Day of the Dead #6: The Legend of the Cempasúchil Flower

Frida in Cempasúchils

One of the most important symbols of the Day of the Dead ceremony is the abundance of brilliant orange flowers ... cempasúchil or marigolds.The color and smell are intended to guide the path of the ancestors to their altars. The fragility of flowers is also a symbol of life. 

 On my journey to find out more about this ceremony, I met Lorena at La Bella Vida (see below) and she told me about the legend behind the flowers. 

Once upon a time ...

there were two young Aztecs, Xóchitl and Huitzilin, who were friends as children and lovers when they grew up. One of their favorite activities was hiking to the top of a near mountain where they would offer flowers to the Sun god Tonatiuh. The god seemed to appreciate their offering and would smile from the sky with his warm rays. 

On a particularly beautiful day at the top of the mountain, they swore their love would last forever. However, war broke out and the lovers were separated as Huitzilin went off to fight. Soon the news came that death had separated the lovers and Xóchitl’s heart was broken and her world shattered into pieces.

She decided to walk one last time to the top of the mountain and implore the sun god  Tonatiuh, to somehow join her with her love Huitzilin. The sun, moved by her prayers, threw a ray that gently touched the young girl’s cheek. Instantly she turned into a beautiful flower of fiery colors as intense as the rays of the sun. 

Huitzilin, the hummingbird

Suddenly a hummingbird buzzed around the beautiful flower and lovingly touched its center with its beak.It was Huitzilin that was reborn as a handsome hummingbird. The flower gently opened its 20 petals, filling the air with a mysterious and lovely scent.

The sun god had granted them eternal togetherness as long as cempasúchil (marigolds) flowers and hummingbirds existed on earth. Thus, the cempasúchil came to be the Day of the Dead flower.

For what it's worth ...

Chickens from a market in Chiapas.

Chickens and egg yolks in Mexico are both a rich, yellow-orange. Why? They feed them marigolds, not only for the color, but because marigolds are rich in antioxidants.

Source: The legend of the Day of the Dead lovers comes from Inside Mexico.

Special thanks to Lorena at La Bella Vista (Constitucion #6, Ajijic) for telling me about the lover's story of the marigold and the hummingbird.  La Bella Vista is a lovely gift store and offers a good variety of Day of the Dead items and arts and crafts from around the world. They will be open on November 2nd. They will have an altar and offer talks and snacks about the day around 4pm.

Day of the Dead items at La Bella Vida

All of this series is available at the Day of the Dead tab at the top of the page.
 

Day of the Dead #5: 4 quick overview videos

Four short videos about Day of the Dead. People throughout the world have different customs for honoring their dead. In Spanish-speaking countries, the primary celebration is Dia de los Muertos, celebrated November 1st and 2nd. 

The first, of course, is the "Coco" trailer. The movie is going to be re-released ... don't miss it. You will understand the true meaning of the celebration and the beauty of the movie is stunning.

Click here to watch

The second is a beautifully animated, and heart felt, short film about a little girl who visits the land of the dead, where she learns the true meaning of the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos. Student Academy Award Gold Medal winner, 2013

Click here to watch.

If you're in a hurry, this video gives you a quick overview of 5 things you might not know about this celebration.

Click here to watch.

This video from the National Hispanic Cultural Center offers a more in-depth overview of the historical and cultural aspects of the celebration.

Click here to watch.

All of this series is available at the Day of the Dead tab at the top of the page.
  

Day of the Dead #4: Ancestor Reclamation Project

A few summers ago

New Mexico morning

found me on a remarkable piece of land in northern New Mexico. Fields of wildflowers blanketed the labyrinth where I walked every morning and dramatic displays of clouds and thunder lit up every afternoon, sometimes with rain, sometimes just with cool winds.

I was with a group of seekers working with a shaman when the conversation turned to honoring our ancestors. My life rather uniquely separated me from my blood kin so I questioned what ancestors I should be honoring.

The shaman listened and then mainly left the question for me to chew on. Out of that experience in a sprawling wilderness, I came to a commitment to make gratitude a bigger part of my life, to actually  practice  gratitude using a journal I designed to be fast, easy and based on the latest research. After weeks of using the rough prototype of this journal and improving the process, I published it as Gratitude Miracles, the 5-minute journal that could change everything!

available from amazon.com

After about three months of religiously recording my gratitudes and watching for miracles, I came to the sudden realization that a good many of the miracles in my life were dead. People who touched my life, changing it forever, making me the person I am today, then continuing on their own journeys. These are my ancestors. Perhaps they didn’t give me their DNA but they gave me a piece of their spirits and nurtured something they saw in me, something I couldn’t see for myself.

