All Souls Procession

Quite a few people here in the Southwest celebrate or observe Dia De Los Muertos.  For anyone who doesn’t know, Dia De Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a holiday that is celebrated in Mexico and other areas of Latin America in which people honor and celebrate those who have passed.   I grew up in an area that was heavily influenced by Mexican culture, so we celebrated the holiday in school and it was common to see figurines of skeletons or sugar skulls in many households.

I  enjoy the holiday because it provides a sharp contrast to the concept of death – in that it is a day of celebration, remembrance, and believing that those who have passed are still among us (leaving food for relatives at altars).  To me it is a better way of remembering and loving my relatives and friends than feeling a sadness that they are no longer here.  While I have observed and semi-celebrated in the past, I would like to someday celebrate where it is huge – MEXICO!!!

In the meantime, I was able to get a dose of something similar in the All Souls Procession.  This event occurs annually in Tucson, AZ and was originally inspired by Dia De Los Muertos.  You can participate and celebrate in whatever way you choose, and it is a very open event.  From their website –

“Today we find ourselves organizing over 35,000 participants on the streets of downtown Tucson for a two-mile long human-powered procession that ends in the finalizing action of burning a large urn filled with the hopes, offerings and wishes of the public for those who have passed. Inside the event are myriads of installation art, altars, performers, and creatives of all kinds collaborating for almost half the year to prepare their offerings to this amazing event. The All Souls Procession, and now the entire All Souls Weekend, is a celebration and mourning of the lives of our loved ones who have passed.”

I headed down to Tucson to take part in the Procession and festivities afterward.

Yes this is pretty much all you see on the drive down...

At the actual procession, a majority of the people in the procession dress up and paint their faces sugar skull style.  You  see thousands of people looking like this -

I would love to be friends with these ladies

They were awesome!

I don't know what they were, but it was magnificent

After the procession there was a few areas with live music, drinks and food.  I promptly ate a bag of churros.

You can never go wrong with a food truck

This year the procession featured a performance by the group Ozomatli, and even though it was all the way in Tucson on a Sunday night, I still went ahead and bought the tickets.  

The performance was AWESOME, I highly recommend seeing them if you have the chance.  Here are a few pics, I really didn’t take much because when Ozomatli is on stage, you can't do anything but dance! 

Ozomatli merges into the audience at the end of the show and they end up dancing on a table.


You can check out more of their music here – http://www.ozomatli.com/
It was a long drive home, but it was so worth it!  I’m hoping next year I can go even further south…