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Tags archives: christmas

The Hellish Beauty of Portugal's Festival Masks

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It's a sunny afternoon in Lisbon, Portugal, and in the street a young girl is being clutched by the devil. Or a devil, more accurately, and it's her lower leg he has gripped in a pair of long wooden pincers. The girl shrieks and twists herself free, giggling. The devil-man emits a laugh from behind a wild, wooden mouth and skips off to find his next victim.[...]

Change and Renewal With the Winter Solstice and New Year

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We received a long, dark Winter Solstice last night. This occurs when the earth is tilted on an axis and the northern hemisphere leans farthest away from the sun. An ancient definition of solstice is "standing still sun," but it is also thought to be the rebirth of the sun, which coincides with Christmas, the birth of the Son. Ancient cultures believed that [...]