Day 4

SCALLOP

OK, did I really learn anything at all from day 3? LOL! Seems not! This took forever and clearly spans a double page. You can see on the following days I really did get the message.

The scallop on the blue panel on the left came first. This is based on the image used along the Pilgrimage routes through France and Spain on the way along the Santiago de Compostela. Weirdly, never walked it, never wanted to walk it. But the day after I finished it I discovered a friend of mine is walking it with her dad and was going to leave the following day! Go Jennie and her dad!

The pilgrimage was given to parishioners as a way to burn off sins. One could earn a "plenary indulgence" (basically a Get Out of Purgatory Free card) by completing the pilgrimage. Proof of completion now is a series of stamps in a pilgrimage passport and the scallop shells are decorative souvenirs you hang on your pilgrim's staff as you walk. But prior to the past couple of centuries scallop shells were hard to come by. Collecting one at the ocean when you'd completed your pilgrimage was pretty definitive proof you'd earned your ticket out of purgatory.

More scallop/Catholic fun: you'll find scallop shells in many Catholic churches. They are a symbol of regeneration and are used in baptisms. Ask you fave Catholic what they know. I bet it's more than I know about them.

And finally, do you see all the blue "eyes" on the scallop shell on the bottom right corner? Live scallops really do have hundreds of eyes. They can see light and shadow and will swim away from anything it perceives to be predatory by rapidly opening and closing the shell. FAR more mobile than I thought they were!