All Souls
A week ago Thursday, we celebrated Diaz des los Muertos, Day of the Dead, All Saints … there are lots of names for this set of holidays. I tend to gravitate towards “All Souls,” myself, because it includes both the family members we want to remember and the historical figures that have inspired us.
In typical Monkfish fashion, we did our religious buffet and sampled from a bunch of traditions. Mr. Gill, the librarian at Eden and Cate’s school gave us sugar skulls to decorate. A stack of art supplies, saint cards from the local Catholic supply store (trippy!), and some family photos gave us plenty of fodder for creating icons – both traditional and personal. I was really impressed at the thoughtful energy the monks put into creating these little pieces of honor.
So here’s a picture of our mantelpiece altar, crowded with inspiring souls. Stay tuned a series of saints on the blog. (I promise …. I’m typing them up right now! )
[…] A tiny tin-shrine memorial with a dried rose from my hospital flowers when my son was stillborn. Made for Dia de los Muertos celebrations at Monkfish Abbey, November ‘05. […]
[…] In our family, we’ve been practicing Día de los Muertos and All Saint’s for the past four years. We open up the living room and haul out the art supplies, inviting friends to create portable memorials to their loved ones and/or to saints both traditional and modern who have guided and inspired. Tracy Zollinger Turner of Tiny Mantras wrote a lovely post about celebrating All Saints in New Orleans. She says: “As I understand it, All Saints Day is about remembering the people no longer with us, who still live under our skin — the ones that we look to for guidance, even if we can only imagine what they might say to us now. I try to think of those people in my own life often, but work and trick or treaters and traffic and phone calls get in the way. Today, I will make a point to remember them, one by one.” […]