Keeping the Faith: El Dia de los Muertos in Monte Rio (and Sebastopol)
Partying with the dead and the living in Monte Rio
By Bob Jones
Last Sunday, at the Monte Rio Community Center, we celebrated All Souls Day, the Day of the Blessed Departed, in the Mexican tradition, which includes music, dancing, tamales, and sweets. In this tradition, it is El Dia de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead. And, it turns out, it’s not only for remembering and honoring the dead, but also for, yes, partying with the dear ones we have lost. It was a lively and uplifting time.
The Friends of Monte Rio, an organization that does a lot to bring people together in that unique town, arranged tables and chairs, craft booths, and places for community organizations in support of women and children to reach out to the gathering. And then there was the large, colorful altar with the names and pictures of the departed spread out and lifted up for everyone to see.
There were many pictures of people I have known, and it was both different and moving to think of them enjoying themselves among us rather than lying silently in their graves.
Some celebrants wore bright, colorful costumes; others painted their faces white and wore skeleton suits decorated with skulls. The idea seems to be to include death in the celebration, something like saying, “Hey Death, you’re not going to cheat us out of good times with our dear ones.”
My friend Gilberto Montana, former custodian at Guerneville School and now fully engaged in his own gardening and landscaping business, told me that when he was growing up in Mexico, the celebration could go on for three days, after which people retired to the cemetery and slept among their loved ones there. In Monte Rio, the party went on for the entire afternoon, and the dancing was in full swing when, with shadows falling, I made my way home.
As always, it was music that carried the spirit of the day. Anette Moreno, her wonderful voice reaching into many hearts, gave us song after song that brought forth some misty eyes among the dancers. A special song seemed to be one that, near as I could tell from my less-than-fluent Spanish, cried out “Return to me. Return to me.”
Yes, most of us have someone to sing that song to, I would imagine, someone we hope can hear us singing to them in their final resting place.
I’ve always liked All Souls Day. It follows All Saints Day when the exalted heroes of faith and goodness are given their deserved due. Ah, but then we have All Souls Day, which is for the rest of us. All Souls Day leaves no one out of the blessed community. El Dia de los Muertos is a profoundly fitting way to observe such a day, it seems to me, and I was glad to have done that this year in Monte Rio.
A Dia de los Muertos altar in Sebastopol
By Laura Hagar Rush
St. Sebastian’s Catholic Church in Sebastopol has a large number of Spanish-speaking parishioners—probably equal or greater in number than its English-speaking congregants at this point—and the priest, Father Mario Valencia, is from Mexico. Every year for Dia de los Muertos, parishioners build a beautiful altar in the vestibule (the entryway) to the church. Marigolds (cempasúchil) are aways featured on these ofrendas. (Learn more about the role of these flowers in Mexican culture here.)
Here is this year’s creation:
If you made your own Dia de Los Muertos altar this year, please email us a photo and I’ll add it to this article.