Oaxaca: Passageways

The Veil Grows Thinner

We visited candle makers and weavers in Teotitlan Del Valle today. It seems like everyone who lives there is an artist. 

Zapotec master candlemaker Viviana Alvarez and family

World renowned master weaver Issac Vasquez

The sky was its own work of art.

In the church courtyard at Teotilan

I watched the clouds shift and the light change. Within a few seconds of one another, two hearts appeared in the clouds.

Later we stopped at a nearby cemetery to observe the preparations for Day of the Dead. People were cleaning off the graves and beginning to decorate, but they welcomed us. A few of us struck up a conversation with a couple. He had lived in Santa Barbara, California but returned to his town after a few years. 

Back at the Casa, we tested out our altar.

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Everyone Rises from the Dead Here

This morning we sat in the sala, talking about religion and Day of the Dead and what a big holiday it is. Easter is not the huge holiday that it is for Catholics in the States, Jane (the owner of the Casa) told us. "Everyone rises from the dead here in Oaxaca--at least for one day," she said. The weather is changing in Oaxaca, the heat easing, the skies thinning into a clear blue. The spirits are coming, people say. They can get through now. We can feel it.

We went to the Abastos Mercado today to the special section for Day of the Dead. We bought marigolds and cockscomb, Pan de Muertos and sugar skulls, candles, copal, and whatever else people in the group wanted for our alter here at the Casa. As we turned a corner and came upon the flower section--all marigolds and cockscomb, my eyes filled with tears. All those thousands of flowers will be purchased for graves and altars. All that color and sweetness for departed loved ones. Maybe the scent and the color is what guides them to us.

The dining room, decorated for Day of the Dead

Supplies are piling up for the altar, there's sawing in the courtyard as I write this.

Journeying Outside Oaxaca: Mitla and a village church

Mitla is a Zapotec site, first built and inhabited about 950 A.D. During the colonial era, stones were taken from the walls and buildings to build the red-domed Catholic Church seen above. The architectural detail at Mitla can be seen below.

And meanwhile, the villages are being festooned for the approaching Day of the Dead.

Interior details from the church above.

 Wildly colorful, the designs are an amalgam of indigenous and colonial tastes. The indigenous Zapotec artists incorporated their own motifs into the work. Zapotec masks and headdresses can be found surrounding altars to the saints.