Ancestor Altar

Just a few weeks ago I was writing about how the streets of my hood were lined with  altars due to gang violence, and now here I am again writing about altars, though admittedly, the circumstance is slightly different and the mood around these parts … very different.

It’s the eve of Dia de los Muertos and honestly, if you don’t believe in the mystical, the magical or in infinite possibility, you should take a stroll around the Mission … because it’s emanating all of the above.

In anticipation of tomorrow’s big day – a day in which the veil between the living and dead thins and ancestors come back to pay a visit – people around here have done everything but put up big signs in their window encouraging their deceased loved ones to stop by. Shop windows (mainly Latino-owned) display elaborate altars created to welcome spirits, and tomorrow evening thousands of people – of varied backgrounds – will gather at a small neighborhood park where community members will erect life-sized altar installations paying homage to those lost.  There will also be music and entertainment and drinking and eating and general celebrating everywhere you look. My neighborhood will be partying with the dead, and there is nothing morose or maudlin about it.

My neighbor Alfonso, who is building a real-deal altar of his own, recently gave me the full rundown on Dia de los Muertos and all the traditional altar items.

For instance,  you should include both food and liquor on you altar — unless of course, the altar is for kid spirits — then it’s candy. Marigolds, calderas (or sugar skulls), pictures of loved ones, etc are required. (More contemporary altars deviate from tradition some and often pay reverence to not only personal loss, but collective loss – victims of war, mother nature and so on.)

Anyone that knows me well, knows that I have a history of  borrowing/adopting traditions from other cultures and religions on the regular,especially if I have friends from said cultures. I do so respectfully and  am the the first to admit that it’s because I was raised in a family that lacks anything resembling tradition – unless you count brunch at Bloomingdales followed by shopping.

Over the years I have picked up Jamaican traditions, Northern Indian, pre-Christian, Meso-American, Buddhist and so on.

The first time I made an ancestor altar it was out of necessity – when my Mom died, eight years ago. There was no formal funeral or memorial (per her request) and so I made a simple altar in my bedroom – with roses, a glass of wine, and two white candles … to honor my mom’s passing and commemorate the shedding of a physical body that no longer served her. That ritual of altar making made sense to me and has stuck with me through the years. Granted some year’s these altars are better planned than others, but there is always an altar – for my mom and for my brother, grandmother, and two aunts.

As I write this blog post I look up now and again at the candles that  flicker across the room. They shine to guide those spirits to my small apartment in the Mission District for a visit. I invite them hoping that they’ll share what they’ve learned and maybe laugh a little too. In truth, I have no idea if they’ll show … they might be tired or grumpy or at some other happening party, but it’s fun to wait, to hope, to keep an eye out. Because really, you just never know. Especially this time of year.