Ancestor reclamation project

I have now embarked on an ancestor reclamation project, remembering and giving thanks for those people who are woven into my spirit. Some stayed for years, some handed me a gift and moved on. Each of them are as much a part of me as if they had passed along their genes.

Polly took me by the hand and led me into an art supply store, convinced that I needed to start painting. She also showed me thousands of photographs that changed the way I look at the world. Polly was a woman ahead of her time: a southern woman with little interest in marriage and children. She finally relented when Hank begged her to marry him and promised to clean the house if she would. They were together over fifty years until Alzheimer’s  carried him away.

My aunts Wanda and Lerrea were best friends

Lerrea was always there. I was one of the many stray children she fed, loved and encouraged. Long, late night, Pepsi-laced conversations about spirit and life spread over almost four decades and wove our spirits together, changing the very fabric of my being. I got to spend two of her last years with her and she left me with Missy, the toy poodle we shared and who reminded me of her every day.

Wanda was a non-DNA aunt who inspired me with her life and love. In her I saw the relentless force of creativity that pulled her into music, ceramics, and creating beauty all around her. I also saw someone dealing with a beyond-fiction life of abuse with unceasing kindness and love.

Maggi, 80, dying, laughing all the way

Maggi, magnetic, colorful, dancing Maggi, drew me in at a time when my spirit was arthritic and needed the salve of her love. She was a whirlwind of abundance, lighting up the world with her smile, listening to my tales, encouraging me to go forth and create beauty. She made my heart bigger and brought joy to everyone who entered her dance. Preparing for her last Thanksgiving, we went to Costco where she was an absolute terror on her motorized shopping cart.

Richard and Ava in the Sierra

Richard, sometimes the wisest man I would ever know, sometimes not, but always loving and kind. He supported every new direction I wanted to take and gave me the courage to take leaps into the unknown. Not all of them worked, but he was always there supporting my next try. Marriage to him was a 26 year adventure.

Jerry said yes to a ridiculous idea in a way that made me think it might not be so ridiculous. For twenty years he shared his ideas and encouraged mine. When we talked and he called me “Joyceeeee,” my spirit felt like seeds were sprouting after a spring rain.

Layne chose to spend a lot of his last year of life involved with one of my projects. I met him when he walked up to me after my first Innovation Network Convergence and gave me a check for the next year. Being around him made me a better person, humbled me and made me work harder to make our time together meaningful. About a dozen of us were part of the project he chose to support in his year of dying and his spirit hovered over everything we did long after he was gone. I still think about him whenever I’m taking on a new project and wonder if it would meet his standards.

Becoming an ancestor and wondering about my legacy

These are just some of my ancestors. Thinking about them and the gifts they gave me fills me to overflowing with wonder and gratitude. And, as I grow closer to the time when I, too, will be an ancestor, I wonder if I’m making as much of an impression on those coming behind me as these amazing ancestors made on me. 

What gifts am I leaving? Whose lives am I touching and changing? What will my legacy be?

Who are your ancestors?

Day of the Dead #3: Three Deaths

Ofelia Esparza, an “altarista” featured on an intercultural video series, “Craft in America: Border Episode” says each of us dies three times: once when we die physically, once when we are buried and will never be seen on the face of the earth again, and once when we are forgotten. It is that third death that is the hardest and is the primary reason behind the Day of the Dead ceremonies.

Click to watch video:

Of course, as a child, I wasn't thinking about any of those deaths when I decided that I didn’t “like” death. I was one of the fortunate ones, however. Death barely whispered to me until I reached my 60s, and then it began to roar.

Richard and Ava in the poppy fields

My husband, a kind, sweet, funny man was my first major loss that came after three years of dealing with cancer. I remember asking him as we neared the end if he feared death. He said, “No,” but added that there was one thing he did fear … being forgotten. Those words broke my heart because there was nothing in our lives that would make him believe that we wouldn’t forget him. We had no rituals of remembering those who had gone before us.

Perhaps that was the first significant shift in my acceptance of death as a part of life. The losses multiplied quickly after Richard died as I quickly lost all of my elders and began to lose friends and colleagues.

Day of the Dead as a celebration of Life

 In the "Craft in America" episode linked above, Ofelia Esparza states, “For Day of the Dead, we don’t celebrate death; we celebrate life. We invite the souls to come visit us.” 

Everything that is done during the celebration is done as a way to help the departed souls find their way back to their loved ones and to feel honored and cared for. As we, the living, are preparing their favorite foods, creating an altar in their honor, and cleaning and decorating their graves, we are remembering them, softening that third death that will come to each of us eventually.

