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You are here: Home / Archives for Ceremony & Ritual

San Francisco and the Quemasantos

November 4, 2019 By SFA Staff Leave a Comment

Saints, Statues, and Stories by by James S. Griffith

by James S. Griffith In his newest book, Saints, Statues, and Stories: A Folklorist Looks at the Religious Art of Sonora (University of Arizona Press, 2019), folklorist “Big Jim” Griffith recounts nearly 60 years of travel through Sonora, Mexico, making sense of roadside shrines, artists, fiestas, saints, and other religious art found in the ... [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: BorderLore Tagged With: Artifact, Ceremony & Ritual

On Heat: The Ritual of Surrendering to Summer

June 28, 2019 By SFA Staff 3 Comments

Desert heat

by Debbie Weingarten The harvester ants in my parent’s Tucson backyard make a trail of flowers in an act of early morning performance art. When the sun turns the ground to a hot iron, the ants temporarily abandon their task. The flowers wilt in a purple vein beneath the mesquites. The desert body begins the march toward summer before the ... [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: BorderLore Tagged With: Ceremony & Ritual

Devotional Dates: Tales from the Holy Month of Ramadan

May 30, 2019 By SFA Staff 1 Comment

Sharing dates at Ramadan

Ramadan is celebrated across the Muslim world during the ninth month of the lunar calendar. This year it falls May 5 through June 5. The word Ramadan comes from the Arabic “ramada," to be hot. The month is marked by fasting from sunrise to sunset, nightly prayer, abstaining from bad habits, and celebrating family and community through special ... [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: BorderLore Tagged With: Ceremony & Ritual, Interview

Sun Sets on a Beloved Benedictine Monastery in Tucson

June 26, 2018 By SFA Staff 2 Comments

Benedictine Monastery

Story and photographs by Mele Martinez Sunset is the best time to view the “Pink Rose of the Desert,” the monastery built in midtown Tucson in 1939 to house the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. When the sun reaches the horizon, the building’s facade reflects the orange and purple desert sky. Flanked by tall palm trees, the monastery’s ... [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: BorderLore Tagged With: Ceremony & Ritual, Places

LumiNight: A Love Letter to Winter in the Desert

November 23, 2017 By SFA Staff Leave a Comment

LumiNight 2015

In mid-December near downtown Tucson you might spot a procession of people in costume, lit up by homemade cardboard lanterns. Called LumiNight, the event is “kind of like a reverse wintertime Halloween for grown-ups, complete with dressing up and running around at night,” says Jhon Sanders, who initiated the festivity to celebrate the dark ... [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: BorderLore Tagged With: Ceremony & Ritual

Dark Nights: The Spiritual Promise of Grief Work

November 23, 2017 By SFA Staff 1 Comment

Mary Kay LeFevour

Mary Kay LeFevour is a bereavement specialist with Tucson Medical Center Hospice. An ordained interfaith minister, a title she sought out specifically to qualify her to be a hospice chaplain, Mary Kay offers individual and group support for those who have lost family members. We spoke to her about the darkness of grief and its importance for ... [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: BorderLore Tagged With: Ceremony & Ritual

La Santa Muerte: The folk saint who asks no questions

October 27, 2017 By SFA Staff Leave a Comment

Santa Muerte

by Jim Griffith, guest contributor La Santa Muerte (“Holy Death” or “Saint Death”) is an extremely popular Mexican folk saint who is not recognized by the Catholic Church, even though her devotion shares much of its structure, behavior, and worldview with Catholicism. A personification of Death, she is frequently represented as a robed and ... [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: BorderLore Tagged With: Artifact, Ceremony & Ritual

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