Day of the Dead

today i am planning on going to my first day of the dead memorial activity in about 11 years. i have a lot to mourn this year. people to remember and to honor. there was something in losing my grandmother just after new years. that sorrow infused and informed the year. sorrow coupled with a lot of family impact. seeing my cousins and parents for the first time in four or five years. doing a lot of family history research and figuring finding some things out. in some ways the year has had my ancestors over my shoulder in ways that haven't been for many many years.

i have always held onto the grief around my grandfather passing when i was young. he has always felt close to me. the heart pain of that never went far away. i was very close to both of these grandparents in a seeing them almost everyday sort of way. when my grandmother passed i felt like a circle was completed. in that mourning was a sort of completion. a resolution. an ability now as an adult to honor and remember them in a way that i couldn't do for my grandfather when i was six years old and the ideas of death and spirituality were too abstract. the tattoo i got in february to honor them. and today - after years of rituals to honor my grandfather that never felt like they connected. today i go to the ceremony / march / community coming together where we can all honor our dead and those passed and i can let go.

it's hard to explain but this feels like my new year. this is the rebirth and the allowing my soul the room to rest and come alive again. the room to let go of somethings i have held onto for too long. the room to grieve what i need to and still hold onto something beautiful.

so tonight i go to the mission. i can take this old and new grief from my shoulders and let the ghosts rest. let things be.

holy. holy. holy.

buenos noches

tonight was beautiful. so many things coming full circle. i laid what i needed to rest. the first person i hugged hello to was in many ways such a parallel to the  last person i hugged goodbye to. it's a circle and it's family and it's all separate and together and it was just what it needed to be. i found an evergreen in the park to give my candle to. i laid a cigarette below the candle and burned pine needles and watched the smoke rise away. i wrote their names on a wall, the years they over lapped running from 1904 - 2008.
 
i sent messages away for them on the air and on paper written with an honesty that isolated my voice and kept the words away. i was quiet. i was moved. and it was all so beautiful.

muy_macha  and postmaudlin  held me when i needed and walked with me in it, letting me have my tears, my solitude and my family there with me. fightingwords  threw hugs and the squeeze of love and connection. doppmonster  with the smile of my neighbor who knows me too well.  there were more people there that i knew but i didn't see them. and in some ways i couldn't. i walked with my head up and tears on my face and i was in my own world. of heightened light. of ghosts pushing on the air around me. of grief, joy and hope. it was a miracle i heard anyone outside of the din of my own thoughts.

it was loud and celebrating of the blood and memories of ancestors as we left. thick beat beat heavy soul in your blood music. a lonely trombone mournful through and with the voices that originally we'd been marching with. the circle circles again. ending the night with coffee and bloody feet. coffee is my drink of the dead. another ritual to honor. another circle.

i kept and held onto the most precious sacrament. i lost the michigan pinecone to the altar of the street. she is right. at a certain point all of the ground beneath our feet becomes holy.

you meant everything. we dreamt these dreams together. i'll keep working to make them real.