Illuminating
Every Corner of Spain
from Within One City
By
Valencia Center (Originally in Spanish)
Every year, from March 15 through 19,
the city of Valencia celebrates one of the most important festivals
in Spain: Las Fallas (meaning “The Fires”). During this
festival, which attracts people from all over Spain as well as from
other countries, the city is filled with music, art, fashion, fantastic
fireworks and, of course, people.
Since
the biggest days of the celebration fell on Saturday and Sunday this
year, attendance was expected to be high. Initiates from the Valencia
Center decided to make use of the occasion and hand out as many Alternative
Living flyers as possible, to reach people from all parts of the country.
Fellow practitioners from other cities such as Madrid, Granada and Almeria
also joined in to help distribute the flyers.
Throughout the week, brothers and sisters
passed out leaflets to large numbers of people throughout the entire
city. They quickly realized that the best places to access people were
at the train and subway stations as well as the locations for that day’s
festival activities: entrances to the fashion shows, the fireworks displays
and the festival’s main monuments (giant sculptures created to
represent the forces of creation and destruction). When the weekend
arrived, initiates divided into pairs and began handing out leaflets
in every major area of the city.
With the help of Master, who motivated
and gave them the strength to be on foot that long and to be surrounded
by so many people, initiates were able to distribute more than 100,000
leaflets in five days! It could be said that Master’s message
reached out to almost every corner of Spain from within one city.
During
the Easter holidays from April 13 to 17, fellow initiates conducted
a series of activities in southern Spain near Malaga and Sevilla. Setting
their base in the vegetarian restaurant run by a fellow practitioner
in Malaga, they drove to surrounding areas to distribute leaflets in
the daytime, and came back for all night group meditation sessions.
In total, they distributed 80,000 leaflets in eight cities.
The activity gave an opportunity for
fellow practitioners from various parts of Spain to work hand in hand
for the first time, enabling them to know each other better and work
closely together. Additionally, it has built a good foundation for future
teamwork related activities.