I’m on the southern coast of Portugal for an escape from Semana Santa in Sevilla. There are lots of people, lots of tourists, lots of processions and lots of nazarenos. For the average American, these are pretty frightening to run into on the street. But here, they’re seen in a favorable light--they hand out candy! Nazareno, dame un caramelo!
An excerpt my dad received in a meeting during his week here:
“How should we understand the ancient festivals as they are celebrated in Sevilla, devout and irreverent at the same time, with the participation of all the people, full of color? Perhaps simply, we should see in them the enthusiasm, in the strictest etymological sense of the term, of a society for whom the Universe forms a totality--which is not able to reduce reality to separate and isolate entities on different planes--Heaven, Earth and Hell--and for whom the absolute contraposition of our modern culture between religious and profane would make no sense. For their society, reality itself is confirmed by the spectacle that is seen: saints, Virgins, monsters, giants, crucified Christs, and scenes where, with simple eans, the most complex mysteries of faith are set forth. The presence of the visible image makes superfluous the intellectual demonstration of the truth represented by the image.” Fiesta Grande - Corpus Christi in the History of Seville, Vicente Lleó Cañal
I will be back for the last couple of days which will be interesting, I’m sure.
So far, here in Tavira, I find that the rain in Spain falls mainly on southern Portugal...but at least it's peaceful.
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