Dia De Los Muertos, Halloween, and All Saint's Day 2014

by Robert Wilkinson

During late October every year, the Sun in Scorpio blesses us with a time to honor our Eternal connection with those who have died before us. This period, known many places as "Dia de los Muertos," or "Day of the Dead," is dedicated to celebrating life and "all our relations."

Last year this Day was mainly about remembering, celebrating, and memorializing two of my greatest dead Cat Teachers. Four years ago I was away from home with a Spiritual Scorpio Brother at one of the bloodiest battlefields in American history. It was a remarkable experience which I wrote about after I got back.

Looking back on the past year, this Day of the Dead I am remembering a friend who just died, another old friend whose life as we've known it for 40 years is now dead and in shambles, the death of dear ones I've known most of my life, and the death of several cherished dreams. Some years are "better" than others….

Still, it's spurred me also to honor the living, and the hope and dreams and loved ones that I still have. Honoring the dead can bring us to a greater appreciation for the living, and how life and death are the inbreathing and outbreathing of our Eternal Nature.

Honoring the dead can bring us to the Eternal NOW, if we enter fully into the Mystery. And so while I'm fully experiencing the now "gone-ness" of people I loved and touched not that long ago, I can also appreciate that I can witness the love we shared. They may be "gone," but the love remains.

Because I've had a string of significant deaths between the Day of the Dead and mid-January over the years, this begins a season in my life where I try to be conscious in honoring my dead, and that which has passed and is passing, since that also allows me to honor that which lives. And I appreciate being vertical and breathing, since it beats the alternative.

So today we revisit some things I've written in years past about this very special day.

This is about "sacred mythology." Here we are offered a chance to reconnect with all that is sacred in Nature and ourselves. This is the time to cultivate deep connectedness with the magnetism of Life itself, with our specific Way revealed through our recurring experiences with death.

This time of Scorpio, showing the light of ever deeper feeling connections with others and our deepest Self, vitalizes our ability to commune with both the dead and living. Being Water, we can feel and remember our Eternal nature and connectedness with "All-That-Is." This time, consecrated to honoring those who have passed before us, is truly a celebration of life.

It is an awe-inspiring and deeply transformative experience to enter into, and helps our inner nature remember that it's okay to celebrate the dead as well as those of us in a body. I was first exposed to it in the years I lived in Texas, where it is one of the most powerful celebrations of the year. As it's already started many places, take a moment to honor and thank your dead for being there for you to love.

This is one of the more profound times of the year. The ancient Chinese thought this was the season of "cutting and destroying," where the leaves fall, the fruits are available, and the life force begins to go dormant for its Winter rest in the Northern Hemisphere. (Perhaps the "Day of the Dead" in the Southern Hemisphere should be observed at the end of April and beginning of May?)

So however you are moved to do so, please open to how you can honor the dead. This "Day of the Dead" is not just one more commercial holiday. It is a period of depth communion with those who have passed away before us. It is a time to honor our connectedness with our departed but not forgotten loved ones.

The original intent of this sacred time had absolutely nothing to do with giving the candy industry a boost between Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. As an aside, I've always felt these last two were very peculiar "holidays," since the former celebrates the beginning of enslavement and disease of the original inhabitants of this continent, the latter a distorted excess complete with Aggie and Longhorn football. (Spoken as one who lived in the midst of that peculiar ritual for many decades!)

This time also has zero to do with fear of ghosts, real or imagined. We inherited Halloween, All Saints Day, and all Soul's Day (often forgotten) from our ancestors, but their true meaning has been ignored by our market-driven culture. In the year cycle of light and dark, manifestation and rest, this is a time of love and celebration WITH the Spirits of those no longer in a body, our loved ones across space and time.

When I first learned of this profound time in Texas many years ago, I was taught that it is a celebration of community, a time of the year to light candles, create altars and shrines to honor the dead, and celebrate the omnipresent power of the Eternal Life.

I learned to feel the universal reality that we all do eventually drop the body and re-join our loved ones, and as we honor the dead we enter a timeless stream of being remembered and honored in future "Dias de los Muertos" by those we leave behind. It is a time to celebrate continuity and connectedness of life.

Though many feel sorrow, it is not a morbid time. It certainly should not be a time to create fear in children through "scary" horror stories or the bizarre associations with deviltry and ghosts and haunted places. The deeper meaning of this time of year we enter a collective zone where we can honor our timeless bond of love with those who have departed this Earth. It is a time to grieve AND celebrate.

We can open to experiencing more fully our eternal nature in a profound on-going moment of connectedness with where we came from and where we're going, and the life and love we all are together. It's a great time to re-experience that we are Eternals, having human experiences. We have a body, we have feelings, we have a mind, but we ARE Souls, and our nature is Light-Love-Life.

So over the next few days, while others are eating candy, shopping, or talking about the white noise of life in this 4 dimensional reality, take a moment (or three) to light a candle, remember your loved ones, and celebrate the eternity of life, light, and love. It'll help you feel that you're very, very alive, and always will be!

Many blessings on all our loved ones and all our relations. May those who have passed over never be forgotten, and may they rest easy in the frequencies of Devachan and the Heaven world, secure in the lap of Divine Mother. Aum Namah Shivaya!

© Copyright 2014 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Virginia]

Aum Namah Shivaya! For All My Relations, disembodied or embodied, I remember and recognize you. I honor you and know the Oneness that We are. In Lakech... Hala Ken.

[dcu]

Thank you all our ancestors for supporting us and bringing us to this point. We feast with you this night.

[ellen]

Thank you so much for the reminder of the importance or honoring the spirits that have moved on from this plane before us. I have felt this deeply for many years now. I have made a place for them at my table of life. I honor and speak to them in my heart often. Today I lit a candle in their honor due to your prompting. Thanks for reminding folks what this day is about more apropriatly. Love and connection is a reality, intangible yes, but usually the most beautiful experiences of life are. When a spirit travels from this plane that powerful connection remains and we are forever moved by that reality that is sometimes hard to grasp. Peace to you today and all the living and dead on this day of honoring the life and continued life of spirit.

[Nic]

A day to deepen our relationship with those that have gone but that are ever present- To learn and improve in our relationship with their presence even if they are out of this planet and we remain in our bodies. We can learn to see through the illusion and glamour of separation and restore and foster unity, love and light. And, in doing so, we become better embodied souls and can beter link with our world brothers.
Blessings be to ALL