In contemplation and tranquillity, in thought and bliss, the five hundred faces of the arhats of Changnyeongsa are fixed in an eternal meditation. For a millennium they have turned their mind inward and closed their eyes to the changing world.
Continue reading “The Eternal Meditation of the Arhat”
“In the south, we need to touch” – this is how the Spanish tradition of Semana Santa was explained to me by Manuel, council representative of DefensiĂłn brotherhood, a religious association which for over fifty years has participated in the Holy Week processions of Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. Commemorating the final days of Christ, the Semana Santa is an assault on your eyes and ears, and a jig-saw puzzle for your head. Continue reading “Sensing Semana Santa: Holy Week in Southern Spain, Jerez de la Frontera”
Hidden from my sight behind the column of smoke bellowing out from an old fifty-five gallon drum sit the heroes of the night: two big round men with two big round zambombas secured between their two big round thighs. Continue reading “¡Zambomba! Celebrating Christmas in Jerez”
Every year in Arcos de la Frontera, a small but spectacular hilltop village in Spain’s south, the local people create what they call Belen Viviente, a living nativity scene or living Bethlehem. Visitors walking through the streets and plazas see bakers, iron-smiths, weavers and farmers working and living as if it were a typically brisk December’s night in Palestine some 2016 years ago. 2016 years on, millions of Marys and Josephs continue seeking room at the inn, still to no avail. Continue reading “Photo Essay: A Living Nativity Scene in Arcos de la Frontera”
Jerez’s Santiago Quarter, famed for its gypsy and flamenco culture, came alive today with a procession of an enormous gilded float through the barrio’s streets and laneways. A group of men carried upon their shoulders a figure of a tormented Jesus Christ on the road to Calvary. After hours of slow manoeuvring around the tight corners, the figure was finally delivered to the newly renovated Church of Santiago, where it will rest until next year’s Semana Santa celebrations.
Below follows my translation of a 2013 article written by Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian Nobel laureate in literature, in the Spanish-language daily El PaĂs (original here). His piece on Padre Ugo di Censi is probably the best and most widely-read piece on the living Patron Saint of Ancash Continue reading “Translation: Mario Vargas Llosa, Chacas and Heaven, on Padre Ugo di Censi”
Lives and Times 