Day of the dead Día de los Muertos
by Pia Gronroos
In Western cultures we tend to fear death, perhaps for the fear of being punished by God for all our sins or maybe fearing the unknown, but we also fear loosing our loved ones. In our society there is no place for communicating with the departed. Everything needs to be scientifically researched, tests need to repeatable (will uncle John want to take part every time, probably not) and get the same outcome to be seen as reliable results. Does it mean it’s a scam or does it mean the equipment we made aren’t good enough? Mediums - it’s all a scam, or is it? Finding a good medium can be a hit and miss, but they are out there, and when you do, you will be amazed!
In past cultures, such Tibet, Egypt and Mexico, death played a central role. When someone died, their heart and soul were to be light as a feather, with goddess Ma’at weighing the soul of the de-parted against an ostrich feather. There is a strong emphasis on learning how to die a conscious death n the Toltec and Aztec traditions in Mexico, as there are in Buddhist teachings.
Our ancestors and parted family play a major part in our lives. In the West we grieve them, we re-member them fondly or not, and often notice resemblances of family traits in ourselves and family members. In the Mexican traditions, whilst we are alive we are to experience ego and attachments - enjoying the rich colour of experiences of love, joy, happiness, having possessions, adventures but also the other spectrum of emotions loss, grief, anger, distrust, resentment when we don’t get what we want. All of these create the experience of living, but ultimately we need to learn to have some-thing and then be able to let go of the attachment to it, so that when we die we won’t get stuck in the underworlds. In this sense, the saying “life is precious” takes on an even more powerful mean-ing; we have a chance whilst alive to clear our baggage once and for all. When we are dead, the op-portunity to heal any strong emotions, is not easy. The dead need someone in the family line who is alive to do it.
These attachments and heavy emotions go down the family line until someone heals them, and when they do, the whole family line is cleared from it. So sometime if we call in ancestors we think that they will heal us, but the opposite is true. When we heal our great grandmother, we heal all the entire family line thereafter, including ourselves and our children.
The Tibetan book of the dead says “enlightenment is gained when we die and don’t loose con-sciousness of being alive”. The Toltec teachings tells us how to go through the tunnel of light and how to go through what happens next. If we manage to get through the death experience we can choose where we go afterwards. Do we want to merge with the sun and disappear into a higher consciousness? Do we want to come back to help humanity? Do we want to live forever? The prac-tice will tell us how to navigate the death experience for the outcome we choose.
Traditionally the teachings of dying and healing the ancestors wasn’t left to the two days we know as the Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos. Originally the practices started in September lasting for of 60 days. This is not the only time to do conscious death practices, a practitioner should do them once every 20 days and more often when death was approaching.
As a result of the European/Spanish invasion in the 1500, forced conversion to Christianity (Cathol-icism in particular), and ongoing colonisation of what today is known as Mexico, Dia de los Muer-tos now takes place on November 1 and 2, having merged with the Catholic All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. November 1 is to honour children and infants, known as Día de los Angelitos (Day of the Little Angels). November 2nd honours adults and is known as Día de Muertos.
In Mexico the days are prepared long in advance and the cities and villages are covered in colourful displays of orange tagetes called cempasúchil, skulls, candles widely situated around cities and vil-lages. The living make altars at home and decorate the graves with all their love for their past rela-tives.
The Disney movie Coco, made the village of Mixquic famous, and for a good reason. It had a tem-ple where the skills how to die and heal the ancestors were taught. Sometime after the conquest like in many other places in Mexico, a Catholic church was built there and a statue of an angel was placed in the courtyard. In 2017 the angel was removed and a statue of the Lord and Lady of the Land of the Dead, Mictlantecuhtli and Mictancicuatl was returned to the site. The Mexicans were amazing stone carvers, but this one with the two standing back to back as one were much rougher than the ones you would see in the museums in Mexico city. The Lord and Lady of the Dead be-longed to the energy of the North and the night, so they were carved in the middle of the night without much light.
On November the 1st the church rings the bells to call in the ancestors. On November the 2nd the cemetery next to it is covered in the most beautiful flower arrangements, offerings of food, drink, wine, music and copal (incense) smoke filling the air, families sitting by the graves talking with their ancestors. On the 2nd the church bells ring to send the departed back to the Land of the Dead.
If you would like to honour your family and ancestors and friends that are departed you can do the following :
October 27 light a white candle
for those who died alone without family to remember them. Also for beloved pets.
October 28 light a white candle
for those who died in an accident or other unexpected manner.
October 29 light a white candle
for those who died by drowning
October 30 light a white candle
for those who died unidentified and without food. Light a white candle and place bread and food on the altar for them.
October 31-November 1st Make an altar for the infants, children and those not able to be born. (It is said if a child dies before the age of 7 come back again to the same family)
November 2 This is the main day for all the ancestors and adults.
Making an altar
If you would like to make an altar, the Mexican way is to make it in three tiers and place
• Photos of the deceased ones.
• Add according to your religious/spiritual beliefs photos or symbols, such as pictures of the Ma-donna, a cross, in Mexico often a picture of the Lady of Guadaloupe.
• Candles to show them the way to the land of the dead.
• Skulls to remember the wisdom and knowledge that the deceased left. Sugar skulls with names of loved ones on them - I haven’t been able to find any of these in the UK.
• Salt to absorb the departed’s attachments.
• Water as the dead can get thirsty on their travels.
• Bread to represent the body. Pan de Muerto - round bread with bones across and a single tear drop on top for sorrow is a typical bread for the altars.
• Flowers, traditionally marigolds, create protection for the soul on its journey to the land of the dead.
• Lay a beautiful colourful tablecloth. Arrange the altar for important visitors.
• Toys, alcohol, sweets, cakes, fruit etc - anything the departed would have liked in life.
• Incense, generally copal in Mexico but use what you have.
• Traditionally you would have colourful punched paper to let the you know when the spirits arrive.
If you don’t have what is needed you can make a simple altar, use what you have. The intention is much more important than having everything on the list. If an altar is too much to create, just light a candle.
Pia Gronroos has trained with her Mexican teacher Sergio Magaña in the Toltec traditions for several years and is a practitioner in the Toltec healing arts. She has been a practicing acupuncturist in the Stems and Branches and 5 Elements tradition for over 20 years and has a wide array of knowledge and expertise in many areas as her curiosity of life and how it works is endless. She works is Horsham, East Grinstead, Merstham community hub and Dorking as a practitioner and teaches workshops at Lucis College in Dorking. If you want to contact her for more information please email her at pia_gronroos@yahoo.com.