celialowenthal:

This past Sunday, I was briefly at a Swedish Lutheran church for a special Lucia-themed event, it being the Sunday closest to St Lucia Day (today, 12/13). To say I felt like a Jewish spy is to simplify my often-confused feelings on faith. It was my old light-up crown that the church’s Lucia was wearing, and yet the discussions of saints made me uncomfortable and an outsider. In the past, I have tried to visually reconcile my dual-religion upbringing by depicting them in concert, together: as a dark-haired girl dressed as Sankta Lucia, a self-portrait lighting a menorah. But in this volatile age and devoid of my personal context, that would be an image of assimilation rather than reconciliation. So I suppose I’ll leave it to you to decide if these girls are lighting the same menorah or not. 

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Hotel del Salto, Tequendama Falls, 30 km from Bogotá, Colombia

Carlos Arturo Tapias, 1923

The hotel was abandoned when the waterfall became toxic. The site became a departure point for suicide victims, and their memories haunted the hotel. Supposedly purified of evil spirits, now a museum of biodiversity.

http://desertedplaces.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-haunted-hotel-at-tequendama-falls.html