Granollers

Amma in Granollers

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

For the past three days the Indian spiritual teacher Amma has been in Granollers. A large sports centre was transformed into a place to meditate, listen to Indian sacred music, eat fantastic curry, and of course to receive darshan. Amma is known to many followers as Mother and she travels the world blessing people with an embrace. People queue for hours to kneel in front of her, lay their heads on her breast and be hugged.

 I went on the last day, cycling straight down through town.  The sports centre is at one end of the long main street and we live at the other. In the distance a mountain, rising like a massive breast with a nipple on top seemed to beckon me to meet the Mother.

On arrival I felt my usual discomfort at some of the paraphenalia of ‘spiritual’ events. The circus was in town. People dressed in white,  stalls selling over-priced jewellery, a sensation of being in a market place with pushing and jostling seemingly no different than in Granollers weekly market. One part of me expected people to be more loving and generous, not to elbow to the front of the queue or to stand chatting at the top of the stairs so you couldn’t get past. Another part of me resisted the temptation to judge and belittle. Have I come here looking for something? And if so what?

The darshan room was enormous and almost full.  People were shopping and chatting and moving about, but there was also someone else there – small and still, sitting at the front, hugging people. The queue leading up to her stretched out of the hall, every few seconds it moved forward as the hugging progressed and the flow towards Amma continued.  I watched what was happening on overhead screens where you could see Amma closeup.

Over and over again the same action. Each hug lasting about 7 seconds. She was surrounded by helpers who guided the process so that it never stopped. People queued for hours, they arrived at the front, they knelt, helpers pushed their heads down onto her chest – not always so gently it seemed and I was reminded of open-air baptisms where the face is submerged in the water.
Over and over again. I looked at books, I went and ate a wonderful masala dosa in the restaurnat, I sat and meditated in the great hall, I fell asleep for a while as I hadn’t seen the notice prohibiting sleeping in the darshan room……and each time I returned my gaze to Amma, there she was, still hugging. It was incredible how she could keep smiling and making this intense physical contact.There was something very moving about the repetition, the simplicity of the thing.
There were musicians playing, people milling around and many volunteers helping with food and tickets and guiding the long queues of people waiting for darshan. I was feeling tired and decided in the end not to go up for a hug.  It felt good to be in the room – watching the flow of people and flicking my eyes between the screen which was showing Amma as she worked, and the real Amma who was often obscured from view. The real and the virtual Amma.

I got very excited about the food and actually ate two masala dosas on the same day. It is my favourite Indian food  and I used to eat it every week in the Keralan restaurant Rasa in Stoke Newington London.  There was lassi to drink and samosas and little coconut sweets. I felt rather guilty that the food was such a highlight for me and that I didn’t queue for an embrace but after all isn’t this what mothers do? Feed you and hug you? For some reason this time I chose the food.
Final impressions
It felt good to have such an international event happening here. Granollers can feel rather conventional and stuffy so I enjoyed the exhuberance of colour and different faces, new music and spicy food. The town is a commercial centre for the region and this injection of spirituality felt important. Generally the social hub of Granollers is in the main shopping streets.  This time there were thousands of people coming together just for a hug.  And I am now thinking that next time she comes I will join the queue.

Festa Major II

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment

To be honest I haven’t seen much of the Feste and when I have gone to take a look it is getting dark and all my photos have been useless. The best thing that happened was that after I wrote the post with photos of Blaus and Blancs I received an email from someone who I didn’t know (always a pleasant surprise for a blog writer with a small readership) saying that he had taken the same photo as me, standing near me but without either of us knowing each other. Strange coincidence that we had a mutual contact who sent him my blog so he saw my photo. I liked it because it was one evening when I walked into town alone and had the familiar feeling of being among strangers – not expecting to see anyone I knew to say hello to. It’s something funny in Granollers – I am more likely to bump into someone in Barcelona! Or it can feel that way…
Last night we went to dance in the square in front of the church – a band played rumbas and walzes and salsa and swing and it was very nice to just dance together with a few hundred other people, after midnight, in the warm darkness.
One image I caught was of the group called the MacHaguns (a play on the words ‘ma cago’ meaning ‘ I shit on….something) who wear kilts and affect some affinity with Scotland???? This one is interesting – a man in a kilt with a fan! Not often seen in Glasgow.Note the shoes – they are traditional Catalan espardenyes – made with cannabis plant and cotton and once manufactured in the family factory here at home.

Summer school

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

 

Schools here stop after Sant Joan ( June 23th) but many parents continue working until the end of July.  So it is common for children to go to summer schools or summer camps this month. I think I mentioned before in another post that at the back of our house is a building that used to be a textile factory run by the parents and grandparents of my partner. Just as in the UK old churches often change into pubs (something he found very strange when we visited Scotland) here many old factories turn into Art Centres.

