Today is Día de los Muertos, and despite the seasonal overlap with Halloween (aka All Hallows’ Eve) as well as some some superficial similarities, these holidays differ.
El Día de los Muertos is not, as is commonly thought, a Mexican version of Halloween, though the two holidays do share some traditions, including costumes and parades. On the Day of the Dead, it’s believed that the border between the spirit world and the real world dissolves. During this brief period, the souls of the dead awaken and return to the living world to feast, drink, dance and play music with their loved ones. In turn, the living family members treat the deceased as honored guests in their celebrations, and leave the deceased’s favorite foods and other offerings at gravesites or on the ofrendas built in their homes. (Source: HISTORY)
I’ve often waxed wordy about Rosslyn’s timeless texture — lives and layers of history interwoven and overlapping — so it might not surprise you that this celebration of blurred borders between past and present appeals to me. We welcome and honor our deceased forbears and forerunners, predecessors and pre-deceasers. Our grateful offerings are an opportunity to observe continuity, to humble ourselves before the many who’ve made our experience possible. From the founders of our community and our home to the many stewards who have preserved both, from Rosslyn’s countless creators and caretakers to all those who’ve added chapters to her story, and from all who have invested us with the means to rehabilitate this property to those who have enjoyed her benevolence we honor you all.
And that includes the masked and costumed as well!
In the spirit of Día de los Muertos I include tonight a mugshot of Rosslyn Raccoon, a masked bandit startled on our waterfront on November 2, 2021. This well fed raccoon is a stand-in of sorts for the rabid raccoon who on August 21, 2011 was dispatched between the carriage barn and icehouse, for the “raccoons held a late-night picnic in our sweet corn patch”, for the many raccoons we document with wildlife cameras on our backland, and for the raccoon that inspired this pocket sized poem.
Raccoon Skull Haiku
Plain as cuspid skull,
winter’s lumbering bandit,
furred, furtive, no more.
Today this quick cameo also honors all of the other Rosslyn spirits — wild and less wild — who have made this adventure possible for us.
Thank you.
What do you think?