When we made the decision to walk the Camino de Santiago six months ago, it came to me that we needed a bank to save our pennies for this venture. At the time, Stuart was working on a papier mache project which was becoming this bear head. It had an egg carton mouth, tennis balls for a snout and ears, and a post-modern color scheme festooning him in muted stripes. I loved it and requested that he make it into a bank with slots for us to deposit money. So he put holes in the ears and the mouth, and secured the bottom with a base and perforated hatch, and we began to roll up bills and put them in his ears.
I found a purple velvet box upon which to display him, and placed Camino Bear prominently in our dining room; a shrine representing our aspirations toward pilgrimage.
Small objects come and go at this shrine–a small empty journal, a scalloped book mark, a shiny blue carabiner–each endowed with a meaning. Shrines are amazing portals into the imaginal realms, and this shrine is helping me to wrap my spirit around what lies ahead in Spain. Here, through this bear, there is communication with the hidden realms and the powers of manifestation run strong through the symbolic intention of penny-gathering.
The Camino Bear
- Majesterium
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