Here in Granollers there is La Troca, in the old Roca Umbert factory which was built in 1904 and is now a large Arts Centre with cafe and library and spaces for performance and rehearsal and courses.

And here at home, what used to be a small family run textile business has now transformed into Llançadora Association of Artists.  The name Llançadora comes from the word for the shuttle which was used in the  textile industry.
There are three areas – upstairs a beautiful light room with a wooden floor for dance classes, circus and theatre workshops, movement, singing and exercise

 

There are trapezes

and silky ropes of material called Teles for climbing and performing incredible aerial feats

And lots of interesting things like spinning plates and clubs to juggle with.

Downstairs is a work in progress.  There is a small stage for performances and a space with tables and chairs for parties and meetings and musical jam sessions. Alongside this is a separate area for art workshops – for painting and sculpting and making masks and theatrical props. There are lots of materials available – some which were originally produced or used in the factory. Some of the old machinery is still here.

It is an interesting place full of history and memories and dreams.

And there is a Summer School

For three weeks in July, children from 4 – 10 years old come to Llançadora to enjoy a summer school of artistic activites. I have been helping – a new experience in every way as I have never worked in theatre or circus, I can’t juggle, I don’t speak Catalan beyond the very basic and I have had almost zero practice in working with children. But it has been great fun and the children are lovely and full of ideas and energy.

How I would have loved this when I was young!

High above Granollers

~ Kate Wilson ~ 9 Comments

 

I took a walk this evening up to the derelict tower that sits on a hill overlooking GranollersThe tower Torre de Pinos is an old fortified defense tower built in the 14th century and now half in ruins it is protected but not really cherished.
But the place is magical. I took these photos on a sunny afternoon last week, walking along flower lined paths while trying to take photographs of the swifts. It is not easy to catch one moment of their flight path as they are the ultimate aerial birds. I had many photos of empty blue sky! Swifts eat, drink, mate and sleep on the wing and only come to earth for long enough to nest and feed their young. Barcelona is full of the sound of their excited cries and from our terrace here I can watch them at night. In Catala they are called Falciots, not orinetes which are swallows. Up in the fields around the Torre, high above Granollers, in the evening when the air is full of flying insects, I am able to feel as if I am in their world.
Tonight I went to the Torre just before sunset. The sun was hiding at first behind a large cloud and I watched it slowly emerge like a luminescent red balloon to glow with midsummer fire before settling down behind the hills. I had no camera and could only wonder and marvel at the dance of the swifts, the rays of purple light spreading across the sky and the wildness of this place so close to the city. So often I stand with my neck craned to watch them high above but tonight I had the amazing experience of having them whizz past my head so close I could hear their wing beat.
Life sometimes throws at us ‘momentos malos’ and it was in this kind of mood that I climbed the hill tonight with Duna as my companion. I felt very aware that nowhere within miles or kilometers was there anyone I could talk to freely in my own language. I was missing not so much ‘home’ but the feeling of ‘being at home’. If you ever imagine living in another country, include this in the fantasy, it can be hard! Small things can feel like the last straw and it is easy to feel inadequate when you can’t freely do the most normal thing – talk. So,what to do, where to turn?
For me it is to nature, which exists outside frontiers and customs, languages and barriers, frustrations and misunderstandings. All exists in the moment and tonight as the light was dying it was beautiful to be part of that moment.

Light and Shade

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Now summer is here and after months of moaning about the cold I can hardly complain that now it is HOT. Today only 27 degrees but yesterday it was about 33. It is temping to stay inside until the evening ( or the afternoon as it is called here meaning sometime after 4pm until the sun goes down around 8pm) but if I have to go out I find myself seeking the shady side of the street. Across the road from our house is a little square named after Verdaguer a famous 19th C Catalan poet. When I arrived here it was being remodelled but once the barriers were removed there remained the original fountain and circle of trees which provide welcome shade in the summer sunshine. There is almost always someone sitting there reading or chatting or just relaxing. I go there every day with Duna as there are also very convenient little flowerbeds filled only with wood bark which make perfect toilets!In the square there is also a little general supermarket which has the added benefit of making me laugh because it’s name makes a promise which it doesn’t always fulfil. And today at 2pm as so often, I was too late to buy anything. Coming home takes about two minutes but I am very aware of the difference between the sunny and the shady side of the street. Today not much difference between the two but at least on one side it is possible to hop from one black patch to another without too much boiling in between Thank goodness for trees and shadows and shade.