Thursday, August 20, 2009

Doom and Gloom


Continuing with the lack of any real content in here. A local newspaper article posted about the Burning of Zozobra talks about a Christian group that predicts Doom and Gloom for the city of Santa Fe on the night of the event. I can't wait to see the City swallowed up whole by the All Living God because of this pagan celebration. Oy vey.

The Fiestas here are a mix of secular and religious events commemorating the reconquest of New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt. In the last 80 years, the first big event (secular) event has become the burning of Zozobra. A 50 foot marionette that is burned to purge the community of all its gloom so we can have a joyful and happy Fiesta. Thing is, through out the summer, there are many events that lead up to the Fiestas and you could say the Novena to La Conquistadora is really the first major event, but it is a religious celebration and not everyone one the community participates.

Anyway, through the years, so many Christian groups have protested the Burning of Zozobra. Mostly the local Potter's House Christians have passed out leaflets and tracts about how we're all doomed. I haven't been in years to Zozobra but I do remember all the hysteria from year's past.

The local weekly paper ran this story about how the Earth is going to be swallowed up on the night of of Zozobra this year. So, here I am doing my usual eyeroll at the nuttiness of Christianity sometimes.

Doom and Gloom | Santa Fe Reporter

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Image courtesy
of danheller.com found on a google image search.

4 comments:

Jeff said...

An auto da fé!

Hey, I wonder if old Zozobra has Mayan roots... Ever heard of the Mayan Prophecy, the one that says the world is going to end in 2012?

Maria said...

An auto da fé!

See? It's totally Catholic!

I hear a story that the artist, Will Shuster, who created the puppet and was a quite famous artist around here, was visiting friends in Mexico in the 20's and saw them burn a puppet or something in effigy and he thought it would be fun to do for Fiestas. He did it in his backyard for friends and then soon after it became a regular public event.

It could very well be Mayan or perhaps Aztec in origin.

Oh yes, I've heard of the Mayan Prophecy. I saw a special on the Heresy (uh, I mean the History) Channel recently about the end of the Mayan Calendar.

We live in interesting times don't we?

Jeff said...

The Heresy Channel! =D

Maria said...

Yep... the beloved Heresy channel. I got to the point where I spent more time screaming at the TV because the so called religious experts on whatever shows I was watching seemed to be getting everything wrong about Catholicism that I decided it was spewing heresy. :D