In late Octo­ber my wife Car­men and I spent a week in the cen­tral Mex­i­can town of Pátzcuaro, well-known as a site for Day of the Dead cel­e­bra­tions. We were blessed to stay with a Mex­i­can fam­i­ly only a block from the cen­tral plaza in a house built over two hun­dred years old.

By day we wan­dered the shops and the muse­um, ate in the restau­rants and watched as peo­ple put up their dec­o­ra­tions. Long strings of cut paper, papel pic­a­do, hung across the streets. Beneath them altars of marigolds sprang up to hon­or the dead. A hun­dred tent-cov­ered arti­san and food stalls trans­formed the town plaza into a crowd­ed fes­ti­val. Through the aisles of ven­dors, La Cat­ri­na, that “ref­er­en­tial image of Death in Mex­i­co” walked on stilts, stop­ping if one gave her a few pesos to let her pic­ture be taken.

At night, on a stage built to one side of the plaza foun­tain, troupes danced and sang and bands played. Chil­dren with paint­ed skull faces made their way through the throng look­ing for any­one who might drop can­dy or a coin into their bas­kets. Behind them table after table of sweet, paint­ed sug­ar skulls looked on.

On one spe­cial night we vis­it­ed the grave­yards in near­by vil­lages where fam­i­lies kept vig­il and remem­bered those who have passed to the oth­er side. Bas­kets of favorite foods and thou­sands more marigolds adorned the graves. Peo­ple built small fires in the nar­row pas­sage­ways between the graves to keep them­selves warm so that the air smelled of wood smoke mixed with the tal­low of the can­dles. It was a strange­ly beau­ti­ful, touch­ing and somber experience.

I asked a mem­ber of our host fam­i­ly about the tourists over­whelm­ing such places and events, as it seemed their pres­ence (like my own) could fade quick­ly into a form of cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion and exploita­tion. I received back the answer that yes, there were indeed too many tourists and too much busi­ness. But, on the oth­er hand, she said to me, keep in mind that this may be the one day of the year this par­tic­u­lar vil­lage makes money.

So there were lay­ers of expe­ri­ence to take in, a new­ly appre­ci­at­ed complexity.

After­ward, as time grew short on our trip, we wan­dered the shops of Pátzcuaro look­ing for some small keep­sakes and for gifts we could take home to mem­bers of our own fam­i­ly. Sou­venirs, memen­tos, remem­brances of a place. Things that might hold the magic.

Indeed, the wall between the worlds had grown thin. Our dreams at night had changed. And on that last day, we sat qui­et­ly in the big space of a cathe­dral as it began to rain out­side. I’m not Catholic, not reli­gious at all, real­ly, but the space was sacred nev­er­the­less. As far as I’m con­cerned you can take away the cru­ci­fix­es and the priests, the rit­u­als and cer­e­monies, the stat­ues and relics and reli­gious paint­ings (except maybe for the images of angels) and the numi­nous is still there. Peace is there.

You can just sit in one of the pews at the back. Life and death come to you inter­twined, full of res­o­nances and unex­plored pas­sage­ways, gate­ways to what­ev­er is beyond. You feel in that moment how all the inner truths are welling up in you and are so very close — before you pack up, hur­ry home and lose touch with them again.

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