My own death day celebration

In a Oaxaca frame of mind

As my resistance to death began to soften, I created my own “death day.” We know when our birth day is but most of us never know when our death day will be. So I decided on June 17th as my death day. The intention was to use that day as a reminder that I will die, but, until then I should live fully. This past year as I grow ever nearer to the close of this earth adventure, I decided that the 17th of every month would be honored as a death day, reminding myself to do everything I want to do while I’m still healthy and alive …  and, also, to get my affairs in order so that there is a minimum of mess for others to take care of when I leave.

Moving to Mexico was a major decision related to that commitment to live fully and lightly for the rest of my time. I had always wanted to live in a different culture and learn a second language. It was time to make that happen.

So, here I am living by a beautiful lake in a charming village in Mexico. I am healthy, energetic, delighted by the art I’m making and the interesting people I’m meeting. In the 1980s, it was common to hear people say, “This would be a good day to die.” Widely attributed to Crazy Horse, apparently it is more correctly attributed to Oglala Lakota chief Low Dog.

Whomever deserves the credit, I have reached a place where I can honestly say, “This would be a good day to die,” which actually means I am free to live and would have no regrets if this were my last day (although I hope I get to see many more.) And, being here in Mexico has brought me closer to an appreciation for the rituals of death and honoring those who have gone before us … which actually helps us savor life more fully.

Last year my altar was dedicated to the "ancestors" who enriched my life and helped make me who I am. This year, I'm going to add my "art ancestors" to the altar. Artists who have brought me joy and artists I hope to learn from.

All of this series is available at the Day of the Dead tab at the top of the page.
 

Day of the Dead #1: Beyond pumpkins, candy, costumes and spider webs

Frida in marigolds

It’s October, the beginning of the holiday season in the US. The big triumvirate … Halloween … Thanksgiving … Christmas … begin this month. I was never very big on Halloween. The candy was nice, but, ew, the costumes!

My mother had repressed-creativity syndrome (I'm convinced that's a real thing) and Halloween gave her a chance to act out. While my childhood girlfriends would wind up in sweet little princess outfits, I never knew, or was asked, what my costume would be.

One year I was a scarecrow, which sounds tame enough, except I was stuffed with real straw and you can only imagine what it’s like to walk around town stiff and scratchy. I must give her credit, though, we almost always won the best costume award. I think it scarred me though … I haven't been in a costume since I left home.

Tons of sugar

In the U.S., Halloween has become a six-billion dollar industry focused on pumpkins, costumes and candy and only loosely paying attention to the dead in the form of ghosts which have a strange affinity for spider webs.  

Now, I’m here in Mexico, where Día de los Muertos is on the calendar and on the minds of many. I’ve decided to delve more deeply into this, for me, unplowed field. Having reached my 70s, it’s much harder to pretend that death is not part of life.  

What are "ancestors?"

Skeleton bride

Last summer, I asked a shaman what he meant by “ancestors.” Were they just the direct gene pool that brought me here?

 As an only child who never knew my father or his line and had little exposure to my mother’s line, I don’t feel a connection to my direct ancestors. The shaman assured me that “ancestors” means more than just relatives who have passed. However, he did not give me a clear definition and left me thinking about the whole question. Now I find myself in a country deeply involved with ancestors and death. Interesting.  

Celebrating ancestors worldwide 

It turns out that almost every culture honors its dead. According to a Smithsonian article about world cultures, Halloween has its roots in "an ancient Celtic festival, Samhain, which marked the beginning of winter. The Celts believed that the night before Samhain, spirits from the other world came and destroyed vegetation with their breath, leaving the land barren for winter. People would leave food and wine on their doorsteps to appease the spirits, and wear masks when they left the house to blend in with them."

It didn’t take long for the Christian church to co-op the festival and turn it into All Saints Day … All Hallows Eve … Halloween. One of the traditions included the poor begging for pastries in exchange for prayers for the deceased … the fore-runner of “trick or treat."

Some of the other world festivals honoring the ancestors include: 

Obon Festival in Japan:  I was fortunate enough to see a miniature version of this Buddhist festival where families set floating paper lanterns honoring deceased ancestors onto a small lake in Fresno, California. In Kyoto, residents light giant bonfires in the hills in order to guide the spirits back to the world of the dead. 

Many of the customs of these world festivals are like a dance, enticing the spirits back to the world of the living and then helping them find their way back to their own world again. In Japan the dance to welcome them is called bon odori, intended to relieve the suffering of the spirits and entice them to join the family reunion where graves are cleaned and altars created in their honor.

Cheseok in Korea is a 3-day festival which generally falls in September/October. It is a time for the living to give thanks to the dead for the bounty of their harvest. In addition to cleaning and decorating graves, they share food and their bounty with each other and celebrate under a full moon with dances and games. 

