Day of the Dead

A Tucson tradition

Now that Halloween is over, we can move on to the headliner of the season.

Know what I love about Dia de los Muertos?

Everything. It’s a Mexican tradition the entire community appreciates and embraces.

It’s taken on a Mardi Gras feel for many while retaining the sensibility of a profoundly heartfelt remembrance of the Dead.

It’s a spectacular showcase of individual creativity with participants creating their own costumes, inspired by the beautiful aesthetic of Mexican folk art.

It’s a gathering for those willing to fearlessly confront and embrace death, the inevitable, an act that inspires us to seize every moment of life we are gifted.

And it is first and foremost a time to contemplate our ancestors, our late beloved, to tell their stories and honor them with candlelight, marigolds, shrines, framed photographs and a procession through our village.

I belive it instills a healthy attitude about death.

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain

For some, the procession is a public processing of grief. It can serve as a mournful catharsis or a joyful honoring celebration of the lives that touched us.

More than 200,000 of us will fill the streets for the “All Souls Procession” which, according to organizers website, All Souls Procession, ”had its beginnings in 1990 with a ceremonial performance piece created by local artist Susan Johnson. Johnson was grieving the passing of her father, and as an artist, she found solace in a creative, celebratory approach to memorializing him.”

Thank you, Susan, for the gift you gave our city.

The beautiful shimmering diversity of the Old Pueblo will be on full candle lit display, expressed with costumes, puppets, assemblages, floats, dances and street performances, each expressing a different appreciation of the meaning the event.

And this annual event is an opportunity for this cartoonist to venture into silliness as in the four cartoons below:

NYC has the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Pasadena has the Rose Bowl Parade. New Orleans has Mardi Gras. Tucson has “Dia de los Muertos”.

The procession will begin with a gathering of souls at 4pm on Grande Avenue between Speedway and St. Mary’s, with the procession beginning at 6pm.

Be safe. Be respectful. And as much as it feels like a costumed street party be mindful of the sacred origins of the day