* The authors are part of the community of La Vanguardia readers
They say that saying goodbye to the year with a piece of red clothing is lucky. Be that as it may, the last sunsets and the last sunrise of 2023 have been tinted with a reddish sky, perhaps predicting a better 2024, at least, that is the wish conveyed by these photographs in La Vanguardia Readers' Photos captured in different points.
It's all due to the candilazo, a meteorological phenomenon in which the clouds in the sky show a wide palette of colors that ranges from pink to the most intense orange.
As part of the phenomenon of dispersion of sunlight, in the morning and afternoon hours, when the sun is closer to the horizon, the light that reaches the Earth is soft tones between red and orange. In a certain way, when this light passes through the clouds, it illuminates them and could be said to color them with those tones.
I took these photographs in the morning from Bellmunt, in Sant Pere de Torelló, in the Osona region, with a reddish sky on the last sunrise of the year. And without cold.
Photograph of the pristine, clean and clear sunset this December in Calafell.
Spectacular the last sunset of the year in Sentfores, in Vic, Osona region, also dominated by the phenomenon of candlelight in the sky.
Sentfores has been a town in the municipality of Vic since 1932. It is located to the west of the municipality, in the Meder river valley. Apart from the current church of Sentfores, we also find Sant Joan del Galí, the old church of Sant Martí de Sentfores and the castle of Sentfores, which has now disappeared.
I show the following photo taken during sunrise on December 31st in Barcelona.
These photographs were taken today, December 31, in Altea, in the Marina Baixa region, at dawn.
With this photograph, with a printed message included, I convey my best wishes to all those who take and share photos, to the readers, to those who give "likes" and to those who do not, to those who select the images and letters of the readers and all the staff of La Vanguardia in general.
The new year has been celebrated in almost all known religions and with special solemnity. Despite their differences, these celebrations present common features, such as the abolition of the ending year or the elapsed time, with everything that it entails that is adverse: evils or misfortunes, sins, demons and evil geniuses.
The celebration sometimes begins with the celebration of the old fire (Iroquois) or the expulsion of the old year (in Tibet or Mexico) and almost always with rites of penance and purification (confessions, baths, ablutions) and various types of exorcism (goat emissary or similar, in Babylon, Israel or India; sacrifices to the Sun in Egypt).
Often the abolition of the past tense results in a suspension of normal activities, for example, government (Babylon, Tibet), and orgies (Babylon, Egypt, Iroquois), in which no one is held responsible, because one is He believes he is beyond ordinary time and in a kind of primitive chaos.
In China, the relationship with the past tense had a better character, with the worship of ancestors and the farewell of the god of the home who ascends to heaven to report on the status of family members.
Likewise, the ritual celebration of the new creation or cosmic renewal is general (new fire of Zoroastrianism, of the Yucatan Mayans, of the Iroquois or of the Celts; weddings or fights of gods, of the Babylonians, Egyptians or ancient Persians; magical practices to stimulate the fertility of men, animals or plants, in China, in Babylon), accompanied by rites of propitiation of the gods (offering of agricultural first fruits or, rarely, of human victims, as in Mexico).
In Christianity, the new year has no liturgical significance or special celebration. In the first centuries, when suturnalia were celebrated in Rome, Christians not only did not participate but celebrated fasts and special masses of atonement.
In this photograph of the last sunrise of 2023 we see how the Three Wise Men are already heading to Cardona Castle, in Bages.
The image shows us the last sunrise of the year with a spectacular sky due to the reddish color through the clouds that are reflected in the sea from L'Escala, in Alt Empordà.
The sun rises today for the last time in 2023 to say goodbye to the year, in Igualada, in the Anoia region.
Spectacular candlelight that the sky gives us in the last dawn of 2023 on the beach of Gavà, in the Baix Llobregat.
In this first series of photographs I show you the sunset from this landmark in Sant Llorenç del Munt with best wishes for 2024.
We can see how the sun filters through different points of the stone, which is crowned by a Christmas gallet. I have also added a lamb from the manger to make the whole picture even more Christmassy.
In this other photograph we also see the sunset from Sant Llorenç del Munt, but without stones and looking towards Montserrat.
In these photos we see the different colors of the candlelit sky at the last dawn of the year 2023 in the Cala Margarida de Palamós, in the Baix Empordà.
In these photographs of the sunset in El Tarròs, in the Urgell region, I have tried to capture the good profile of the fruit trees at sunset.
