I wanted to get a post up, and I've found myself at the computer, so here are some things I've underlined from the big book of death that I found interesting or imagistic, in no particular order, with my own italics...

"...the signs most often mentioned to indicate imminent death in the Middle Ages were signs that today we would call natural: an obvious, routine observation of the common and familiar facts of everyday life."

" ...'I pray you, do not bury my body in this country.' So she was laid in a boat without sails or oars."

"The dying person must be the center of a group of people."

"Ovid relates that on the day of the Feralia, the Day of the Dead, the Romans sacrificed to Tacita, the mute goddess, a fish with its mouth sewn."

"...unfeeling phantoms of exhausted humans...."

"...refrigerium..."

"The man of the seventeenth century exhibits a lesser degree of sensitivity [than that of our own] and demonstrates in torture and death a resignation and endurance that we would find astonishing."

"We read that there are many whom the devil has dug up and flung far from the consecrated land."

"...no more than a block of stone laid over them (imblocati [yes, there's a Latin word for that])to preserve the appearance of the land."

In these first chapters, what I'm thinking about most is the proximity of the dead, as in there seems to be a lot of meaning put in where your bones are laid when you're done; what the meaning is when you're placed closer to a church wall or even inside a church itself, with people walking on you every Sunday and how that's more glorious than being in a field, in a mass grave, in the company of people in your same situation.

The Grim Reaper

"Our earliest records of the Reaper date back to Greek civilization. Gaia and Uranus were Kronos' parents. Uranus, fearful of all his children including Kronos kept them constrained inside Gaia. Gaia wished to free her children and decided to give Kronos a sickle. With this sickle Kronos eventually castrated his father and bled him to death. Knowing how he had killed his father, once Kronos had children of his own, he feared his fate would be the same. As each child was born he swallowed them one by one.

From ancient folklore and other anthropological sources it is believed that Kronos was a harvest god worshipped by a culture before the Greeks. It is understood that his sickle was used in harvesting grain. Harvest was also associated with death because it signaled the end of the growing season and the beginning of Winter. Time devouring all things was represented poetically by Kronos eating his own children. It was the Greeks very dramatic way of saying nothing lasts forever.

The Grim Reaper wielding a sickle and, at times, an hourglass is directly derived from Kronos. One must understand how important grain was to these ancient civilizations. How horrible the thought of some mystic creature with the power to swipe away their whole harvest with a single swing of the mighty sickle. Not to mention the flock of famished crows, which would accompany such a terrible figure. It undoubtedly symbolized death in an extremely effective way. Though the Grim Reaper poses no real threat to our life, his legacy, which has been handed down from generation to generation, has instilled in us all the fear we need to ensure the desired effect."

There are, of course, different opinions as to where the idea of the Grim Reaper came from, I particularly like the one above, because the historian reminds us that we need perspective when dealing with the subjects level of impact. Today, still, seeing the skeleton holding a sickle is scary. (And cool as a drawing, but if you were actually see the Grim Reaper, I don't think you would grab an air guitar and rock out.) That sickle can be plunged into my head. But to have the resonance of the ability of the sickle to wipe out all grain, all nourishment, doesn't only affect my own perile, but that of my family's and my community's. Perspective. Often when I think about perspective it brings me back to the trip I took to Germany to study castles. One particular castle had extremely tall outer walls, fortifications and parapets, and machicolations for pouring out hot tar onto offending armies. I said to my friend, "Wow they must have been holding gold, diamonds or some important Dignitary." And she said, "No, something more important than that, Salt!" Salt? I immediately pictured a swarm of angry housewives with mixing bowls and Chefs with large wooden spoons pounding on the outer walls of the castle, demanding salt for their souffle. At the time, I knew about, but did not realize the importance of salting the meats, to keep them from spoiling. It wasn't just for seasoning it WAS the preserver of food, the preserver of life itself!

Every Dead Has Its Day

What is it about the irreverence and humor with which Death is portrayed for The Day of the Dead that makes the way we, in mainstream America, cope with death seem so frightened and unhealthy? Should we laugh in the face of death? Well, not so much laugh at it, as invite it into our homes and to walk for a few days on our Earth, all the while poking fun at the foibles of its nonlivingness. Couldn't hurt right? To let loose with a little open gentle mockery of the inevitable. Death wins in the end anyway, why not, instead of being cowed, revel a bit in schadenfreude at its expense?



All photos were taken at the opening of the Día de los muertos exhibit at the National Museum of Mexican Art.

The Tame Death

I have a darkly lit image of a man in a bed surrounded by shadowy figures. Slowly each figure fades away pulling parts of the bed away, or they are attached to their own clothes. The stripping away leaves the man on a metal frame with no support for his back. As he begins to fall through the metal grid the lights brighten, he falls to the ground as the lights become blinding. He is handed a mop, but there is no water and no dirt. He turns to the audience and says "Hello?" His voice echoes as the lights fade.

Opening statement of the historical performance of death

The Chaos of death disturbs the peace of the living.