I bet a Haunter out there has duplicated this kind of cemetery on their lawn, but in all my years of searching for blog material, I've never seen photos of such a thing. Somebody better set something like this up on their property for Halloween 2022.
A piece from MANY years ago with memories of Guanajuato. I once stumbled across a carnival at night that went on for a few city blocks while traveling in Guanajuato, Mexico. There were lots of white lights and white rides and white game stands and pure happiness. It was enchanting. When I went to seek it out the next morning, it was completely gone with no trace- no flyers, no confetti on the ground- no signs of any kind of event; like it never existed. I wandered around the general area thinking I was lost for not locating it. When I asked a man at a corner store if there had been a carnival around here, he said with a twinkle in his eye, “Ahhh, lo que usted tuvo fue una iluminación.” - What you experienced was an illumination.
All of them had open mouths. Theirs was a perpetual screaming. They were dead and they knew it. In every raw fiber and evaporated organ they knew it. She stood listening to them scream. They say dogs hear sounds humans never hear, sounds so many decibels higher than normal hearing that they seem nonexistent. The corridor swarmed with screams. Screams poured from terror-yawned lips and dry tongues, screams you couldn't hear because they were so high.
The Next In Line, Ray Bradbury
A Una Calavera by Lope de Vega
This head, when alive had
On the architecture of its bones
Flesh and hair, by which the eyes,
That stopped to look at it, were made prisoners.
Here the pink mouth was
Fading already with such cold kisses,
Here the emerald eyes were imprinted,
Color that entertained so many souls.
Here the judgment that was
The source of all movement,
Here the powers of harmony.
Oh mortal beauty, kite in the wind!,
Where such lofty presumption lived,
The worms despise the chamber.
In the market, the remainder of candy skulls from the Death Fiesta were
sold from flimsy little tables. Women hung with black rebozos sat quietly, now
and then speaking one word to each other, the sweet sugar skeletons, the
saccharine corpses and white candy skulls at their elbows. Each skull had a name
on top in gold candy curlicue; Jose or Carmen or Ramon or Tena or Guiermo or
Rosa. They sold cheap. The Death Festival was gone. Joseph paid a peso and got
two candy skulls.
Marie stood in the narrow street. She saw the candy skulls and Joseph and
the dark ladies who put the skulls in a bag.
Ray Bradbury
A suitably rich and gorgeous candle to honor the traditional Mexican
holiday that celebrates the memories of our loved ones who have passed
away. A mélange of devotional frankincense and fragrant marigolds (the
traditional flower used to decorate the altars on Dia de los Muertos --
their scent is believed to attract souls and draw them back) creates a
deep, delicious, spicy complexity that will give a warm welcome to
anyone, spirit or otherwise, who enters your home. Unique and
beautiful.
Took a few days off from work to build some props for this year's Haunt.
That's why blogging has been a little light.
Woman with a somber gaze,
Tell me, what do you see in the candles?
are they ghosts in the night
or are they flowers of the earth?
Julie Sopetran, 1995
Image by rachelhall94.
