Celebrating (with) Our Dead: Samhain & Día de los Muertos
Grief & Holidays
Holidays can be hard, especially when we are grieving. And grieving takes time, heart, and energy. [See our approach to Grief Work HERE.] Halloween was the first holiday that Will and I (Joanne) faced after our first son Finlay’s inexplicable death during childbirth in June 2014. Other people’s kids coming to our front door wearing costumes, smiling, laughing, and being so… well… alive seemed like the worst possible thing that we could endure at that time. So, we ran away from the approaching trick-or-treaters; actually, we flew away, leaving Illinois to visit a friend who had recently relocated from Scotland to Vermont.
A Day of the Dead Tree of Life by Francisco Flores on display at the National Museum of Mexican Art. February 2017. Photograph taken by Adam Jones.
Not ready to face those neighborhood kids and their confectionary demands the following year, we left home again during Halloween. This time we visited friends who lived in Pilsen, an area of Chicago that many Mexican-American families call home and which houses the National Museum of Mexican Art. Throughout the neighborhood’s shops and restaurants we encountered festive skeletons and colorful skulls, markers of Día de los Muertos (“Day of the Dead”). I felt a pull toward this celebration of death that is commemorated widely across Mexico and increasingly in the United States and elsewhere. I thought about the living connections to dead loved ones that families practice through these celebrations and how by enacting them each year, the participants also connect to fellow grievers.
At the end of October 2016, our second son Phalen was two months old. Having relocated to North Carolina just before his birth, we were adjusting to a new place and struggling with the challenges of life with a newborn and the accompanying waves of grief for his physically-absent brother. We didn’t have much energy to embrace a festive celebration, let alone one ideally manifested with lots of homemade creativity and care. We managed to dress Phalen in a hand-me-down Halloween onesie and take a couple of photos of him near some pumpkin candle holders. I made caramel corn and carved a pumpkin with Phalen’s and Finlay’s initials. Baby’s first Halloween: check.
Image from a vintage Halloween postcard (c. 1890-1920). Source: Pinterest
In 2017 as Halloween came around again, I was struck by the commercialism and waste that has become associated with this holiday, at least as it is most commonly celebrated in the U.S. One need only think of the billions of non-recyclable candy wrappers and disposable costumes likely produced with cheap materials thousands of miles away to understand how far we’ve come from harvest gatherings where folks carved turnips or pumpkins and bobbed for apples, all of which were certainly locally-grown. Of course, lots of plastic and candy made with artificial colors needn’t epitomize this fanciful and nostalgic time of year. Many environmentally-friendly ideas exist for having fun with Halloween.
Since Phalen was still new to Halloween (and not eating candy), we had a great deal of freedom in determining how to celebrate this beautiful time of year. A friend kindly invited us to her home to share time with other families. That gathering felt like a great way to extend our community by breaking bread together. This communal meal links to the roots of Halloween and related celebrations. On the one hand, we can look to the history of the Catholic Church with its designation of All Hallow’s Eve and the Feast Days of All Saints (Nov 1) and All Souls (Nov 2). In the Medieval Ages, souling and soul-cakes played a role in remembering the dead.
An image from the Samhuinn Fire Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo: Raini Scott. Source: Edinburgh Evening News
Celtic New Year & the Dead
On the other hand, we have the pagan precursor to Halloween, which interests me more. With its ancient Celtic origins honoring the imminent “dark half” of the year, Samhain (“summer end” pronounced “sow-in”) festivities marked the Celtic New Year. Glennie Kindred writes, “Samhain is a celebration of all that has finished and ended, the seasonal end of the old year. We are called upon to let our old selves die so that we can expand and grow into new parts of ourselves” (Letting in the Wild Edges, 87). (We might interpret Kindred's idea as a mode of inviting abundance into our lives.) This is a time, after all, when it is believed that the veil between the living and the dead – between this world and the Otherworld – is thinnest. The proximity of life and death – while always two sides of the same coin – are somehow more apparent and tangible during this transitional period. And on Samhain eve, many Celts prepared dinner for their ancestors and used the skulls of ancestors to protect them from demons. Fire acted as a main element of these celebrations and still does. When I was living in Edinburgh as a graduate student, I saw how contemporary Scots embrace fire during Samhuinn (the Scots Gaelic version of Samhain) with bonfires and fire jugglers.
