The Gyrovague

A 'gyrovague' was a wandering or itinerant monk, of no fixed address. As throughout history, their eccentric and non-conformist habits were stamped out by the forces of institutionalised society, and the practice of hobo monasticism banned. I bring up the topic mainly because the name 'gyrovague' is so wonderful. Gyrovague. How charming and esoteric it is. It's also rather cute to have the the word 'vague' as a component part, reminding us of just how much of religion was mysticism and difficult to define. Oh, the vocabulary of lost words, just waiting to be tripped over in the dark fantastic waltz of discovery... Religion would actually be a lot nicer if a lot of the specificity was drained...

What would it be like, thinks the person stuck in a voluntary desk job, to wander the known world, spreading your mysticism and seeking support from the charity of other? What would it be like to be frowned on by your own faith, and have your name tainted by your less scrupulous fellow wayfarers as you struggled on to spread your wisdom amongst the masses? It would have been a dangerous undertaking, especially with the plague and all those diseases of long ago terrorizing the world. In this era, the peer pressure is so complete that no-one dares think of doing anything even remotely unusual for fear of being branded insane! Monasteries do exist, though, if you know where to look for them...

Yes, as the office chair of fate spins in long and mythical revolutions, and its occupant tries to spin together tales of itinerant monks, or 'mystics errant' as you might call them, it becomes clear that the world was a very different place back then, two millennia ago. There weren't just gyrovagues, but also Sarabaites, monks who kept their own homes and lived on the fruits of their own labours. These monks were also looked down upon from the (extremely dubious) heights of the Church, but were they really as much of a bad lot as we would think? Today, if monks (or nuns) decided to live their lives of faith outside of the confines of the official Church, would they not be denounced equally by that same edifice that shields its own miscreants so loyally? To be fair, quite a few of those nonconformists probably were a few hairs over into the 'roguish' side of life. It's very hard to know anything now about life pre-Eighth Century!

Now, to go off on a tangent, did you know that there's a 'National Hobo Convention' every year in Iowa? How awesome is that?! Also, I started up 'The Muppet Show' to succeed 'Mork and Mindy', and from even the first few moments you know you're watching an instant classic. Oh, will seasons four and five never come out on DVD???? Let's hope, for the n-th time, that it could occur.

O.