta found 9 Announciations in the Italian section. Carol, a postcard will be mailed out to you. PLease email me your address.

The postcard from Shakespeare & Co goes to Wendy. Address please.

The cathedral at all hours, almost

Last week we had a three days meeting with church workers from our neighbour dioceses in Sweden and Finland. We stayed at the Pilegrimsgården, next door to the cathedral. One night we had a prayer in the cathedral, and on our way there bishop Tor took us around the amazing building, sharing stories and anecdotes from the cathedral's 1000 years of history.

I am closely knitted to the cathedral, has been so almost all my life. For more than 10 years now I have passed the cathedral morning and afternoon on my way to and from work, still it feels amazingly new and overwhelming each and every day. Often I do a walk around the church just to feel the closeness, the mightyness.

Our nightly walk continued inside the huge cathedral. Dean Ragnhild showed us around. Here we are in Johanneskapellet (St.John's Chapel) and Ragnhild is about to open a new art panel by the artist Håkon Gullvåg.

 

I can look at the panels, the shrines again and again. Every time they have something new to tell.

We ended our visit with a prayer at the main altar.....

.....before we walked out into the dark night.

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Terje and I drove downtown last night for a late cappuccino, something we often do. Last night we chose a coffee shop near the cathedral. We parked our car and on impulse I said: Terje, let us walk around the cathedral before we have our coffee" So we did. Hand in hand.

PS: I'm sorry the second photo turned out so dark. It doesn't look quite like this in my photo file.

The birth of a new blog

Life close to the cathedral 

A cathedral blog? Not a bad idea, may be.......

A blog about life close to the cathedral?

Ideas are flowing. Yes, I could do it, but I have so many blogs already. Too many to manage.....

A blog about life close to the cathedral....

Then I could tell you about the small things, like when spring is changing into summer and the tulips are done with their duty to share beauty for this time.

 

There is always things happening close to the cathedral. Life is living. Seekers, tourists, citicens, pilgrims, workers.

I never forget the summer, it was a few years ago, when the flower beds leading up to the cathedral were filled with pelargoniums. Hundreds of deep red ones. One single pink. The sparkling, the shine of the pink grew through the summer. I stopped in front of the pink one every time I passed. Recieving strength. Beauty.

Different. Like my grey hair among kin sisters with such beautiful coloured, fresh looking hair. My prime is history but grey hair.....woops, I mean silver hair of course (thanks for the reminder Lisa) is a second bloom. I am determined to bloom with style.

A blog about life close to the cathedral.

I would love to do that.......

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some day!