For more than a week, San Miguelians have been parading and dancing nightly in celebration of the Feast of Saint Michael. When it’s your namesake, you go all out. Right?
And on the last day, you put it all together in the “Grand Desfile de Danzas Locales y Foraneas” — the Grand Parade of Local and Foreign Dances.
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All of San Miguel de Allende knew something was up today, if only because the cohetes exploded us out of our slumber at 5 a.m. and hardly stopped for the next two hours.
That’s way more spiritual pyrotechnics than a minor saint receives, most mornings.
This morning heralded the Festival of Saint Michael the Archangel and the patron saint of San Miguel de Allende. Granted, the festival is not until the weekend of October 3-5, but we are not above having parades to announce future festivals.
Indeed, today’s procession through the community is called La Reseña de la Fiesta Patronal, and it is both an announcement to the community and an invitation to participate in the celebration.
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In front of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arc Angel — all day Friday for the feast day of Señor de La Conquista — hundreds of brightly costumed dancers express the most joyous form of worship imaginable.
And exhausting.
Long before noon, it was hot out there. Really hot. I’ve never seen headdresses come off so quickly and water get consumed so rapidly as today. Can you blame them?
But always there were smiles.
So, what’s this all about?
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This weekend has been a massive celebration of our community’s namesake, San Miguel, the archangel who drove the devil from heaven. We call it the battle of Good versus Evil.
There was a massive fireworks battle in the Jardin, with rockets shooting over the treetops — the forces of good on the Parroquia side and evil on the side that houses government offices. OK, the optics aren’t all that great for local government, but they must have signed off.
Fortunately, it was all symbolic.
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Clowns were dancing up the street again today.
I didn’t make the same mistake twice.
Just because clowns are dancing, it doesn’t mean there is a party going on.
I learned this lesson the hard way on a recent weekend.
The recent procession that passed in front of my house from Parroquia San Antonio de Padua was a funeral. Not a celebration.
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I thought the day began at 5:30 a.m. with a massively loud fusillade of fireworks from the Parroquia de San Antonio grounds, about a block away from my home in Colonia San Antonio. That’s what sent me upright in my bed and nearly over the side.
The explosions kept up every 10 minutes or so for the next couple of hours.
My friend Bob Cooksey, who lives directly across the street from the church, says the celebration began an hour earlier with a 30-piece marching band heading out from the church grounds and down the street in front of his home.
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 