Black Dot Diary

The moon phases appli­ca­tion on iGoogle said the moon was 100% full last night. Google is like God, right, so this must be true?

I swear I could feel the full­ness even if Google hadn’t told me and I couldn’t see with my own eyes that lus­cious golden ball in the sky.

My cats felt some­thing in the air too — those boys were crazy last night, even with­out the cat­nip. The dogs down at the four way hon­oured the moon with wolfish howl­ing. Teenagers pulled up the stop signs at the crossroads.

I’ve always loved this time of year, even when I was a kid and it snowed in the Koote­nays. I always aspired to be a princess on Hal­loween but inevitably the cold weather meant I was re-​dressed as a log­ger with mas­cara dots on my face for whiskers, a pil­low stuffed beneath my t-​shirt for a beer belly, and my Grandad’s old plaid flan­nel hunt­ing jacket on my back. Every year. You think we would have learned.

In ancient times, this sea­son, begin­ning with October’s Blood Moon and cul­mi­nat­ing with last night’s Mourn­ing Moon, reflected the time of the hunt, the slaugh­ter­ing of live­stock for the win­ter and the stor­ing of sup­plies for the leaner months ahead. Now, ²⁴⁄₇ fac­tory farms have ren­dered the sea­sonal culling a for­got­ten rite on many farms — but the old imper­a­tive still remains in our DNA. This sea­son — known by many names includ­ing Hal­loween, The Day of the Dead, All Soul’s Day and Samhain — leaves few of us unmoved.

Last night’s moon shone over Cor­dova Bay, illu­mi­nat­ing sand and cold Pacific ocean. I almost felt as if I could walk its path of light from Van­cou­ver Island to the main­land. I could see the “man in the moon” clearly enough to know it was actu­ally a woman look­ing back at me. The moon has a decid­edly female energy.

At this mag­i­cal time of the year, the laws of time and space are held in sus­pen­sion. The veils between worlds thin, become per­me­able. The dead are close.

I have taken to hon­our­ing my dead at this time much as the Mex­i­cans do on their Day of the Dead.

I light can­dles to those who have passed and place their pic­tures around my house with offer­ings of herbs, leaves, wine and mem­o­ra­bilia. It is my time for wish­ing them well and for let­ting go of that which weighs me down and holds me back.

Now that I am in my 40s, I sense the scales of my life shift­ing as more peo­ple I know pass to the other side. It’s both dis­con­cert­ing and com­fort­ing. I sup­pose that once I am old I will truly under­stand why my Grand­fa­ther found so much solace in vis­it­ing the grave­yard. As he said, “I know more peo­ple in there than the ones alive out here.” I’m not there yet.

In my home, I have a col­lec­tion of Day of the Dead paper mache fig­ures. Some I have pur­chased in my trav­els, some have been brought to me by know­ing friends. I love these macabre char­ac­ters for their dark humour. I love my friends for think­ing of me (and humour­ing me).

These Day of the Dead fig­ures include skinny Fred­die in his yel­low rock­ing chair, bouncy Betty with her bob­bing skull wear­ing a swish Vic­to­rian hat, and Veron­ica the blonde bomb­shell with her boobs bul­leted out like a 40s diva. She used to hold a cig­a­rette in her left hand but I snipped it off when I quit smok­ing. I wasn’t ready to wind up like her yet. Dead Harry (never just Harry) lies smugly in his cof­fin. He’s smil­ing like he’s just had a sat­is­fy­ing ren­dezvous with a zom­bie. Hec­tor, a tin cut-​out from Mex­ico City, resem­bles a deathly glitter-​rock icon — skinny and ultra-​cool.

In my house, I also keep a grow­ing col­lec­tion of bones I’ve found (or friends have given me): elk vete­brae, a moun­tain lion skull, a seal’s shoul­der blade, a hump­back ver­te­bra, cari­bou antlers, the leg bone of a very large unknown ani­mal. I know some peo­ple find bones grue­some but I am drawn to the purity of bone once the flesh is gone. The artistry of nature. Bones are what define us and gives us struc­ture. With­out our bones, we would be noth­ing solid. When I touch a beau­ti­ful bleached bone, I like to think I am touch­ing some­thing closer to the truth.

So, ok, my dec­o­rat­ing schemes are a lit­tle off cen­tre. But in the midst of my Day of the Dead fig­urines and bones, sur­rounded by the artistry and rem­nants of death, I feel vital­ity. I under­stand why the Capuchin monks of Rome dec­o­rated their chapels with bones nailed to walls in intri­cate pat­terns, and cre­ated light fix­tures and pyra­mids of bones.

In the midst such skele­tal reminders, they were reminded of how short and pre­cious our time here is. Does it change the way we live our lives to look death in the face? For me it does. I am more fully alive.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Art, Mind, Spirit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.