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Switzerland

Chasing Down the Ghosts of Winter

In Switzerland, we were 3 Americans and a Swiss ex-pat from a small village near Luzern. We were hosted and serenaded that first afternoon by a band of merry "hunting wives" and their husbands who masqueraded as wild furry animals. Over the next week we walked through "Meditation Forest", tasted wine at the Heidegg Castle and journeyed into the heart of the Alps on Europe's highest cogwheel railway. But most memorable was being part of one of the oldest traditions in Switzerland. To be masked in costume is to be uninhibited. To be inhabited by an angel, an exotic bird or a wild boar is freedom to be mythical and larger than yourself. "Fasnacht" is one week when the poetic and surreal trumps the everyday practicalities that dictate society for the rest of the year. With the austere and meditative days of Lent still ahead, the Swiss people embrace the important task of chasing down the ghosts of Winter.