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Reclaiming the dead

An ancient tradition awakens one writer to his life

La calavera de azúcar
y el pan de muerto
nos regresan a la cuna
del misterio.

Palabras y música en honor de Posada
by Carlos Pellicer

In the above verse, taken from a poem composed by one of Mexico’s foremost 20th century poets, the essence of the millennia old Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead − Dia de los Muertos − is encapsulated: “The sugar skull and the bread of the dead take us back to the cradle of mystery.”

Through our communion with the sugar skulls and specially baked bread one remembers the passing of loved ones, we revere all our ancestors and relations, we observe the passage of time and the yearly cycle of fiestas populares and ponder the eternal enigma of the wheel of birth, life, death and rebirth. The Dia de los Muertos offers us a special time set apart from ordinary time at the beginning of November to contemplate the eternal verities of life.

My first experience with the celebration of Dia de los Muertos came in Pioneer Park in Mesa on the first Sunday of November in 1980. The events of that afternoon in the park, organized by a local Chicano group called Xicanindio who to this day still sponsors the yearly celebration, left a deep and lasting impression in my psyche. Something stirred deeply within my soul. My heart filled with a sense of connectedness to a rich and enriching cultural tradition that would from that day hence be mine by reclamation. Here in this microcosm of Chicano consciousness were incorporated sacred masked danzas, folk teatro, música, special marigold festooned altares known as ofrendas created by different community groups, and food booths selling papel picado and calaveras de azúcar. The day’s festivities culminated with a profoundly moving candlelight procession at twilight through the park accompanied by a soulful mariachi singing verses of La Golondrina − a traditional song of good-byes and farewell. All of this celebration of life through death was a far cry from the subdued and very sacrosanct manner in which I was brought up as a child in a very devout Catholic Mexican household to observe All Souls Day; attendance at a requiem Mass in the morning and visits to the cemetery to pray and place flowers on the grave marked my childhood observance of El dia de los fieles difuntos −the day of the faithful departed − as our grandmothers would call it.

That afternoon in Pioneer Park twenty five years ago was a momentous turning point in my life. It brought me to the realization that I was connected to thousands of years of sacred traditions and ancestors if not by lineage, by heritage and cultural inheritance. Since that year, I have faithfully constructed my own ofrenda (altar of remembrance) in my home and gathered friends and colleagues, around the candle-clustered memorial the evening of Nov. 1 to be with our loved ones in spirit. Since that auspicious day in 1980, I awakened to a deeper and prouder awareness of what it means to be mexicano. I became ethnographer, anthropologist, cultural historian, tradition bearer, activist, altarista, and guest speaker on everything and anything related to Dia de los Muertos. I offer Latino Perspectives readers the following poem, which I composed in the early 90s in consideration of the empowerment that Dia de Muertos has brought me over the last two decades.

I place myself before the ofrenda
whose flickering candles
and incienso de copal
illuminate la noche estrellada
like a solitary burning fire
under the open sky.
Its source of bright energía is released
feeding the eternal flame of humanity.
Darkness and luz
birth - muerte - re-birth
tending the burning embers that glow
like precious jewels.
We pray like
nuestros antepasados por siglos
have done
so that we may never forget
those who have gone before us
and have brought us to this place
to the here and now.
Como la cempazuchil, I too shall wither
and die according
to the laws of the universe.
I will have had my momento
en el tiempo y en el espacio
donde nace la vida and then
return a nuestra madre la tierra.
Within ourselves lives la semilla
for the continuance of life.
Each seed carries with it our past
y nos une con el futuro long after our
footsteps have disappeared from the sands.
The old inevitably makes way for the new
but we must always remember that sacrifice
undertaken by countless souls
who preceded us.
We, cada uno,
must prepare ourselves
to follow sin amargura,
without struggle,
with peace in our heart
con humildad en el alma
for this is our destino.

The Rev. Jorge Rodríguez Eagar is a faculty member emeritus at Mesa Community College where he teaches Spanish and Hispanic culture in the Southwest. He is also an ordained priest in the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch. Eagar will be giving a lecture on Traditions of El Dia de los Muertos on Wednesday, Oct. 5 at the Shrine of Holy Wisdom in Tempe. For more information and/or to reserve your space call (480) 219-9633.