Land of Eternal Spring – Guatemala

Land of Eternal Spring: A Flowery Essay About a Land in Perpetual Springtime
Guatemala

Rites of spring and Passion Week go hand-in-hand in Guatemala.

Seasonal transition is interchangeably switched with the Catholic observance of Semana Santa, the celebration of life, the cycle of death to rebirth in a country with an amazing blend of Spanish-Mayan culture and a bountiful title of “Land of Eternal Spring”.

Florist Vendors at Church Forecourt

Guatemala in springtime is where flowers are in their fullest bloom, fiercely beseeching for the birds and the bees; eventually highlighting a pot, or a plant box, on a window grille in every home, church altar, cemetery, or market’s flower section.

It’s a total visual assault. I’ve never seen such a mass cacophony of highland tropical flowers exploding in fresh lurid colors.

Starting in Guatemala City on the eve of Palm Sunday, in the church of Las Capuchinas, vendors at the church’s atrium are busily preparing for parishioners who’ll be purchasing a ritualistic magic wand sort of paraphernalia – a bunch of palms or symbolic props ingrained in the tradition-rich Catholic culture.

Call it royal fan or royal broom, but it harks back 2,000 years ago when fanatics waved them in the air or swept the route to salute Jesus entering the gate of Jerusalem. In those days, they were simple Mediterranean palms, but in this tropical country, the coconut palm is substituted. No matter what the props are, the spirit of welcoming a hero is just as universal as in Jerusalem, or Guatemala City, or even New York City where heroes on a victory thicker tape parade, are triumphantly acknowledged, showered with confetti and balloons by well-wishers.

The palms are to be blessed by the priest on Palm Sunday, hung on the front door or window to ward off evil, collected next year, burned into ashes, and anointed on the forehead of believers on Ash Wednesday.

This paraphernalia uses primarily the fresh coconut frond, which is fashioned into works of quasi art, exactly what my my mother used to hang outside our front door in the Philippines. Across the Pacific Ocean, it’s just as strongly and tropically Catholic as Guatemala.

Somehow, the appearance bears resemblance to the Balinese decorative street offerings, or the crowning component in the sky high towering offerings carried by women to temples as well as the water sprinklers used by priests in their Hindu-Animistic Balinese rituals.

The small cut-out method used to spice up the palms resembles the techniques of Mexican paper cutting. And stretching the imagination further, it incorporates the principles of Japanese origami. Quite a full circle cultural cross-referencing, a connection spanning across the Atlantic and the Pacific. East and West, North and South meet in this specimen.

The resulting finished bouquet symbolizes the welcoming of spring while the frond in its natural state, guarantees itself as the most eternal and affordable springtime symbol.

Corozo Flower Exposed and Offered at Icon’s Feet

A symbol of Guatemalan spring on the exotic and bizarre kind is one that I’ve never seen in my entire life even with the presence of global village mass media. I was observing the florist-vendors when something caught my eyes. Among their production supplies, plucked botanical parts and species separated in plastic pails and baskets, none deserved my attention more than those weird bunches of cream-colored frilly stalks next to the yellow green glowing palms and golden wheat stalks.

Scrutinizing further, I followed where these specimens came from. In indescribable unscientific terms, these specimens were harvested from the innards of a giant dried thin-fluted brown pea pod of titanic proportions. One that is cracked half open revealed feathery ruffles that may be the reproductive part of this plant. The locals call it ‘corozo’, I call it the boat flower.

Easily recognizable wherever I go whether in Panajachel, Quetzaltenango, or Antigua, it seemed stalking at me, or always one step ahead of my trip. In any altar or image, they’re placed in front and garnished with much brighter flower petals, leaves, and candles. I’ve never encountered a travel book featuring it with visual attention.

Now it stands out as one more enduring icon best remembered about Guatemala.

Abundantly growing are bougainvilleas. They’re everywhere – cascading down the walls and roofs in wild abandon, lending bright colors to the entrance gate or portal they adorn be they deep burgundy, lavender, or sunshine yellow. Luscious green leaves form the bouncy body of cascades while the flowers overflow from the end stems like pop corns, as if they exploded just in time for my arrival.

In Quetzaltenango, in front of the church cemetery is a conglomeration of flower vendors selling bouquets of luridly colored flowers, bunches put together to embellish tombs and designed to perk up a sagging spirit. Vendors are having a ball selling these highland grown flowers in so much variety.

It’s said the Mayas use to bury their dead inside their houses, beneath the dining table where they can almost physically partake with them every meal time. Cemeteries are just an extension of their living homes nowadays, the alternative arrangement offered to their vanquished and vanished ways. Clean and exceptionally bright and breathing with colors, tombs are lovingly cared for as modern means of accommodating their departed loved ones.

If Martha Stewart were here, she would have had a feast day starting a new market niche aptly naming it “Martha Stewart Non-Living”.

Guatemalan Kite

The generous springtime over-extends its bountiful presence throughout the last phase of the year and death simply means another level of existence. Day of the Dead comes in November.

It’s a long shot to reality for me to be in the town of Sacatepequez on All Soul’s Day but it’s said that inhabitants of this suburb of Guatemala City celebrate that day no lesser in magnitude than in any festively groomed Dia de los Muertos Mexican town. The most unique highlight is kite flying.

Guatemalan kites, as brilliantly colorful and patterned as their own brand of weaving, are contrived like giant beach umbrellas, mushrooming out and ready to sail into the breeze. The kite symbolizes the dead lifted up by the wind to the heavenly sky if it makes a sprightly take-off, soars, and glides successfully.

Guatemala absolutely lives up to its title all year round.