A Procession Like Few Others.....

I have been to New York, Paris, Cairo and some places in between but few have had the cultural depth and complexity of Oaxaca.

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Here's a procession in Teotitlan de Valle, a prosperous weaving village a short drive from Oaxaca City.  The unmarried young women parade through the town.  They're preceeded and followed by surprisingly excellent marching bands, and then there are men in beautiful dance costumes, a clown or two, large balloons, and lots of noise and firecrackers.  You can see they are each wearing beautiful cochineal dyed, handwoven skirts.

 And they were each carrying a beautifully decorated santos figure on their heads.  This was in no way a show for the tourists......except for a tall, white haired, gringo with a very long camera lens, we saw no other tourists....this was a community celebration that harks back to traditions that have existed since before people can remember      - something that I'm not really sure why, but watching an event like this always instill in me a feeling of deep peace and hope for the world........

P.S.  I realize these recent posts from Mexico are a little off base from the world of Passionflower but all work and no play makes us all dull people and besides I thought it might be fun for you to see the kinds of things that I feel inspired by.