November 1st and 2nd
I saw the images of Day of the Dead, All Saints Day and All Souls Day on the internet and was intrigued. They were celebratory. They were bright. They weren't about people hiding their grief. People weren't changing the subject. They were saying, "I love people who aren't here anymore, but still exist."
There can be beauty in remembering. There can even be joy. It can be a communal thing, not a lonely thing. I read this article and thought I would share it.
Day of the Dead - A Celebration
Rituals and traditions can provide a sense of place and timelessness. They offer us the opportunity of feeling connected to what has gone before and what will continue through the corridors of time. It seems to me that of the three countries in North America, Mexico has developed a culture that has some of the richest and most meaningful rituals. One in particular I have adopted as it gives me much that I did not have when I lived in Canada.
As happens to all of us, I have reached that age where death of loved ones and friends is a too often occurrence. Many of these deaths happened while I was living in Canada, and yes, the rituals of burial and memorial services were powerful in helping me work through the process of grieving their deaths and my losses. But after that was over, and the usual "time for grieving" had passed, there was nothing in my society that actively supported my continuing relationship to and feelings about these loved people who were no longer alive. Certainly they were gone, but my memory of them, of their lives, and of my life with them continued. The cultural expectation was that I dealt with all of this on my own, privately. So I did, but I never really felt that my process of doing so was finished.
As many do when they first move to Mexico, I experienced the Day of the Dead as a fascinating Mexican ritual. Wasn't it wonderful how families in Mexico got together at this time of year? The practices that went with the event were curious and appeared to be fun - sugar skulls with your name on it; chocolate coffins, those skeleton puppets, the papier mache in so many colours and designs. Visiting the pantheons in the afternoon and evening and seeing all this festivity seemed so colourful and quaint - cleaning the grave sites, preparing the food and drink and laying out the personal items and decorations. Yet there was something there for them, for the participants, which I didn't have and somehow missed.
The next year, I decided to incorporate the rituals associated with the Day of the Dead into my life and home. I discovered that for me, the time leading up to November 1 became a very personal celebration of the life and relationship I had to each person that I was including on the altar I was preparing. As I went through the process of getting photographs out, searching in the tianguis for the right candy skulls and coffins, preparing their favorite foods and drink, I discovered in myself a deep satisfaction and connection with each person and my memory of them.
I began to really understand what the Day of the Dead was all about. It wasn't the rituals themselves that became meaningful, but rather the connection with each person that the ritual produced. I was not just mourning; I was celebrating who they were in my life and honouring their memory in ways that I had not felt were "OK" before. It is a practice that I look forward to each and every year.
