Scenes like these must have greeted Ruisbroeck at every turn.
I am sure there were ponds in his day, but probably not exactly this pond. The building in the background of the third and fourth pond pictures below is the relatively recent but abandoned Chateau de Groenendaal.
The man at the local museum said there was nothing left of the monastery, others said there was some foundation visible, but by the time I got to near the place where it was (very close to all of these places, but not marked) it was getting dark so gave up searching for stone in the grass and brush and leaves. It was very near this place, according to a map I consulted, in fact I walked around it in a circle as you can see where the pin is in this photo. The remnants of the foundations are the stone lines in this clearing as seen from this Summer-time satellite view obtained through Google Earth (my mistake was that I stayed in the trees on my walk -- next time!):
And given views like this in those trees, who can blame me for avoiding open spaces?
Just a few more views from both sides of this very small green valley (that is what Groenendaal means, green valley).
Finally, walking for just over two hours in what was rather chilly, windy, and occasionally rainy weather took its toll and I made my way to the train station, along a path that offered this view (all 3 photos taken here were fuzzy since I overexposed them to overcome the darkness):
So, what did this excursion into van Ruisbroeck's home territory do for me? In preparation for this, I read more of his works with an eye toward gaining an appreciation for his revelations rather than picking on him for picking on Bloemardinne. Some years later, Jean Gerson, a renowned church leader and scholar writing on mysticism, placed both Jan van Ruisbroeck and Margaret Porete into the Free Spirit basket for some of their teachings. Gerson was not a fan of woman mystics but he did write a spirited defense of Joan of Arc, only to have his defense turned inside out and used against Joan. This again just underscores the difficulty of judging what was then considered orthodox and worthy of sainthood (Jan was investigated and pronounced "Blessed", just short of sainted) and heretical and worthy of death by fire (Marguerite for example). One scholar suggests that were it not for the careful rephrasing of some of Jan's wording in the Latin translations of Jan's works by Gerard Groote, his most famous pupil, he might actually have been found heretical. But since the vernacular versions of the Latin texts are missing, this is just a supposition.
To read about this scholar's opinions for yourself, here is an external link to a very well-written article on the general mystical movement of which Jan was a part: http://aftrain.com/arc/Essays%201/Brethren%206.htm
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