Costaleras

This book compiles, for the first time and through rigorous research, a living, up-to-date map of the women who carry processional floats in Spain: where they do it, since when, how they feel about it, and what drives them to continue. More than four hundred voices--float bearers, foremen, families, leaders of brotherhoods, and people who accompany the ritual--share their intimate experiences: the muscular tension, the studied technique, the emotion that rises from the shoulder to the skin, the nerves that tingle in the moments before the procession, the faith, the devotion, and the hope that carries them through the night. These pages reveal a phenomenon rich in roots and promise: identity, mission, living culture, sociology, psychology, and the spiritual memory of our popular religiosity. It is a human and intimate journey, told with respect and attentiveness, inviting us to understand and feel from within. The heartbeat of this book touches something deep: beneath the costal there are neck vertebrae, there is a spine, there is held breath... and there is a heart that dreams in the plural. They are already walking beneath the pasos, with short steps and lofty souls. And their footprint advances, inch by inch, like the trabajadera: firm, conscious, shared.