The season of marigolds

The last few pieces of the Dia de los Muertos altar need to be brought in, and the fading marigolds fed into the gaping maw of Kali Ma, also known as my compost bin. There's a definite chill in the air, and sunset is beginning to encroach on 5 p.m. We are truly entering the dark time of the year.

For me, fragrances are always the harbingers of this descent into the dark times. Clouds of copal smoke rise from the altars, combining with the intense vegetal scent of marigolds. Not the dwarf French marigolds of my childhood, but the tall African marigolds -- Cempasuchil or Flor de Muerto --  in bright orange and yellow. People pull petals from these flowers and strew them in front of the altars, as their pungent odor was believed to entice the ancestors home for a visit at this time of the year.

I spent part of last Sunday out on 14th Street in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood. It was the community's annual Dia de los Muertos fiesta, with altars set up down the middle of the street, Aztec drummers, kids in masks and costumes, and everywhere the scent of marigolds and copal.  Here's one of the temporary floral shops set up for that day. People were buying marigolds to take home and place on their own altars.

 

Some of the flower vendors were mobile.

 

Each altar was different, but they had many common elements: copal, marigolds, bright colors, pictures and mementos of those we've lost. Some honored not only people, but cultures and the environment that are threatened. One heartbreaking altar commemorated lost babies and young children.

 

Last year in Oakland, we lost four police officers to one lone gunman. The entire community was in shock and grief for a long time, so I wasn't surprised to see an altar in the four officers'  memory featured at the fiesta.

 

Another altar focused on harm done the environment and featured an Hispanic mother goddess at its apex.

 

Typically altars have photos of the ancestors who are being remembered, and often, some of their favorite foods.

 

This next altar celebrates a culture colonialism tried to annihilate.

 

One of the other things I like best about this festival is the number of wonderful Mexican craft items for sale, most of them by the people who made them. All seem to celebrate that cycle of birth-death-rebirth, with no fear of death or those who are gone from us. I love these candelabrum with skeletons and skulls, and the papier mache skulls in bright pastel colors. The bright colors are part of Hispanic culture's peace with death and understanding of the nearness of our ancestors after they've gone.

 

 

Skeletons and skulls were everywhere. This woman was a vendor, selling some of her Dia de los Muertos paintings.

This was one of the best skull makeups I saw. She's standing in the plaza watching the Aztec dancers perform.

 

And here's the youngest skeleton I found. At this point in the day, he's pretty much dead to the world.

 

Some of the Aztec dancers even painted their faces with skull designs.

 

This woman's huipul is embroidered with Meso-American skull designs.

 

When I talk about Samhain and Dia de los Muertos, I almost always use the phrase ``dancing with the ancestors.'' Our Beloved Dead are gone, and yet we call them to mind when we speak their names and when we dance with joy. Here's my favorite -- and, in some ways -- most thematically appropriate -- photo from the fiesta. It's two little ones dancing to some conjunto music played at a stage on the plaza. The dance of life goes on, while the  ancestors are whirling about its edges.

  

 
 

Comments

[Lyon Mercaeant]

Fantastic photos, thank you for sharing - very colorful and moving. There are no festivities like this where I live to mark the season, so I appreciate seeing it at least. =)

[Hollyheartfree]

Lovely. Our DM sister Maia has just posted about a like celebration she attended in Milwaukee. She posted to LiveJournal if you read that. She also included photos. I thank you for the time you take to post these kinds of things.