Celebrating Family Past & Present
Leaving the fiery Celts aside for a moment, I return to the celebrations that have become Day of the Dead in the lands that we call Mexico. Olmec, followed by the Mayan and Aztec peoples, held rituals honoring their dead. As author Judy King writes, “When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico [in the early 16th century] they encountered two-month celebrations honoring death, the fall harvest and the new year. For more than 500 years, the goddess Mictecacihuatl (Lady of the Dead) presided over Aztec harvest rituals using fires and incense, costumes of animal skins, images of their dead and offerings of ceramics, personal goods, flowers and foods, drink and flowers” (mexconnect.com/articles).
Altars can be simply decorated or can be incredibly elaborate multi-tiered structures. Photo: Jennifer Nalewicki. Source: Smithsonian Magazine.
Día de los Muertos rituals have changed over the centuries, combining pagan and Catholic ideas and practices. However, primary elements such as families gathering in private at home and publicly – often in cemeteries – to offer ancestors food and drink and celebrating and remembering the dead with stories and music remain. Families construct ofrenda (“offering”), ritual altars that hold special objects, food, flowers, candles, incense, photographs, etc. for the dead. Judy King details the collection of items, noting that the primary elements on ofrenda are water (to quench the thirst and for purification), salt (to season the food and for purification) and bread (food needed for survival) (ibid.). Many people bake a version of pan de muerto (“bread of the dead”), a sweet bread often decorated with icing or additional bits of dough in the shape of tears and/or bones.
Here is an ofrenda from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. For the flowers, Tagetes erecta (African or Aztec marigold) is most commonly used. It has a long history of varied medicinal uses. Photo: Sr JessMichelle Source: Wikimedia
The Day of the Dead is actually a two-day celebration, starting at midnight on October 31. November 1 honors deceased infants and children. It is believed that on Día de los Angelitos (“Day of the little Angels”), the souls of departed children return to their families, and so families prepare for their arrival with offerings of toys and sweets. The following day, adult ancestors return, and alcohol (often tequila or mezcal) may be left for them in addition to their favorite foods. Altars may hold incense (often copal resin) and flowers, most commonly marigolds. Their color and scent help to guide the dead to their family homes and cemeteries.
Adapting Traditions for Continued Healing
Since 2017 we have been including elements inspired by Halloween, Samhain, and Día de los Muertos into our home to honor Finlay and other transitioned loved ones. From Halloween celebrations, we include apples and pumpkins in various forms as well as some element of dressing up. From Samhain, we borrow the element of fire. Will and I write on small pieces of paper something that we longer wish to carry on the next leg of our grief journey, which we then set aflame. From Día de los Muertos, we are inspired to make more festive our own altar dedicated to Finlay and other loved ones. We add colorful flowers, candles, and incense. This time of year feels especially appropriate for crafting rituals to mark our sweet son's life and death as we transition out of October, which is National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month.
Celebrating the end of October and beginning of November with elements inspired by Halloween, Samhain, and Día de los Muertos/Angelitos allows us to parent with intention, love, and care. With Finlay, Phalen, and now our youngest son Ren, we can find ways to include all three of our children into our festive celebrations.
A giant calavera (skeleton) on Day of the Dead in Mexico City. Picture by Randal Sheppard via Creative Commons. Source: Funeralguide.net
I encourage other grieving individuals and families to think about ways to craft rituals that honor your ongoing relationships with your beloved dead. Maybe you like the idea of baking bread or making a family recipe. Or perhaps the idea of arranging colorful flowers or lighting candles feels healing. Or planning an event that involves fire may speak to you. Whatever you do, I hope you find a moment of connection, reflection, and possibly enjoyment that will help you take the next step on your grieving and healing journey.
**Please share in the Comments Section below your ideas for celebrating — or rituals you already practice to celebrate — (with) your beloved dead!**
Read our related Blog Posts:
Written by Joanne: Creative Grief Work, Getting Hygge with Grief and Six Herbs for Grieving and Healing (for Mindfulness & Grief);
Written by Will: Death Literacy/Death Faire and How 9/11 Helped Prepare Me For Life as a Grieving Father (in Still Standing Magazine)