A small rock in the Atlantic: 19/06/2011

Corpus Christi in Breña Baja (San Jose)

Salt carpet for Corpus Christi in San Jose de Breña Baja, La Palma

San Jose in Breña Baja always celebrates Corpus Christi on the Sunday after Mazo's celebration. Since the whole thing takes out on a flat, tarmaced street, the tradition is to make carpets of coloured salt, with the altars being much more modest. In recent years, many of the carpets are made from seeds and petals, like the ones in Mazo.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Salt carpet for corpus christi in San Jose "]

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Much as I love the petals, I think it’s a mistake for San Jose to become a second-rate Mazo. I prefer salt (which I suspect wouldn’t work on Mazo’s steep cobbles, anyway). You can have brighter colours and finer detail.

The carpets are made on the Saturday evening, and stay there until Sunday evening.

Labels: Brena Baja, Corpus Christi, fiestas

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Fire fiesta on La Palma

Witches dancing on the beach on St John's feast, at Puerto Naos, Los Llanos, La Palma _Island

Thursday is the feast of St John the Baptist. On La Palma, they have the very sensible custom of holding the party on the night before the public holiday, so that everyone can sleep late the morning after. Since fiestas often go on until the early hours, sleeping in next morning is delicious.

In Catholic countries, people celebrate the feast of St John with bonfires. (Any similarity to pagan midsummer festivals is purely coincidental.) On Wednesday night, there are traditionally lots of small, private bonfires, although many of these are banned this year because the wether's unusually hot and so there's a risk of starting a major forest fire. However, the bigger fires will go ahead. Traditionally these are at: San Andrés y Sauces, San Juan Belmaco (Malpaíses in Mazo)and El Remo (in Fuencaliente), and in Puerta Naos (Los Llanos), the witches will dance round a bonfire on the beach.

On Thursday, there will be special church services in Puntallana (main village), and Belmaco in Malpais, Mazo. And Astrotour will be holding a free star party at San Antonio volcano visitors' centre from 7 pm until midnight, where you'll be able to see the surface of the sun (safely!) find out how to make a sundial, how to find your way using shadows, myths and legends, observation with telescopes and more.

Labels: fuencaliente, Los Llanos, Mazo, Puerta Naos, San Andres y Sauces, San Juan.

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Corpus Christi in Mazo

One of the biggest annual fiestas in La Palma is Corpus Christi in Mazo. Catholics all over the world celebrate Corpus Christi, but here they celebrate with the most wonderful archways and carpets decorated with petals,leaves and seeds. On Wednesday evening and night, each village of the municipality makes their own archway with a carpet and a little altar, so Thursday morning is a wonderful time to see them. They'll be up until Sunday, but they do tend to suffer a bit from the wind and careless feet. And do pop into the church to see the decorations there, too.

On Sunday they'll hold a special mass in the church followed by a procession around the archways. Corpus Christi is the festival of the body of Christ. The priest walks on the carpets holding the blessed wafers in their special container (called a monstrance), and as he comes to each archway, he puts the monstrance on the little altar, kneels and wafts incense around.

You can see photos of the fiesta from
2010, 2009 and 2008

Labels: Corpus Christi, fiestas, Mazo

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STARMUS on La Palma

Grantecan, the biggest optical telescope in the world, at sunset

STARMUS is a unique scientific, artistic and musical event taking place mostly in Tenerife this week, with a truely stellar lineup of speakers and performers. I wanted to go, but I couldn't afford the time or the money.

I say "mostly in Tenerife" because on Thursday Jack Szostak, Brian May, Richard Dawkins, Kip Thorne, George Smoot, Jill Tarter, Alexei Leonov and Neil Armstrong are coming to the Roque de los Muchachos for a round table discussion in the GTC dome at 7 pm. They'll be talking about things like: Why do we want to go to space? Why do we need to study the Universe? What are the relative merits of manned versus robotic space missions? Where do we go next?

It will be webcast live at http://www.starmus.com/pages/en/broadcast.php

Labels: astronomy, fiestas, Roque de los Muchachos