Dia de los Muertos

Dia de los Muertos

Death is sitting on my left shoulder, insisting
I remember, Death tapping
whispering, Don’t you dare forget, girl.

I took your son, your friend, your husband,
the first boy who ever kissed you
and if you don’t watch out

I’ll get everyone you want to love.
I’m not talking about old age.

Here I am with Death dancing
with my head on his shoulder.
He collects my tears in the bowl of

his collarbone.
I long to be comforted, am squeezed
between his ribs trying to find

a heartbeat. In the silence I whisper No
because the embrace is all too clear,
he wants to claim something that isn’t

mine to give. When I walked
among the graves in Oaxaca
death felt like warm yellow candlelight

spilling across the scars carved into the
ground, the young and the old cast in
their perpetual costumes, the young

dressed in excitement, masks, pulling
at my coat to beg for a treat, the old
huddled together for companionship

as they kept vigil, as they murmured
their memories into the smoke of copal.
At the entrance to el campo santo

we bought hand-made clay coffee mugs
painted with all the colors of Mexico
fragile as the mist among the broken corn

stalks, bright as a Mariachi tune
played at a wedding.
Death is tapping on my forehead

his insistent subtle chatter,
What if? What if?
I hold out my arms as if I could

make a bargain but it’s a lie.
I would gladly pay the debt if it meant
we would finally love

without fear. Do I dare to take
another knowing Death is jealous
of anyone I ever hold close?

Death, I am asking for a divorce.
I’m not talking about rest in peace.

Creating an altar

To begin your altar, meditate for a moment on your loved one's personality and the dreams you once shared.

Remember this is a time when the veil between world grows thin and a message may be left from the other side. Begin with a tablecloth. Collect photos and candles. Think of symbols, the twenty-five candles for the years of his life, the expresso cup for the drink he enjoyed every morning, candy for her sweet tooth. Add Angels and flowers. Make it bold and bright. In Mexico, people decorate with sugar skulls, pan de muertos, and miniature skeletons. They add the departed soul's favorite food and drink or cigarettes or cervezas, or perhaps fruits and dulces. They believe the Dead return and if they eat and drink and are satisfied, will not stick around to haunt the family. A path is created from torn petals of cempusichil, the large golden marigolds, to the altar or an entrance created of sugar cane. Invite your loved ones to come and keep you company while you sit quiety, keeping vigil. Remember the good times, the love that floated your heart to the sky, the stars that encircled your head. Tell stories, tell jokes, have a beer or a glass of wine, or at least hot chocolate. Listen.



To Tell the Truth

You may think that your questions reveal something about yourself and so you hold back. Instead of asking, you are mute. You are afraid to make a fool of yourself or to reveal your patterns of differences. That perhaps it isn't the place where you belong after all. The impulse is to rebel, to be the devil's advocate, to be in disagreement with the voices of pat knowing, to tip the boat and soak everyone with a wake up splash. That was your adolescent past and time to let it go. But maybe the truth is, you don't agree. Your heart thudding in your chest knows the way to truth may be crooked and filled with the rocks of remorse, pebbles of desire, the winding stream of expectation and disappointments. There is always balance between the human point of view and the spiritual and after all, you are not a monk. The short cut seems cut off and how can you consider the years of spiritual discipline anything but the work to get here? If you can't say it aloud, here, to whom will you speak? The obvious answer is through the mouth of a character on paper. Not knowing the point of this chattering monkey is your mind. Perhaps it would be better to pretend. Nod. Follow the path of least resistance and least revelation. But then that impulse comes up. Remember how Michael spoke aloud his lack of faith and will to live, how some came up to him afterwards and thanked him for voicing the doubts they were unable to admit. How the medicine woman thanked him for bringing the shadow. "It makes us work harder towards the light," she said. How later she told you that your spirits were going in different directions. The shock and the relief.
All things considered, you take a deep breath. You open your mouth.

Grace

Grace is a sail on the shimmering lake after a hard winter. Grace is tall yellow tulips. Grace is moving out of the neighborhood before the tornado hit and split the green towering trees. To be at the right place at the right time even if you don’t know it. Grace is the power to stand in my own boots, to own red shoes, to dance while the bones heal, the music in my blood. To change, to move, to do it differently, to claim my own. To share, to do it together. The power of the storm to destroy, the power of the love to rebuild. That we have so much and do not even know it. That we lament what we do not have and even then we have the luxury of lament. The power of words to awaken. Flowers and trees are awakening, the ones not damaged by the storm. So am I. The parts of me not damaged by the storm are awakening and throwing off the comforter of despair and stepping into sandals. Thirsty for sun, awakening to the sense of how much I hold back, how powerful I could be if I allowed myself to accept my gift of rising. I awaken with the sun at 5 am and think I don’t have to get up yet with gratitude. Fall back into dreams or just listen to the silence. Now if only I could silence the chatter in my head, the monkey mind, the back talk. The silence in old adobe home is thick and dense. The silence of a forest is filled with movements of life, bird songs and insects rustling, squirrels and chipmunks and rabbits scampering, leaves blown by a breeze. The healing balm of both kinds of silence. It always amazes me when my entire congregation goes into mediation. A room full of people sitting together in silence. It is powerful, a form of benediction, Grace incarnate. As we open ourselves to receive the Presence of the Divine, the holy silence at the heart of creation.

Building a Bridge with Words

Building a Bridge with Words

Celebrating the Publication of transparencies of light

transparencies of light by Wendy Brown-Bàez transparencies of light articulates a woman’s point of view: from the pueblo or the big city, in troubled places or in quiet solitude, she speaks up with passion and courage. transparencies embraces the terrors and joys of ordinary life and the challenge to live in dignity despite extraordinary circumstances. These women are survivors. From the birth of their children to the birth of themselves, they remove the veils of invisibility to voice their stories and to reveal their destinies.

"I want to be / the one to find the message” Wendy Brown-Báez writes, and in transparencies of light she unfolds a quilt of messages from a host of voices, voices of women imploring or demanding, sorrowing or rejoicing. What impresses me most about this work is its sincerity—its conviction that poetry can reach beyond and broaden our lives, can be made of “rose petals or ash” and yet break stone. --Lightsey Darst, author of Find the Girl

Wendy Brown-Báez is a writer, teacher, performance poet and installation artist. In 2009, Brown-Báez’s full length collection of poems Ceremonies of the Spirit debuted when she featured at the Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago. Her prose and poetry have appeared in dozens of literary magazines. In 2008 and 2009 she received McKnight grants to teach writing workshops for at risk youth which developed into an art installation In the Shelter of Words. To find out more: http://www.wendybrownbaez.com/