Thinning of the Veil

Mask - Jocotepec, Mexico

 

It is interested how many world festivals cluster in the months following the harvesting of food and before the actual onslaught of winter. Many descriptions of this time include the thought that this is the time when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest. Isn’t it interesting that this is such a world-wide belief? 

Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival is the culmination of a month-long period of honoring the ancestors and begins in July or August. This is a time "when the gates to the netherworld are said to be most open to the world of the living. Often, people avoid going out at night for fear that ghosts who have passed through the gates will haunt them."

The Hungry Ghost Festival balances fear with frivolity including parades, feasts and more floating lanterns. In China, however, there is a belief that the further a lantern floats before catching fire, the luckier the family will be in the coming year. They also make paper offerings of cars, money, jewelry and burn them in order to provide for ancestors in the afterlife.

The Chinese also have a festival known as Qingming, also called Ancestors Day or Tomb-Sweeping Day occurring in mid-April when they clean the graves and make offerings to the ancestors. 

Gai Jatra in Nepal is an eight-day festival that happens in September or October. Families who have lost a relative during the year lead a cow … or a child dressed as a cow if they don’t have a cow … down the street in a procession. The belief is that the revered cow will guide the ancestors into the afterlife. 

Cambodia’s Pchum Ben is one of the most important holidays of the year. It involves fifteen days of gathering at pagodas (wearing white, the Cambodian color of mourning) to remember ancestors. They believe that during Pchum Ben, spirits come back in search of living relatives, hoping to atone for sins from their past lives.  

Madagascar has a winter celebration called famadihana, when tombs are opened and the corpses are removed, to be wrapped in silk and carried around the tomb to live music. Their belief is that spirits cannot fully go to the land of the ancestors until the body is completely decomposed. Therefore, every seven years the body is removed, re-wrapped, and put back into the tomb.

I find these celebrations of the ancestors fascinating in their similarities and in their differences. As far as I know, we are the only animal species that has developed these elaborate death rituals. We are obviously concerned with death and with the well-being of the loved ones who have made a transition to a state we can no longer see or understand.

October is a month for exploring ancestors, death and our beliefs about "what comes next. I will be reposting articles from last year and adding to the collection this year, exploring the nuances of the celebrations here in Mexico … and, my own questions, thoughts and feelings about the grand transition that looms before me. If you have questions you would like to be explored during this series, please leave them in the comments section below. 

All of the Day of the Dead posts from last year are available on the Day of the Dead tab at the top of the page.

More info:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/festivals-dead-around-world-180953160/

Day of the Dead: The ONE best place to celebrate

The popular holiday Día de Los Muertos is getting ever more popular, and over-crowded, as people head for the places most highlighted by tourist publications. It reminds me of the museum photos where crowds are standing 10-15 deep in front of the relatively small Mona Lisa with no time to think much about the picture, the artist, the times, or how it affects them. 

If you want to celebrate this day, here are some recommendations in the order of Great, Better, Best.

GREAT: If you want a Times-Square-on-New-Years-Eve experience, there are several amazing choices that most travel sites recommend: Oaxaca, Janitzio Island and Patzcuaro, Mixquic, Mérida, Aguascalientes, Riviera Maya, Chiapa de Corzo, Campeche, Cuernavaca, and San Miguel de Allende. 

Janitzio Island and Patzcuaro

BETTER: if massive crowds aren’t your thing, and if the meaning of this holiday is important to you, and you want to be embraced by families and neighbors honoring their departed loved ones, it’s good to remember that Día de Los Muertos is celebrated everywhere in Mexico. Pick a place that interests you and discover its uniquely charming way of celebrating the holiday.

Ajijic family altar

Found on one of the street altars here in Ajijic

BEST: However, the one best place would be to celebrate in your own neighborhood, town and home. Delve into your own ancestry, create your own altar, design your own family tradition, make this very special day your own. 

Last year, when I moved to Ajijic, Mexico, I decided to stay home and experience the holiday through this small village. I explored the tradition and meanings of the holiday electronically and wrote a series of blog posts about it. I wound up creating my own altar and thinking deeply about my ancestors and how they enriched my life. 

My in-progress altar from 2017

As you think about this celebration, I have 3 recommendations:

1. Rewatch the movie, “Coco.” Even watching the brilliant trailer will get you in the mood to contemplate this important part of life.
2. Read the series of blogs that I will repost to help you better understand the details of this tradition.
3. Make the holiday your own.

Enjoy!

More Information: 

All of the Day of the Dead posts from last year are available on the Day of the Dead tab at the top of the page.

Top 7 Day of the Dead Recommendations: