Between New Year and Lent there is a festival to chase away evil spirits in Bulgaria called
Kukeri. Let's go!
People wear costumes depicting scary animals and parade through town making lots of noise to scare the bad vibes away. I love these raucous festivals celebrated around the world that simply acknowledge evil and attempt to do something about it. I imagine everyone leaves with a lighter spirit. I like the idea of getting to chase away my bad luck and put all of my negative energy in a pile and burn it once a year. In fact, I might just do that this weekend.
If you feel foolish doing this in your neighborhood, there are packaged tours you can take that will guide you through your first Kukeri festival. They take place throughout the month of January in Bulgaria, but the largest festival takes place in Pernik. This year the Pernik festival takes place January 29-31. One of the tours is led by
V Travel Ltd. and you might want to check it out if you're nearby in, say, Romania or Greece next week.
I really should start a spooky tour company. So many great festivals, so little time.
Over in Portland Oregon, they have a regular "shaggy-dog" monster chase throught the streets. Very popular with the polytheist pagans who
ReplyDeletehttp://www.german-way.com/krampus-the-christmas-devil-of-alpine-europe/
That looks fun, and it's much closer!
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