 |
| Doing the Chicken Dance |
October in Petaluma is brimming
with events. Oh, we’ve always had fun things to do: hike Art Trails, pick
pumpkins, navigate the Corn Maze, search out ghosts in the Historic district.
But the Petaluma Arts Council and the Petaluma Arts Center have really
ratcheted up the excitement this year, and we’ve way more to celebrate than
Halloween.
Not
that I have anything against Halloween; it’s one of my favorite holidays. David
and I love to dress up in costumes and stage makeup. That’s us! He’s Ichabod
Crane and I’m “Day of the Dead Jackie O”—and that’s what I wanted to talk
about: Day of the Dead, Dia de los
Muertos. I say bendiciónes to the Arts Council for supporting
this celebration here in Petaluma all month long.
Every
year I walk the “altar camino” and
gather ideas for my own ofrenda, offering.
(I pick up new Day of the Dead artisania
at Heebe Jeebe/Boomerang Gallery) Yes, I admit it, I put up an alter
in the living room every year. David’s question that first year: “and this is
—Why?” Well, why not? I’ve got a pantheon of loved ones, mostly deceased pets,
to remember and what better way than to invite them into my home on All Saints
and All Souls days, share some food and drink, my news, and a few laughs or
tears—in spirit.
And tears will come this year as the ashes of Chocolatte, my
chocolate Lab, take center stage on the altar (sorry Dad) in her own Mexican
gourd painted with birds and animals.
Chocolatte
was born September 30, 1992 in Mexico City. It’s only fitting that she should
have an altar, don’t you think? She’ll love the biscuit offering from Cotati’s
Mike Martinez, our UPS man. He still leaves four with every delivered package.
David worries that when he goes, I’ll save him in a box too, to be trotted out
for chai lattes once a year. It could be worse, dear.
I
got my first taste of Day of the Dead in Miahuatlán, Oaxaca before Chocolatte
was born. Remembering, I smell the pungent mounds of single petaled marigolds, cempasúchil, brought on the backs of
burros to be arranged on family graves and fashioned into large crosses that
became part of the procession to the panteon
at dusk. All day in the cemetery, men and women cleaned headstones, raked
the stony ground, and set up bowls of food and jars of tequila on the graves
for their dead. Family photos, playing cards, dominos and baskets of goodies
for the living appeared. A farmer’s wife gave me a pan de muertos, a bone shaped bread of the dead, fresh out of the
oven.
The
solemn procession of brightly clothed townsfolk undulated down the shoulder of
the mountain to the graveyard by candlelight, but later, the guitars and
accordions heated up (with all that tequila), and the party raged. We danced
and sang and cried and laughed with the living until the wee hours.
The
next year in Tepoztlán, Morelos, when handbills went up all over town in
October, remonstrating “NO AL HALLOWEEN—conserve the traditions of Day of the
Dead—It’s Original,” I made an offering. Parsley, my canine traveling companion
from home, was my first “altar pet,” resting in her painted gourd amid
marigolds, tall white candles, plates of pan
dulces—she loved Conchas, and
tendrils of smoke from copal.
In
nearby Cuernavaca, as in Petaluma, all kinds of activities pop up: plays, art
exhibits, sugar-skull making workshops, calavera
writing workshops. That year I walked in the traditional candle-lit procession
to the old graveyard in Ocotapec. And best, altars, altars, altars! Even my vet
had one.
My
ofrendas have evolved over the years.
Some of my altars celebrate a past I’ll never recapture—presided over by my Beatles dolls in
their own Yellow Submarine; some remember strangers lost to wars, disasters,
hunger. All remember family, dogs, cats, and even my little pet rats, Madeline
and Julia. I celebrate their lives and the joy each has brought me.
This
Día de los Muertos, the scent of the
marigolds transports me back to my years in Mexico where I lost and found two
fine dogs, now side by side on the altar: Parsley, born in Lagunitas and died
in Mexico City. Chocolatte, born in Mexico City and died in the shadow of
Sonoma Mountain.
~These happy bones have
slipped the leash;
now see who’s mistress.~
 | ||
| Ginger died 11/15/2013 |
No comments:
Post a Comment